The American empire is still functioning, but the extent of its retreat is clearly revealed by an examination of US influence in the different regions of the world. This chapter will look in turn at the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region, outlining US policy toward each region and gauging the extent to which US goals are, or are not, being achieved. While there have been, and will continue to be, examples where policy has met with success, this has been more than outweighed by many cases of outright failure or even American irrelevance.
The US empire began in the Americas, and it might be expected that this is where it would last the longest. Indeed, despite paying lip service to “mutual partnership and coresponsibility,” it is rare for speeches by officials not to draw attention to the need for US “leadership” in the hemisphere. Yet US policy toward the region has achieved only modest success and American leadership is increasingly challenged—even by countries that were once close allies.
Europe since the Cold War has been willing to play a largely supportive role in the American empire. This marks a rare example of continuity in the relations between the United States and the rest of the world and reflects the broadly similar view of the world that Europe and America hold. Yet Europe is very much the junior partner in this relationship as a consequence of its dependence on the United States for its security. And the readiness of US policy makers to exploit this asymmetry in power has given rise to major tensions with European civil societies and occasionally with governments as well.
Sub-Saharan Africa has posed a very different set of problems for US governments. The defense of apartheid in South Africa, support for anticommunist insurgents in Angola, and the close relationship with numerous African dictators had damaged perceptions of the United States as the Cold War came to an end. The administration of President Bill Clinton (1993–2001), however, was quick to seize the opportunity created by the collapse of the Soviet Union with a package of measures designed to entice all sub-Saharan African countries into the imperial fold.
Public opinion started to move in favor of the United States and barely changed course even after the invasion of Iraq. However, the United States was unable to capitalize on this. The relationship did not turn sour, but it was overshadowed by the rise of China in sub-Saharan Africa. Clinton’s successors could do nothing to prevent China becoming the dominant commercial partner for the region, and this has affected political relations as well.
The Middle East has always been a challenging region for the United States. Competition with the USSR was intense during the Cold War, and the Iranian Revolution in 1978–79 complicated matters further. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 coupled with victory in the first Iraq War suggested a brighter future for the American empire, especially as Iran was being seriously weakened by US sanctions as well.
The brighter future never transpired. The Taliban in Afghanistan, the Ba‘athists in Iraq, and Muammar al-Gaddhafi in Libya were ousted from power, but the results were very far from what imperial America expected. Indeed, one of the main outcomes of the first two US invasions was the strengthening of Iran, since its most deadly regional competitors were removed. And America’s client states in the region became increasingly reluctant to do the empire’s bidding, adopting unilaterally policies that were a source of deep frustration to US governments.
The Asia-Pacific is a region into which American power has been projected for over two centuries, during which the United States has accumulated territories, protectorates, and client states. Its imperial status was reinforced at the end of the Second World War with the collapse of Japan. The communist victory in China and the projection of Soviet power into the region jolted America but at the same time reinforced alliances with nations dependent on US security.
The fall of the USSR and China’s prioritization of economic growth left America in an exceptionally powerful position in the 1990s. It seemed the perfect opportunity for the US government to create a set of rules for the region that China would be obliged to respect. Yet it did not turn out that way, and US policy toward China moved from paternalism to containment without either word ever being used in official discourse.
Containing China is proving to be impossible. By virtue of its economic strength, its geography, and it cultural ties to the region, China is slowly replacing America as the hegemonic power in the Asia-Pacific. It is an ancient pattern, one replicated by the United States itself in the Americas in the century after independence. Yet the process will probably not take so long for China, as geopolitical time has sped up.
In the five regions examined here, the US imperial presence has been waning. It will continue to do so, although the temptation to “make a stand” in at least one of them will be great. America still has allies, and they will not want to see the empire retreat too far or too fast. Yet even these allies can see the difficulties of relying on an America that is itself ambiguous about its imperial role and keen to withdraw from at least some of its commitments. Friendly nations are therefore preparing for the day when the US empire will no longer be their shield. Thus, internal and external pressures are combining to reduce America’s imperial presence and hasten the day when it will become “just” a nation-state.
After the Cold War ended, US policy toward the rest of the Americas changed. This was also the moment when Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) was slowly emerging from the 1980s debt crisis, providing the US government—as the main source of credits—with strong leverage to push the region in the direction it wanted it to go.
At the top of the list was economics, with an emphasis on free trade, free movement of capital, protection of intellectual property, and guarantees for foreign investment. Collectively known as the Washington Consensus, this agenda was pushed aggressively at every level—bilateral and multilateral—and involved not just the imperial state but also many of its NSAs (especially MNEs).
American support for hemispheric dictatorships melted away in the warm glow afforded by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was replaced by the promotion of representative democracy, provided that it was consistent with imperial priorities: periodic elections, political parties embracing private enterprise, and the subordination of national sovereignty to the demands of globalization.
Security concerns in the hemisphere were at first dominated by the “war on drugs,” a throwback to 1971, when it was launched by President Richard M. Nixon (1969–74), and the goal of regime change in Cuba.1 However, the terrorist atrocities of 9/11 sparked a new interest in possible hemispheric links with Islamic fundamentalism in view of the numerous Muslim minority populations in the region.
The US economics agenda for the hemisphere was initially dominated by free trade. The LAC countries had not waited for US pressure to dismantle the high levels of protection adopted in support of import-substituting industrialization. Instead, they had done so unilaterally in response to the debt crisis of the 1980s.2 However, they had not sought special trade preferences from the United States nor given any to it.
This created an opportunity for the US government. Building on NAFTA, the Clinton administration launched in December 1994 an ambitious plan to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005.3 This would not only have given the United States preferential access to all independent countries in the hemisphere (except Cuba) but would also have extended free trade to a broad range of services, strongly protected intellectual property, and provided for the settlement of disputes in special courts free of government interference.4
Formal negotiations commenced in 1998 but had collapsed before the deadline. The United States came up against a wall of opposition that it had never before encountered in the region. Opponents of the FTAA included civil society groups in all countries whose voices had often been drowned out under previous authoritarian regimes.5 However, opposition also came from a range of governments that had traditionally been loyal supporters of US leadership in the region.
