Embracing a Multipolar Future
How the US can shape a changing world
Summary:
As the political realities of the world change with the rise of China and other competitors to US dominance, accepting multipolarity will prove safer than trying to force bipolarity.
The United States can continue to shape and lead the world by helping to strengthen its allies and engaging more productively with countries that cannot be easily classified as friend or foe.
As the nations of the world meet at the United Nations General Assembly, it is relevant to ask what the state of the world is today and what is the role of the United States. The United States has existed as the world’s leading power since the end of the Second World War. It shared leadership with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, but since its demise, the United States has enjoyed not only primacy but hegemony. However, Pax Americana seems to have been short-lived. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has struggled to maintain a grand strategy. The United States has always maintained a frequently contradictory relationship with the rest of the world and the lack of a common enemy left US foreign policy even more adrift. Any unity created by the War on Terror quickly evaporated in Iraq and administrations since then have been shining examples of the contradictions captured by Walter A. McDougall in his work "Promised Land, Crusader State" which detailed the history of American foreign policy, “Too mighty to ignore, too magnanimous to mock, too arrogant to admire, to erratic to trust and too befuddled to explain”. With the rise of China, the increasing and long-standing burden on the United States to maintain the current world structure, and the dwindling appetite of Americans to do so, the United States needs a new grand strategy that properly reflects these realities. An intentional and managed shift to a multipolar world is the best move forward.
Bipolarity vs. Multipolarity
There are a variety of schools of thought associated with international relations. Realism, liberalism, post-modernism, and many more. A realist view of international relations is actually straightforward. Although there are different paradigms of realism at its heart realism believes that the international system is one of anarchy and therefore one defined by power. In 1979 Kenneth Waltz introduced his book, “Theory of International Politics” and created the central work for a new paradigm of realism called neorealism. Waltz stuck to the realist roots of emphasizing anarchy and self-interest, but he leaned heavily into the structure of the system and the belief, as summed up by Jack Donnelly, that “political structures can be distinguished from each other, simply by the distribution of capabilities among actors”. To put it even more simplistically, which countries can make war and on whom? This theory focuses on the ability of nations to balance each other and prevent major wars, or wars that threaten the existence of a state and the international structure, from occurring. Waltz followed this theory to the conclusion that a bipolar system (two major powers) was the structure most likely to prevent major war.
Waltz’s text and his conclusions were the most influential work on international politics throughout the Cold War. Many policymakers and thinkers stuck close to Waltz, most famously Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Any thinkers who wished to express a different view of international politics could not do so without first providing a counterargument to Waltz and neorealism. It became the required starting point for all thinking about international politics.
In 1996, Dale C. Copeland published a paper entitled “Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability”. Copeland argued that Waltz was too static only looking at the structure of the international order as a snapshot, and in so doing they had missed one of the main causes of major wars throughout history. The moments of most danger in any international order, according to Copeland, are when the primacy or hegemony of one nation is being threatened by the rise of another state. In that scenario, “Assuming states are rational actors seeking primarily their own security, the dominant, and declining military great power is most likely to begin a major war”. When a state is used to being the dominant power and begins to feel that it is facing a “steep” and “serious” decline it is likely to start a war as a last-ditch effort to maintain primacy. Most interesting in Copeland’s analysis was that rather than bipolarity being more stable, it was more likely to lead to this outcome.
Copeland’s evidence for this was not just theoretical his review of history found ample evidence to back up his belief. Sparta fought with Athens, Carthage with Rome, and the French fought with the Hapsburgs. All in attempts by a declining power to prevent the rise of a new one. Furthermore, in 1963, Soviet fears about their imbalance in nuclear weapons caused them to recklessly pursue nuclear weapons in Cuba. The United States’ fear of losing its dominant nuclear posture widely considered actions that certainly would have triggered a major war.
A multipolar system (3 or more major powers) is more likely to prevent such an outcome because it has the ability to create a natural restraint for rising powers and a safe zone for declining powers. From the perspective of a rising power if there are multiple states in roughly equal positions it would be “foolish for any one state to make a bid for hegemony against the system” because it would either face a coalition of states against it or at the very least be forced to fight multiple wars in sequence. From the perspective of a declining power the presence of alliance partners and restraints on a rising power make the situation less threatening and makes them less likely to feel like preventive war is the only option available. Any decline is perceived as less dramatic.
Although the US decline can certainly be overstated, there is no doubt that the world structure is shifting. The British Empire benefited from being replaced by a friendly nation. If the United States makes a bid to maintain hegemony and loses, it will not be so lucky. Moving to a multipolar world order can provide a soft landing and a buffer against any rising states hostile to American primacy and values.
Moving to a multipolar structure will require a shift in the mindset of policymakers, but it is a shift that has already begun and it would be best to move in that direction in a purposeful and coordinated way, rather than fall into a multipolar system haphazardly, or worse yet, become part of a major war in a desperate attempt to maintain hegemony or create a new bipolar system with the Chinese.
The Five Truths
To carry this out successfully, five truths must be accepted.
The first truth is that China’s rise can be slowed and buffered, but not stopped. There is no realistic or desirable scenario in which China returns to a 1950s agrarian society. When the post-war global economy was negotiated at Bretton Woods, the Soviet Union was an active participant. Same with the creation of the United Nations. The Cold War world stability certainly benefited from their involvement in the shaping of that world. A United Nations without Soviet buy-in would have failed. The same is true for China now. Certainly, this does not mean caving to China’s aggression or demands. As Condoleezza Rice recently pointed out in a Foreign Affairs article, China has a long list of “unacceptable behavior” and in many ways is more dangerous than the Soviet Union ever was, this should not be ignored, but Rice also points out that “Alarmingly, The United States and China Still have none of the deconfliction measures in place that the United States and Russia do.” China cannot be counted on as a partner, but it must be respected as a legitimate player, and it cannot be ignored or forced into compliance.
