The future of American power
Dmitri Trenin on Russia’s interests in the new global order
America’s unipolar moment is over. It must carefully manage relations with China and Russia, says a Russian military-political analyst
This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by global thinkers on the future of American power, examining the forces shaping the country’s standing. Read more here.
The swift collapse of the American-backed government in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of its forces revives the long-running debate on American decline. Some observers go so far as to claim that the United States is no longer a superpower. However the reality is different. Though the country’s position and influence have receded in recent decades, the prime reason is not so much America falling as Asian powers, notably China and India, rising economically, and Russia making a comeback geopolitically and militarily. The decline of American power is relative and rooted in the basic unevenness of national development.
The other reason is domestic and it is more serious. The American economic model took a major hit in the global financial crisis of 2007-09. The political model has come under severe strain during the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and has not recovered much since. Over the past decades, the social model has been failing to deliver to the American middle class, the backbone of society. The pandemic laid bare more than a health-care crisis, but exacerbated long-simmering divisions over societal values and race relations. All this points to a significant decline of the American power base at home.
Against this background, Afghanistan stands for the ultimate collapse of the post-cold war belief that the United States was in a position to remake the world in its own image. The promotion of Western democracy and liberal values has run against apparently insurmountable barriers in a number of places, from Afghanistan and Iran to China and Russia. But this has not yet dawned on officials in Washington. Indeed, it was President Joe Biden’s predecessors, Barack Obama and Mr Trump, who understood the dangers of America’s global overextension and, albeit in vastly different ways, tried to redirect resources to rebuild the home base. It is the success or failure of that effort that will decide the fate of the country.
Difficulties at home and abroad
America today is a house divided. The tensions tearing it apart have not been tamed by Mr Trump’s defeat and Mr Biden’s ascendance to the White House. There is even some talk of a civil war as a looming threat. That possibility is still too far-fetched. Americans have a habit of energising themselves by boosting threats, and a history of re-inventing their country as a consequence. But things, without doubt, have reached a serious point.
The United States is approaching another reinvention moment, one that requires much more than a bumper sticker that says “build back better” and a huge infrastructure package. And crucially, America is no longer just competing against itself as it did after the end of the cold war. For the first time in over 100 years the country faces the certainty of losing its position as the world’s top economy and potentially its technological primacy as well. Should that happen, the consequences for America’s global standing would be enormous.
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Read more:
• Nirupama Rao on America’s need for wisdom and allies in Asia
• Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
• John Bolton on how a new era of American alliances is under way
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Hence in foreign policy—from Mr Obama’s pivot to Asia and Mr Trump’s declaring Beijing an adversary to Mr Biden’s preoccupation with major-power rivalry—the country has been sharply focused on China. Having passed from a happy offensive in the name of globalisation to an active defence in the name of protecting its number-one status, America will respond vigorously to the challenge that China presents.
This confrontation will be the most consequential geopolitical, geo-economic, technological and ideological power struggle for decades to come. The world has again turned bipolar, though the difference from the cold war is that it has not (at least not yet) been divided into two opposing global blocs. Yet as demonstrated by the AUKUS deal on nuclear submarines, the reinvigorated Quad group of Asia-Pacific countries and the possible expansion of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, America is busy establishing a system to contain China, the principal challenger to its global primacy.
It would be foolhardy to speculate on the likely outcome of the Sino-American rivalry. One might suggest only that, in the end, the United States will not defeat China. By the same token, China, even if it surpasses America in certain categories, will not replace it as the world’s new hegemon: China has no pretensions to universalism.
The world order that is emerging in the 21st century is likely to be multi-layered or multi-dimensional. China and America will probably stay as the only two superpowers, but each will not command their part of the world in the way that leaders in Washington and Moscow did in the second half of the last century. Instead, different sets of players—including occasionally non-state actors—will wield influence in various functional areas and geographic regions.
A new chilly war
With the unipolar moment now history, Russia’s objective is to remain a world-class, self-standing player. This is the current definition of the historical term “great power” widely used in Russia today. For the country’s leaders, Russia is nothing if not a great power—just as, for many in Washington, America’s identity is inextricably wedded to global superiority.
For Russia, securing and holding on to that status, however, will be challenging. Geopolitical issues include above all maintaining an equilibrium—though hardly equidistance—in the face of America-China confrontation. Being sucked into that fight could be as detrimental, or worse, for Russia than was its fateful entry into the first world war.
A companion challenge for Russia is to stand on its own vis-à-vis its partners in China and thus keep the relationship on an even keel. In relations with the United States, leaders in Moscow and Washington need to manage the rapport carefully. That means making sure that conflicts in which Russia and America are directly or indirectly involved (such as Ukraine) do not spiral out of control; that a series of incidents between their armed forces (say, in Syria) do not inadvertently lead to actual shooting; and that a major cyberattack does not provoke a military response.
The confrontation with the United States notwithstanding, Russia’s principal challenges will be domestic. In the political realm, the looming hurdle will be managing the transition to a new regime that follows the current leader, Vladimir Putin, while avoiding the Scylla of instability and the Charybdis of deepening stagnation. In the realm of economics, unchaining the country’s potential—held back by monopolies and corruption from unaccountable, self-serving elites—is critical.
There are other hurdles. Mastering technological innovation and energy transition is an urgent task. Climate change affects Russia’s vast territory even more than it does the world generally. Russia’s demographics, despite the government’s efforts, remain uncheerful, with low birth rates and male life-expectancy lower than elsewhere in Europe. And immigration as a remedy has an underside, with many newcomers from rural regions in central Asia less willing to assimilate and in some cases falling for jihadist propaganda.
Lastly, to move ahead confidently, Russia would need to rediscover its values, such as working together for the good of the community, patriotism not tied to the current authorities and trust in one’s fellow citizens—and putting them into practice, rejecting the prevailing cynicism that undermines trust.
This is a tall order. But the principal lesson of the Soviet Union’s demise 30 years ago this December is that while big nations cannot be defeated from the outside, they may—and sometimes do—fall under the weight of their own domestic problems, whether neglected or mismanaged. This lesson, of course, is valid not only for Russia but for all significant powers, whether on the rise or on the decline. ■
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Dmitri Trenin is the director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, the Russia-based arm of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foundation in Washington, DC. Earlier he was an officer in the Soviet and Russian army. He is the author of numerous books on Russian history and foreign policy, including “Russia: A brief history of the 20th century” (Polity, 2019).