Some of these governments, all left of center, responded to the collapse of the FTAA by forming their own regional organization called Alianza Bolivariana de los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA).6 Always too dependent on Venezuelan energy wealth, and therefore vulnerable to the world oil price, ALBA offered a counternarrative to US imperialism in the Americas that encouraged subaltern behavior.
This revealed itself not just in the opposition to the FTAA but also in the neoliberal agenda advanced by the Washington Consensus. Specifically, ALBA supported the reversal of privatizations (many involving US companies) and the promotion of state companies during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush (2001–9) and Barack Obama (2009–17).7 Furthermore, this wave of nationalism affected not only ALBA countries but also others—such as Argentina and Brazil—where globalization was viewed with suspicion.
The collapse of the FTAA negotiations forced the US government to change tack. Instead of hemispheric free trade, the United States sought and secured a series of bilateral free trade agreements with Chile, Colombia, Panama, and Peru as well as one with Central America (including the Dominican Republic).8 All these agreements gave the United States preferential access and helped to stave off the competition from China.
MNEs welcomed these agreements (US civil society was much more divided), but they fell far short of the hemispheric FTAA planned in 1994. In particular, they excluded MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela), with almost half the LAC population.9 American companies, lacking preferential access, struggled to compete with China, which had replaced the United States as the main source of imports for MERCOSUR by the end of the first Obama administration.10
The US political agenda for the region after the Cold War emphasized the promotion of democracy. Yet it soon became clear that “democracy” was a very fungible concept. In the words of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (a branch of the State Department), the US political objective was an inter-American community formed by “Economic partners that are democratic, stable, and prosperous; friendly neighbors that help secure our region against terrorism and illegal drugs; nations that work together in the world to advance shared political and economic values.”11 Thus, hemispheric governments would be judged not only on their democratic credentials but also on their willingness to follow the US lead on a whole range of policies.
To achieve its goals, the US government in 2001 secured through the OAS the Inter-American Democratic Charter. However, the collapse in credibility of the OAS soon turned this into a blunt and ineffective instrument.12 As a result, the State Department had to fall back on cruder methods. These included the pressure that could be exerted on hemispheric governments by means of annual reports covering human rights, narcotics, and trafficking in persons.13
The results could best be described as mixed. Representative democracy took root almost everywhere, but its quality deteriorated in many countries. Provided their governments were deemed “friendly,” the US administration ignored these imperfections. And Haiti remained a stain on the US reputation, unable to adopt even the most minimal standards of representative democracy after more than two decades of American intervention.14
When governments were deemed “unfriendly,” opposing American initiatives or decrying US policies, the government now found itself relatively powerless. This was a new experience in the Americas, where US military intervention had been used so frequently in the past. State Department pressure rarely worked, and unilateral intervention—albeit of the nonmilitary kind—was widely condemned. ALBA governments denounced US policy loudly but faced little retaliation.
Even non-ALBA countries found they could defy the United States without facing major consequences. When, for example, the Bush administration sought in early 2003 a second UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, no amount of arm-twisting was sufficient to persuade Chile and Mexico to support it.15 And even Colombia, despite its dependence on US military and financial assistance, was vocal in its demand that Cuba be readmitted to the hemispheric family.
The US security agenda in the hemisphere after the Cold War was at first dominated by the “war on drugs.” With more emphasis put on reducing supply than demand, this placed many LAC countries in the front line either as source or transit countries. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) became active throughout the region and countries came under huge pressure to conform. Shiprider and extradition agreements were reached with many LAC countries that substantially reduced their national sovereignty.16
Despite the enormous volume of resources devoted to supply reduction, the export of drugs continued, with tragic consequences for the most affected countries. Opposition to US policy expanded at all levels. ALBA countries adopted confrontational tactics, forcing the closure of military bases (in Ecuador), expelling the DEA (in Bolivia) and even the US ambassador (in Venezuela). Non-ALBA countries promoted a new approach to narcotics that emphasized decriminalization (in Guatemala) or even legalization (in Uruguay).
By the end of the Obama administration, with several US states having legalized the consumption of marijuana, it was clear that US drug policy in the hemisphere had not only failed but had also alienated many LAC governments. A belated attempt to link the hemispheric drugs trade to the financing of terrorism in the Middle East smacked of desperation and did little to alter the perception that the US empire no longer commanded the respect in the region that it once enjoyed.17
Cuba had been designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” in 1982 and would remain on the US list even after the end of the Cold War. By then no LAC country shared this view of Cuba, which placed the US government in an invidious position. Despite this, Congress used Cuba’s alleged links with international terrorism to pass legislation that deepened the embargo in the hope of achieving regime change, a policy that was widely condemned in Latin America.
The need to change course on Cuba forced the Obama administration to remove the country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2015 as part of the process of normalization between the two countries. Nothing had really changed in Cuba, but the US government had finally accepted the reality. Its long-running campaign to isolate the island’s government had failed, and the empire was powerless to change it. It was a victory for common sense, but also a recognition that American hegemony in the western hemisphere was coming to an end.18
Imperial America continued to retain an attraction for many people, and surveys of public attitudes toward the United States regularly recorded a majority with favorable opinions—even in ALBA countries.19 This allowed US officials a certain room for maneuver in the way policy was implemented. There were limits, however, as this perceptive quote from a member of the Latin American elites made clear: “One of the biggest gripes I have with the US is how they exert power and implement foreign policy without due diligence. As ‘the only empire’ in the world, exerting political influence is expected. The problem, however, is how they do it. In effect, America believes and promotes itself as the standard bearer of democratic values, which is hard to live up to. And the image they transmit to the rest of the world is tarnished due to the cavalier manner in which they implement their foreign policy.”20
This “cavalier manner” showed up in many instances even after the end of the supposedly insensitive Bush administration. Relations with Argentina deteriorated dramatically after a relatively insignificant US judge was allowed to intervene on behalf of a small number of debt-owning “vulture” funds who wanted to be paid in full. The Brazilian government reacted angrily when Edward Snowden revealed that its president had been spied on by the NSAg.21 Puerto Rico, a US colony and once a model for the rest of the Caribbean, collapsed into financial chaos after years of neglect.22
Yet the most compelling evidence pointing to the end of hegemony was the number of cases where the initiatives of the US imperial state proved largely irrelevant. The OAS, for decades a key institution for projecting US power in the region, declined in importance despite American efforts to revive it. The US government was unable to prevent a Chinese company from winning approval to build an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua.23 It was also powerless to prevent Venezuela’s descent into chaos after the death of President Hugo Chávez and the collapse of oil prices.
Above all, the United States played virtually no part in the peace agreement reached in Colombia in 2016 between the government and the largest rebel group (FARC), only appointing a special envoy for the peace process in its final stages. Indeed, by continuing to designate the FARC as a terrorist group, US policy showed itself to be badly out of touch. Given the extraordinary efforts to which the US government had gone in the 1990s to support the Colombian state in its struggle against drug traffickers and guerrillas, this was a remarkable change of circumstance.24
America’s imperial relations with Europe by the end of the Cold War were focused on the European Community and its member states. In 1990 the two signed a Transatlantic Declaration setting out a series of “common goals” including a commitment to democracy promotion throughout the world, bringing central and eastern European states into the capitalist sphere and upholding the authority of US-controlled institutions.25
This was an American imperial agenda, albeit one that the European Union (EU) was happy to support.26 At its heart, however, was the economic relationship between the two, which at the time—and arguably even today—was the most important in the world. Widening and deepening the relationship has been central to US thinking, as a result of which European integration has always had the support of American administrations.
EU expansion creates huge opportunities for American firms, but it can also lead to trade diversion at the expense of some US companies. This might have led to only qualified American support for the European project. However, the American empire needed a Europe that was strong enough economically to share the burden of global security and that did not change with the end of the Cold War.
European integration plans were at first uncontroversial. The incorporation of most central and eastern European states into the EU proceeded relatively smoothly, with strong support from the United States. Although Russia shared a border with several of these countries, she raised no objections—in large part because she was in no condition to do so at the time. The Balkan States were also targeted for membership, with Slovenia joining in 2004, Croatia in 2013, and other countries on the path to join at a later date.
At this point the EU had expanded to twenty-eight members (it had been only twelve in 1990). However, when the EU with strong US support started serious negotiations with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine with a view to eventual membership, it encountered strong resistance from Russia.27 EU expansion was now seen as a hostile act, and Russia was determined to resist it.
The EU now lost its nerve—much to the disgust of officials in the Obama administration. A crisis developed in Ukraine, by far the largest and most important of the three countries, in which the United States brushed aside European reservations.28 Russia, however, was no longer prepared to stand aside and annexed Crimea, a part of Ukraine, while also fomenting rebellion in the east of the country.29 It was now clear that any further EU expansion in the vicinity of Russia was going to be a long drawn out affair whatever the imperial designs of the United States.
Even as the EU was widening, the process of deepening was proceeding in tandem with the cautious blessing of the United States. The European Single Market had been launched in 1993, the monetary union (the eurozone) in 1999, and the new currency (the euro) started to circulate in 2002. A swath of new regulations were adopted to bring all this about, and the United States began to worry about possible discrimination against American companies.
President Obama therefore proposed in 2013 a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that would remove virtually all obstacles to trade and investment by US companies in the EU and harmonize regulations on both sides of the Atlantic. Negotiations were conducted in secret, but it soon became clear that what was proposed went far beyond what European public opinion was willing to accept. And, in response to mass demonstrations, some European governments publicly criticized the agreement in 2016, ensuring that it was unlikely to become law even if it received congressional approval.30
The American economic agenda for Europe had now run into difficulties, and tensions between the two sides were exacerbated by the determination of the European Commission to punish high-profile US companies for anticompetitive behavior and tax avoidance strategies. By the end of the Obama administration, the stirring words in the 1990 Transatlantic Declaration in favor of a global economic duumvirate (with the United States as the senior partner) seemed a distant memory.
The collapse of the Soviet empire in central and eastern Europe had led not only to the rapid expansion of the EU but also of NATO. The promises that had been made by US leaders not to expand NATO to the borders with Russia were ignored, and Russian protests were swept aside. The opportunity to expand the American imperial sphere was too tempting, and Russia under President Boris Yeltsin (1991–99) was too weak to resist.
Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin’s successor as leader of the Russian Federation,31 was in a much stronger position as a result of the stabilization of the Russian economy and the rise for many years in the price of its leading exports. He was determined to reverse Russian humiliations, concentrating in his first term on winning back from the oligarchs the political power that they had acquired through their business fortunes. He did not, however, antagonize the United States and was among the first to lend support to the American people after 9/11.
This contributed to the massive miscalculation by US leaders of Russian intentions, which manifested itself in imperial hubris. The continued expansion of NATO, the deployment of advanced weaponry on the Russian borders, and the operations of US NSAs provoked Russian fury. This time, however, Russia was in a position to do something about it.
The United States consequently found itself in a stalemate in Europe almost everywhere it turned. Plans to normalize Bosnia & Herzegovina’s status as an independent country were blocked by Russian support for its Serbian enclave.32 All hopes of bringing Ukraine into the EU and NATO were stymied by Russian support for separatists in the east. The same happened in Georgia, after its president—promised a road map for NATO membership by the US government—engaged in an unwise attack on South Ossetia.33 Kosovo, recognized by the United States the day after it declared independence in 2008, was unable to join the UN as a result of Russian opposition.34
Inevitably, cracks began to appear in American support for imperial expansion in Europe and even surfaced publicly during the 2016 presidential campaign.35 NATO allies in Europe were largely passengers, unwilling to pay their share and unable to bring many military assets to the table. NATO operations “outside of area” were usually US operations with token participation by all other countries except France and the United Kingdom. At the same time, all these allies looked to the United States for their defense.
European allies compensated for their lack of military commitment by providing broad political support for US initiatives around the world. Divergences between America and Europe were wildly exaggerated.36 The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, lacking a military dimension, never threatened to undermine US hegemony (and the European Security and Defence Policy even less so). And when the Obama administration committed to the fight against climate change, one of the main sources of friction disappeared.37
One of the issues on which the United States did diverge with a number of EU members was its decision to invade Iraq in 2003 without the backing of international law. Even here, however, many European states fell into line, fearing the consequences of opposing the imperial power on a matter of supposedly strategic national interest. And differences with the United States were soon patched up, as the Iraq crisis morphed into a more general struggle against international terrorism where the United States and EU shared common interests.
The imperial standing of the United States in Europe was also helped enormously by the election of Barack Obama as president in November 2008, replacing his unpopular predecessor George W. Bush in January 2009. At a stroke, public opinion in Europe toward America changed with large majorities in almost all countries recording a “favorable” or “very favorable” view. Even more remarkable was opinion of the US president himself, which jumped in one year from strongly negative to overwhelmingly positive.
Just as important was the renewed rhetoric by the US government about “partnership” in the transatlantic dialogue. In July 2016, for example, President Obama stated that “given our shared interests, Europe will remain a cornerstone of America’s engagement with the world. European countries are and will remain among our closest allies and friends, and Europe is an indispensable partner around the globe. . . . [O]ur work today shows that we’re going to continue to be focused on pressing global challenges.”38
This sop to the vanities of Europeans made it easier for their governments to play a strongly supportive role in the American empire without running the risk of being seen by voters as servile. From mobilizing financial resources for Afghanistan to participation in the nuclear agreement with Iran and imposing sanctions on Russia, European states provided a useful adjunct to American power. And US officials became very skilled at playing this game, allowing EU states occasionally to take the lead in what were essentially US operations.39
As in the Americas, imperial policy was not without its successes in Europe. The reunification of Germany, once seen as a remote possibility, was achieved quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the expanded country remained a member of NATO with Soviet (later Russian) acquiescence. Central and eastern European states became enthusiastic members of the western alliance, joining both the EU and NATO.40 All looked to the United States for leadership on a whole host of issues, with public opinion strongly in support.41
NATO support for the United States was virtually guaranteed by virtue of its institutional structure and sources of finance. This was not necessarily true of the EU, which marketed itself as a new source of world power. However, the new members—together with a few “old” allies such as the United Kingdom—helped to ensure that the EU would never become a geostrategic rival even in the tense days after the US invasion of Iraq. Although American and European firms competed fiercely with each other in markets around the world, US governments knew that the EU and its member states would not harm American strategic interests and could usually be counted on to help promote them.
These successes could not disguise the fact that, as in the Americas, US policy suffered a number of setbacks. This time, however, it was more to do with imperial hubris than subaltern resistance. The ease with which Europeans allowed the United States to take the lead in the Balkans in the 1990s produced a false sense of confidence. More than twenty years after the Dayton Peace Agreement and the injection of millions of US dollars in foreign aid, Bosnia & Herzegovina was still very far from being able to join either NATO or the EU. Furthermore, public opinion registered strong disapproval of US leadership.42
Imperial setbacks in the Balkans could be dismissed as relatively minor in the broad scheme of things. Much more serious was the failure to develop a harmonious relationship with Russia after the rise to power of Vladimir Putin. In an age of imperial retreat, Russian collaboration was likely to be needed in many areas. US officials, however, made a series of misjudgments based on arrogance and ignorance. Although far from representing an existential threat, a hostile Russia was then able and willing to block American plans in numerous areas while exploiting any temporary differences between the United States and its European allies.
The United States, so central to western European development in the Cold War, also found itself largely irrelevant in some of the key events of the last decade. The financial crisis in the eurozone after 2008 put at risk the whole European project and therefore threatened the imperial interests of the United States. Yet the American government was largely a bystander in the unfolding drama, reduced to pressuring the IMF (without success) to persuade Germany to adopt a more flexible approach to sovereign debts.
Lack of influence during the eurozone crisis was frustrating, but even more galling was the American inability to influence the outcome of the British referendum on EU membership in 2016. A key US ally and one of only two countries in the EU with significant military capabilities, the United Kingdom was seen as so important to American imperial policy in Europe that President Obama was prepared to defy convention and tell British people how to vote. Yet his intervention had no effect on the outcome. The British electorate voted to leave the EU and, in so doing, seriously damaged the European project and therefore US interests in Europe.
US imperial interests in Europe then suffered a major setback with the election of President Trump in 2016. The new president immediately created a crisis in the relationship with his stance on global trade, international human rights, climate change mitigation, and NATO obligations. The region in the world that had previously been the most well disposed toward the continuation of American empire now had to reexamine its geopolitical assumptions. America was now seen by key countries in the EU, especially France and Germany, as an unreliable ally. Only a handful of countries, above all the United Kingdom, were now willing to support publicly the idea of continued US leadership in world affairs.
During the Cold War, America had found itself on the “wrong” side of history in many parts of Africa—especially the south. The end of apartheid in South Africa therefore provided the United States with an opportunity to start afresh. Indeed, as early as 1994 Congress had included Section 134 in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act mandating the Clinton administration to “develop and implement a comprehensive trade and development policy for the countries of Africa” and report annually to Congress on the progress made.43
The target for Congress was not just southern Africa but the grip exercised by European powers (especially France) over trade and investment with their former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. Several of these countries were already energy exporters and others would soon follow, a matter of some strategic importance at a time when the US economy was still heavily dependent on oil imports.
The Clinton administration carried out its congressional mandate faithfully, while also exploring opportunities to promote US imperial interests more broadly in sub-Saharan Africa. And with the demise of the Soviet Union, the way now looked cleared to promote not just free markets, privatization, and globalization but also political pluralism and representative democracy.
The result was the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which became law in 2000 and which offered sub-Saharan African countries privileged access to the US market for a wide range of exports. However, countries had to pass a test of eligibility, and the test was designed to ensure that those participating conformed to a strict definition of American imperial interests. In particular, the US president had to determine that each beneficiary country had established “a market-based economy that protects private property rights, incorporates an open rules-based trading system, and minimizes government interference in the economy. . . . [T]he rule of law, political pluralism, and the right to due process, a fair trial, and equal protection under the law; the elimination of barriers to United States trade and investment. . . . [and] does not engage in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests.” 44
AGOA was intended to be a powerful tool at the service of the American empire, and sub-Saharan African countries were at first keen to take advantage of its provisions, although not all succeeded. Indeed, countries were frequently added to or subtracted from the eligibility list in line with American strategic interests. And sometimes the mere threat of losing privileged access was sufficient.
AGOA was reinforced by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), established by Congress in 2004. Designed for low-income countries across the world, most of the beneficiary countries were in sub-Saharan Africa, where eligibility required each state to pass a test set by seventeen indicators—many of which were compiled by US think tanks.45 Those that passed the test were then expected to draw up a “compact” with the MCC leading to the disbursement of funds.46
In a different age, AGOA and the MCC might have placed sub-Saharan African countries in an imperial grip from which there would be no escape. The benefits on offer were potentially enormous and poor countries were expected to jump through whatever hoops were placed in their way in order to qualify. The American empire in the region, without the need for the elaborate superstructure with which European powers had burdened themselves, would have been immeasurably strengthened without a single country being formally colonized.
It did not work out that way for several reasons. First, sub-Saharan African countries benefited from the commodity price boom at the start of the new millennium that gave many of them a huge increase in foreign exchange as well as new customers for their goods. As a result, very few of the 6,475 tariff preferences on offer under AGOA were taken up, and sub-Saharan nonoil exports to the United States were a modest $4.1 billion in 2015 (less than five dollars per head of population).
Second, US governments found it impossible to apply the criteria of eligibility either consistently or transparently. Thus, energy exporters were given virtually a free pass when it came to human rights violations.47 When oil imports from Africa declined in importance, the same would happen to countries in the front line of the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism. And the money available under the MCC soon became so limited that it ceased to act as much of a lever.48
The main reason, however, was the emergence of China as the single most important country trading with and investing in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2011 China had overtaken the United States as the principal importer from sub-Saharan Africa and was soon responsible for a quarter of all purchases, compared with less than 10 percent for the United States.49 And China, unlike the United States, applied no eligibility criteria for access to the Chinese market, undermining American leverage in many countries.
AGOA was extended in 2015 for a further ten years, but the US government had clearly concluded that it was no longer “fit for purpose” without being clear what would take its place. Many countries had started to reverse privatizations, discriminate against imports (including those from the United States), avoid political pluralism, and abuse human rights but were still being declared “eligible.” The 2016 AGOA report for the Republic of Congo, by no means an atypical case, captured the mood: “Government officials make nearly all decisions related to foreign investment. . . . [E]stablished American businesses operating in ROC [the Republic of Congo] have encountered obstacles. . . . There is no political plurality in ROC. . . . Government policies on tax and land tenure have stymied job creation by private enterprises. . . . Human rights concerns persist in the form of infringement on privacy rights, restrictions on the right of citizens to change their government peacefully, and discrimination against women.”50 Yet the report concluded that “ROC is a strong supporter of anti-terrorism efforts, and military cooperation with the United States.” In this, and in many other sub-Saharan countries, the US government therefore found itself reverting to a more traditional form of imperialism where security interests trumped all others. Indeed, the American military presence across Africa—coordinated by USAFRICOM—expanded rapidly in response to numerous threats.51
The most serious of these threats came from Islamic fundamentalism organized by groups either affiliated to, or inspired by, al-Qaeda. And the scale of the problem had become almost overwhelming by the end of the Obama administration. Addressing Congress in May 2016, the assistant secretary of state for Africa was forced to conclude, without being able to offer any solutions, that “instability and conflict persist in parts of the continent. This instability has a direct bearing on U.S. national interests and those of our closest allies. Conflict has been and remains a breeding ground for extremists that seek to do us harm. . . . We are also concerned about the presence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the continent. As we have seen elsewhere in the world, ISIL seeks to co-opt local insurgencies and conflicts to advance its agenda and expand its networks.”52
The American imperial presence in Africa, perhaps because it was very different from its European predecessors, was generally well received. It was to be expected that President Obama, with his African heritage, would be popular. However, the United States was held in high esteem even before Obama came to power, and Africa has consistently been the region of the world where the United States scores the highest in the Pew Research Center surveys.
Much of this has to do with the emphasis by recent US administrations and the large American foundations on assistance to the region in areas of special concern. President George W. Bush focused on the prevention of HIV/AIDS; President Obama targeted power;53 the Gates and Clinton Foundations have given special attention to public health. In the countries surveyed by Pew in 2015, a majority in each case considered that US foreign aid was having a positive impact, and in the case of Kenya it was 78 percent.
All this was very welcome for a US administration that prided itself on being different from European imperialist powers, emphasizing instead a “partnership” with the region. President Obama visited sub-Saharan Africa four times, and in 2014 hosted the first ever US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC, where his formidable rhetorical powers were on full display.
Yet summitry could not disguise the fundamental weaknesses in the US position. China had been regularly holding such summits since 2000 and had used these occasions to bolster its commercial presence in the region. Thus, the US government found itself struggling to keep up with China, whose trade and investment with Africa now dwarfs that of the United States and which is also viewed favorably by public opinion despite the widespread belief that it acts in an imperialist fashion.
With sub-Saharan African countries accounting for almost fifty members of the United Nations, public opinion of the United States was a matter of some importance. Yet the Pew Research Center in 2015 was only able to survey nine of them.54 As a sample, it was probably representative and included the most important countries. However, there were several countries where the US presence was highly problematic and ran counter to the official narrative that America was not imperialist.
One was South Sudan, which from the day of its birth in 2011 was effectively a US protectorate—albeit a very unsuccessful one despite its significant oil industry. Carved out of Sudan in a civil war, its Christian population had a special appeal for US evangelists, and their pressure, combined with energy interests, had engaged the American government from an early stage. The Bush administration played a key role in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that paved the way for the independence of South Sudan six years later. Accordingly, US expectations for the new state ran high.
These hopes were soon dashed. By 2013 fighting had broken out among the different factions in South Sudan and the Obama administration found itself presiding over a crisis. In the words of the State Department itself, “The U.S. Government is the leading international donor to South Sudan, and provides significant humanitarian assistance to the hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese citizens displaced or otherwise affected since the start of the crisis. . . . The U.S. Government helps to provide basic services to citizens; to promote effective, inclusive, and accountable governance; to diversify the economy; and to combat poverty.”55
The US government could not resolve the crisis, despite its prestige being on the line, and it risked looking foolish for assuming that the separation of South Sudan from Sudan would have enhanced stability. Africans for decades had warned of the risk of interfering with boundaries established by European colonial powers and they had been proved correct. Yet South Sudan was never going to rejoin the north, leaving it as a sickly ward in the US imperial court.
Somalia presented a different set of problems for US administrations. After humiliation in Mogadishu in 1993, US governments were powerless to impose stability on a country that had fractured badly, where warlords competed for power and which was used as a base for international terrorism (including piracy). It would be more than twenty years before Secretary of State John Kerry would finally be able to visit Mogadishu in 2015, where a fragile federal government had established itself with US support.
The United States had set itself ambitious goals in Africa after the Cold War, but they were very far from being fulfilled as the Obama administration came to an end. China was now the dominant commercial power, eclipsing the United States in terms of exports, imports, and inward investment. Only four countries signed bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with the United States, leaving American investors vulnerable to expropriation. And American political leverage was undermined by the United States not being a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), forcing it to rely on its European allies when targeting gross violations of human rights by African leaders.
The American empire in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) had been constantly challenged by the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War.56 And by the end of the 1970s, Iran had also joined the list of America’s foes in the region. Yet by the time the presidency of George H. W. Bush (1989–93) ended, the US position appeared much stronger. The USSR had crumbled, weakening the position of its Syrian ally, while Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait had ended with the first Iraq War in 1991. Last but not least, US sanctions were inflicting serious damage on Iran.
US policy toward the region could therefore be ambitious, and indeed it was. Barriers to US trade and investment in the region were to be scaled back and energy supplies rendered secure. Peace was to be achieved between Israel and Palestine, making it easier for Muslim states—not just Egypt and Jordan—to normalize relations with a key US ally. American foes, especially Iran and Libya, would be contained in the hope that the regimes in power would suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union.
Democracy promotion at first was timid. Strategic Cold War allies such as Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey would not be pressed too hard to reform, regardless of their human rights records, in order to preserve stability. However, the events of 9/11 convinced many in the US government that an even bolder approach was required. Democracy promotion was now on the agenda in a way it had never been before in the MENA region, starting in Afghanistan in 2001 and moving on to Iraq in 2003. The policy soon looked wildly optimistic, but democracy promotion was temporarily given a new lease of life by the Arab Spring that started at the end of 2010.
The key to American economic penetration was a network of free trade agreements (FTAs). Building on the one with Israel, the first ever signed by a US government, FTAs were reached with Jordan (2001), Bahrain (2006), Morocco (2006), and Oman (2009). Most countries reached Trade and Investment Framework Agreements (TIFAs) with the United States, and many signed BITs as well. Those countries that had not joined the WTO at birth were pushed to do so, with Oman joining in 2000, Saudi Arabia in 2005, Yemen in 2014, and even Afghanistan in 2016.57
The growth in US exports to the MENA region at first sight looked impressive—$9 billion in 1993 rising to $111 billion twenty years later.58 Much of this was due to defense spending by MENA countries, especially Saudi Arabia, although other categories rose as well. However, China had replaced the United States as the region’s principal source of imports by 2007 and was well on its way to selling twice as much as the United States a decade later. Indeed, the US share of MENA imports—15 percent in 1993—had almost halved by the time Donald Trump became president.
US economic ambitions were therefore thwarted, although the issue of energy dependence became less salient as American oil imports from the region declined in importance after 2005. Much the same happened to America’s political goals. These had started well, with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders signing the Oslo Accords at the White House in 1993 and committing to negotiations on a final settlement.59 Yet, despite the enormous effort expended by the Clinton administration, the talks collapsed in 2000.
The inability of subsequent presidents to bring about a diplomatic solution damaged US prestige in the region. America, it seemed, was either unwilling or unable to use its leverage to force an agreement in the way that it had done in the Balkans in the 1990s. Yet when the Obama administration did try to exercise leverage on Israel over settlement construction, it found itself unable to restrain its ally.
The stalemate between Israel and Palestine was one of the reasons for the sudden interest in democracy promotion by the George W. Bush administration after 9/11. If pluralism reigned in the region, it was argued, tensions between Israel and its neighbors would diminish, support for the United States would rise and the attraction of international terrorism diminish. Even Saudi Arabia would not be immune in the eyes of the more committed neoconservatives.
Afghanistan was the first candidate after the United States found itself in control of the country at the end of 2001.60 Yet pluralism in Afghanistan, with its mixture of warlords and tribal politics, was always a stretch, and the United States in the end settled for a version of electoral politics that observed the form without the substance. Iraq, with its educated populace and large cities, was considered more promising, and the United States as the occupying force after the fall of Saddam Hussein set about its mission with zeal. However, electoral politics soon took a sectarian turn, leaving representatives of the majority Shia population in charge to the consternation of all other groups.
The Arab Spring that started in Tunisia in December 2010 offered a new opportunity for democracy promotion by the United States. In the next few months the Obama administration carried out regime change in Libya and did not block it in Egypt. Yet, soon after, it lost its nerve. Authoritarian regimes allied to the United States crushed protestors without any American resistance; the military returned to power in Egypt without the United States labeling it a coup;61 Syria suppressed popular discontent by force without provoking direct US intervention; and Libya quickly became a magnate for jihadists and descended into civil war.
Frustrated in its economic and political ambitions, the American empire could still aspire to hegemony in the security field by wielding its formidable military arsenal. Yet even here it was thwarted. The Bush administration had invaded Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and crush al-Qaeda. However, the former soon found refuge in neighboring Pakistan, despite its government being nominally allied to the United States, while the latter turned out to be hydra-headed and reappeared in different parts of the world.
One of those places was Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, where the al-Qaeda franchise made common cause with the minority Sunni population to undermine American plans for state reconstruction.62 Yet within ten years the al-Qaeda franchise had separated from its parent and morphed into something even more deadly—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS)—that reached into Syria and declared a caliphate in 2014. Even if it was no match militarily for the US Air Force and their allies on the ground, the mere existence of the caliphate attracted numerous supporters both inside and outside the region.
Oderint dum metuant was not the preferred modus operandi of the American semiglobal empire.63 However, some of its allies in the region had no such scruples. Israel responded disproportionately to Palestinian attacks on its population, while the Bahraini government ruthlessly crushed all opposition during the Arab Spring. Saudi Arabia, normally the most cautious of all, behaved recklessly in Yemen after 2015 in support of one of the two factions claiming to be the government.64 And the United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined forces with Bahrain, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to boycott Qatar, another US ally, in 2017.65
Unable to control even its allies, US hegemony in the Middle East appeared doomed. However, the civil war in Syria appeared to the more hawkish elements in the US government to provide an opportunity to reassert American power. Wisely, since it almost certainly would not have worked as intended, President Obama declined to do so. Instead, Russia consolidated its position and extended its already very considerable strategic investment in the country.66
By the end of the Obama administration, public opinion of the United States in the MENA region was distinctly hostile. In all the majority Muslim countries polled by the Pew Center, those with a favorable opinion were in a minority and in two cases (Jordan and Pakistan) the proportion barely reached double figures. Only one country in the whole region (Israel) had a favorable opinion of the United States, but this did not transfer to the US president himself.67 It was a painful legacy for a man whose Cairo speech in 2009 had been heralded with such acclaim.68
Although the retreat of the American empire in the Middle East and North Africa was clear to all, there were still some notable achievements along the way. It was the need for oil imports that had brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to the region in the first place and which remained a constant over the next decades. Yet by the time the Obama administration came to an end, US dependence on MENA energy was much reduced. Oil imports had fallen to about one-third of US consumption, and less than 20 percent of these imports came from the region.
Through a combination of lower consumption and higher domestic production, the United States had therefore put some distance between itself and the oil exporters of the MENA region. And among the regional countries providing imported oil, only Saudi Arabia figured in the top five sources.69 The need to provide public support to authoritarian regimes was now diminished, although US officials were slow to take advantage of this.
The reduction in oil dependence allowed the United States greater room for maneuver. In particular, it facilitated a new approach to Iran, whose government had played a key role in the region to the detriment of US interests. The nuclear agreement reached in 2015 (see Box 11.4) did not pave the way for a reversal of imperial retreat, but it opened a path toward normalization of a bilateral relationship that was a necessary condition for progress in other areas.
Yet these two developments—reduction of oil dependence and the agreement with Iran—could not disguise the long list of US failures in the MENA region. At the top were the fractured states—Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya—where American hard power had removed autocratic regimes without being able to reconstruct the state institutions they had destroyed. Although these disasters were commonly attributed to “mistakes” in planning, the reasons for failure were far more deep-rooted. The American empire was no longer willing or able to invest the time and resources in state building in the way that it had done in Germany and Japan after the Second World War.
Empires depend on loyalty from their client states. Yet the United States found it increasingly difficult to control its allies. Israel’s behavior in the occupied territories has already been mentioned. Turkey, a member of NATO, switched sides in the Syrian Civil War when it found the US position inconsistent with its national interests.70 Egypt, dependent on US military and financial support, backed a Russian peace plan in the UN Security Council that the United States wanted to block.71 And Saudi Arabia and Qatar funded the very Islamist groups that US governments had condemned as terrorists.72
The Syrian Civil War that started in 2011 captured the dilemmas of an empire in full retreat. President Bashar al-Assad (2000–), like his father before him, meddled in Lebanon, refused to recognize Israel, and was supported by Iran. Removing him from power fitted well with US imperial interests. Yet congressional opposition, heavily influenced by public opinion, made it impossible for the Obama or Trump administrations to intervene with ground forces. Covert support for the “moderate” opposition, however, was undermined as soon as it came under the control of extreme Islamists allied to al-Qaeda. The United States was therefore marginalized, while the civil war dragged on.73
The MENA region had witnessed the destruction of many empires even before the rise of the Ottoman one. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War was followed in due course by the end of British, French, Italian, and Soviet suzerainty. The American empire, never absolute in the region, is simply following the same path more than seventy years after the historic agreement between FDR and Ibn Saud. Even if the empire has not yet ended, the direction of travel is clear. At least in the MENA region, it cannot be restored and the American public has started to accept it.
US governments since the Second World War have been tireless advocates of free markets and free movement of capital and nowhere have these efforts yielded more than in the Asia-Pacific region.74 The fortunes of American MNEs are now inextricably linked with what happens in this region, which is home to nearly half the world’s population and a growing share of world GDP, international trade, and global greenhouse gas emissions.
US governments have therefore given high priority in the Asia-Pacific to promoting globalization. However, the region is also home to some of the least democratic societies in the world. Balancing the need for free markets with the desire for open societies has proved challenging for American officials, who have found it difficult to pursue a consistent policy and have shifted position on numerous occasions.
Securing US strategic interests in the region has also proved tricky. Widely acknowledged as the regional hegemon at the end of the Cold War, America inherited an array of allies, some of whom now feel threatened by North Korea and anxious about China. Responding to the needs of these allies, without alienating China or provoking North Korea, has tested American empire to its limits and raised doubts about its ability in the long term to commit to the region.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, US imports from China were less than $20 billion. However, the value was growing fast as China became incorporated into commodity chains with American MNEs at their heart. The need to institutionalize the economic relationship with China was therefore a high priority for the Clinton administration. Thus, China was brought into the WTO in 2001 after lengthy negotiations, and the US government started in 1993 to construct an economic framework for the region called Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
APEC and Chinese membership in the WTO, coupled with a plethora of free trade agreements among member states (several involving the United States), contributed to an extraordinary boom in trade. Within twenty years of APEC’s formation, US trade in goods and services to and from the block reached $2.9 trillion—nearly 60 percent of the US total.75 And US exports of goods and services to APEC were estimated by the Department of Commerce to support nearly six million jobs.
Within these totals, US imports of goods from China loomed large and had reached nearly $500 billion by 2015—much larger than US exports of goods to China.76 A narrative gained ground in the United States that the Chinese surplus meant it did not play by the rules that the United States had written. In its last year, the George W. Bush administration therefore prepared the ground for a new set of rules—the TPP—from which China would be excluded. Only when these rules were consolidated, ran the argument, would China be invited to join.
The TPP was taken up enthusiastically by the Obama administration, but it was always a high-risk strategy—especially after the financial crisis in 2008–9. Although it was eventually signed by all states in February 2016, it was increasingly seen in the United States as a Trojan horse that would undermine jobs and living standards. It was therefore opposed by the main candidates in the presidential campaign that year and was never ratified. Meanwhile China, angered by its exclusion, was pressing ahead successfully with its own schemes: the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that excluded the United States and the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative that aimed to build in Eurasia a new Silk Road fit for the twenty-first century.77
China’s exclusion from the TPP was part of a strategy of containment that became explicit under the Obama administration but which had been hinted at much earlier. The rise of China, described as “peaceful” by its leadership, was always going to be a problem for the existing hegemonic power in the Asia-Pacific region, and US officials had struggled to come up with a consistent approach. Those who favored a “strategic partnership” were matched by those who feared “unfair” competition and favored a more aggressive posture, leaving the US public confused.
It was President George W. Bush who pushed the United States toward a more consistent, if confrontational, policy. Having spoken of China as a “strategic competitor” during the 2000 presidential campaign, he engineered a rapprochement with India that reversed the US government’s previous position on nuclear nonproliferation.78 By legitimizing the nuclear ambitions of a state with which China had fought several wars, the United States sent a powerful signal that it intended to strengthen the position of those neighbors that feared Chinese aggression provided that they were willing to support the broad aims of American foreign policy.79
The Obama administration took the policy to its logical conclusion. In October 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton published an article, provocatively entitled “America’s Pacific Century” and which had been many months in preparation. In it she stated,
As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. . . . At a time when [the Asia-Pacific region] is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential. It will help build that architecture and pay dividends for continued American leadership well into this century, just as our post–World War II commitment to building a comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships has paid off many times over—and continues to do so. The time has come for the United States to make similar investments as a Pacific power, a strategic course set by President Barack Obama from the outset of his administration and one that is already yielding benefits.80
The policy laid out in this article, officially described as a “rebalance” and unofficially as a “pivot,” was in truth a strategy for containing China while not ruling out engagement on areas of specific mutual interest. Asia-Pacific countries, concerned about China’s rise and wishing to avoid becoming overdependent, took note. China did its best in public to appear unconcerned by the rebalance but concluded that it would have to invest even more heavily in its own “security and economic architecture” for the region.
The rebalance initially focused on those countries in the region with which the United States already had a security alliance. A new arrangement, called Joint Defense Guidelines, was made with Japan in 2015 under which its government could now commit troops outside the territory, “mark[ing] the establishment,” according to Secretary of State John Kerry, “of Japan’s capacity to defend not just its own territory but also the U.S. and other partners as needed.”81 Plans were also put in place to allow South Korea to assume operational responsibility for its military alliance with the United States. Additional US troops were deployed to the American base in Darwin, in northern Australia, while military cooperation with New Zealand resumed after a hiatus of thirty years.82
These four countries, traditional US allies with concerns about the rise of China, were all democracies with a fair, if not unblemished, record on human rights. Many Asia-Pacific countries did not share that record. Yet US officials constantly stressed that the pivot was not just about security: “Promoting democracy and human rights, in Asia and around the world, is the right thing to do. It also strengthens our strategic presence and advances our strategic interests. . . . It supports our economic goals by promoting laws and institutions that secure property rights, enforce contracts, and fight corruption. . . . It aligns American leadership with the aspirations of everyday people in the region.”83
This was always going to be a hard circle to square and the first country chosen, Myanmar, was one of the most difficult. Subject to US sanctions from 1997 onward as a result of its poor human rights record, the military rulers of the country were handsomely rewarded fifteen years later when they allowed a restricted form of democracy to prevail.84 Ambassadors were exchanged in 2012, President Obama himself attended the ASEAN Summit in Myanmar in 2014, and all sanctions were lifted in 2016. This did not end Myanmar’s close relationship with China, but it did reduce the country’s dependence on its powerful neighbor—a primary purpose of the pivot.
Next up was Vietnam, a country with which the United States had fought a long and bitter war. Although diplomatic relations had been restored in 1995, this had not prevented Vietnam from becoming ever more entangled in the embrace of China (its wartime ally). However, concern over China’s expansion in the South China Sea, including areas claimed by Vietnam, created an opportunity for the Obama administration. Despite Vietnam’s poor record on human rights and democracy, a US-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership was signed in 2013, a Joint Vision Statement was issued in 2015, and the ban on the sale of lethal weapons was lifted during President Obama’s visit in 2016—all in the name of rebalancing.
The pivot boosted public opinion of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. Already popular in many countries beforehand, the image of America improved markedly under President Obama. By 2015 the proportion expressing a favorable view of the United States in the Pew Research Center’s survey of America’s global image was 60 percent or above in the nine countries surveyed except China. Even more impressive were the majorities of young people, even in China, with a favorable view of the United States.
It is doubtful if much, if any, of this was due to the president having spent some of his formative years in the region.85 And even a very favorable opinion among the public did not necessarily insulate the US government from difficulties. When Rodrigo Duterte, for example, was elected as president of the Philippines in 2016, the bilateral relationship rapidly deteriorated despite the fact that more than 90 percent of islanders had a positive opinion of the United States at the time.86 What public opinion surveys did show, however, is that the American regional presence was generally welcome at a time when China was rapidly expanding its influence.
The pivot therefore seemed to have served America’s interests well. However, it was essentially a holding strategy, buying the US government precious time while its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region was slipping away. Although the pivot was welcomed in public, all US allies in the region have grave doubts about the ability of future American governments to “stay the course.” Thus, they have to prepare for a time when China will replace the United States as the hegemonic power in the Asia-Pacific. Hillary Clinton’s ringing phrase “America’s Pacific Century” sounds hollow to their ears.
Rebalancing also changed the strategy adopted by China, leading to an acceleration of its own plans for a “security and economic architecture” for the Asia-Pacific region. The RCEP, B&R, AIIB, and all the other regional plans might have come to fruition anyway, but the pivot sped them up. China can now offer its neighbors a range of economic and financial benefits that America will struggle to match. Over time, these will prove irresistible.
Nor has China slowed down its military spending as a result of US efforts to strengthen security alliances in the region. On the contrary, China has pressed ahead more rapidly than ever with double-digit annual growth in spending. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exceeds two million, and the Chinese government expects to achieve parity with the United States in air and sea power by 2030. Furthermore, this formidable military arsenal—unlike in the case of the United States—is concentrated almost exclusively in the Asia-Pacific region.
“The only lesson you can learn from history is that it repeats itself,” it has been said.87 America squeezed its European rivals out of its hemisphere without a major conflict, although it was prepared to fight one if necessary. China is doing the same in the Asia-Pacific region today. Neither side wants a conflict, but—if there is one—China will surely choose a moment when it is likely to win. For that and other reasons, the US retreat from hegemony—in the Asia-Pacific as elsewhere—is likely to be peaceful, and for that we can all be grateful.