What is America’s China Strategy?
In our Second Cold War series, DS has sought to better understand and define the rapidly developing conflict between China and the United States. It has become increasingly apparent that the two sides are locked in a struggle to define the very way the world works. Given the high stakes and …
Truth number two is that allies must be strengthened, not undermined. It is often forgotten by the American public and policymakers that the lack of military capabilities of America’s primary allies is the intentional result of US design, not the ineptitude of other nations. That was part of the post-war deal. The Marshall Plan was designed to allow Europe to get back on its feet economically, under US protection. The early strategic concepts of NATO relied heavily on massive retaliation with nuclear weapons and saw that as “primarily a US responsibility assisted as practicable by the nations.” As Robert Kagan explained in his classic paper, "Power and Weakness", US policy in the post-war years was guided by “Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vision of a Europe that had been rendered, in effect, strategically irrelevant.” He quotes historian John Lamberton Harper as saying, “to bring about a radical reduction in the weight of Europe” and thereby make possible “the retirement of Europe from world politics.” The entire NATO strategy was built around Europeans as an augmentation of US forces as opposed to an independent fighting force.
In many ways, this has already begun to change both intentionally and unintentionally. For example, in 2021, the Biden administration agreed to supply Australia with Virginia-class attack submarines as part of a broader AUKUS treaty meant to increase Australia’s capabilities. Trump’s open hostility toward NATO combined with Russian aggression has spurred many US allies to invest more in military spending. These are good things. Achieving a multipolar balance requires nations to believe that a coalition of nearly equal partners will emerge against them. That should be the United States goal. A coalition of nearly equal partners ready to jointly deter adversaries to a stable world order.
Where US policy would need to change more still depends on who is president next. If Trump becomes president, the United States will need to avoid the “every man for himself” attitude that so often comes from the “America First” foreign policy movement. Strengthening allies does not mean encouraging military spending while undermining them with protectionism and being hostile towards them because they played the role the US asked them to play for the last 75 years or reducing partnerships to a simple financial arrangement. This would be counterproductive.
A Harris administration would need to avoid the Biden administration’s outdated desire to maintain America as an indispensable nation. Copeland points out that the British are often accused of buck-passing in the run-up to the Second World War. That is, hoping that someone else would deter the Germans so that they would not have to. However, Copeland believes this is a mischaracterization. Instead, he argues that the British tried to balance the Germans’ growing capabilities, but they simply were not able to keep up. The United States is in danger of being in the same situation. The Chinese are currently building the equivalent of the British Royal Navy every two years. Meanwhile, the US seems to struggle to complete any shipbuilding on time or budget. Even if the United States can maintain a technological advantage over China, and it should certainly dedicate itself to doing so, that alone will not compensate for the sheer volume. The US would do well to remember that Germans’ technological advantages in WWII could not keep up with the US’ ability to produce. As Emma Ashford points out in her Foreign Policy article on multipolarism, the US cannot maintain its “Mind-bogglingly expensive military footprint of past decades”. Raising dependable allies to be more equal partners is the most realistic and sustainable course.
The third truth is that a multipolar world will require more flexibility in alliances. Returning to Ashford “In a multipolar world, flexibility and openness are highly valuable.” The United States can’t afford a “Bi-polar mindset” that “Contributes to the mistaken assumption that any win for China would necessarily be a loss for the United States.” The United States may have to entertain ideas that historically it has resisted. For example, the Biden administration recently broke with traditional US policy and suggested expanding the UN Security Council. These would not be full members with veto power, still, the idea has merit. The idea of permanent seats being given to nations like India and Brazil has been floated historically and the US has never fully embraced it. This may be because those countries cannot be counted on to consistently side with the United States. In a multipolar world, the fact that they won’t consistently side with China or Russia might be enough to accept the good with the bad. A multipolar world requires more nuance than the with us or against us mentality of the Cold War.
Economically, the large multistate free trade agreements of the 90s are not coming back anytime soon, but the United States can still pursue meaningful trade agreements with Asian and developing country partners and it can do so without simultaneously insisting that those nations come lockstep into a coalition against China. Copeland points out that in multipolarism alliances do not need to be “completely tight” to be effective. In a multipolar world, any partnership that gets a nation more invested in maintaining the status quo would be good for the United States.
The fourth truth is that this is not the end of American primacy. In fact, a multipolar world would require more leadership from the US not less, but that leadership will not always look the way it has in the past. The two criticisms of multipolarity are the buck-passing discussed earlier and chain-ganging, which is the phenomenon of being dragged into a conflict by alliances. The line between buck-passing and chain-ganging and the necessary burden-sharing of multipolarism is hard to distinguish. A Cold War mentality that rushes to avoid buck-passing can undermine necessary burden-sharing. Conversely, a disregard for the security of allies and previous commitments in the name of burden-sharing can lead to buck-passing. Avoiding being chain-ganged into a conflict requires solid relationships and crisis management. Being chain-ganged into a conflict, Copeland argues, is less likely to occur than a nation being restrained by its alliances in a multipolar world. This will undoubtedly be true if alliances are well-managed.
That is why the multipolar strategy must be adopted intentionally. Burden-sharing that avoids buck-passing and chain-ganging requires communication, coordination, and leadership with allies that constitute other poles in the system. Leadership that the United States is ideally positioned to provide. It can’t be left to chance. The United States is still the nation with the economic and military might to be the key player in maintaining the system. As Condoleezza Rice said: “Great-power DNA is still very much in the American genome... a leader must say that the United States is well positioned to design a different future. The country’s endlessly creative private sector is capable of continuous innovation… It has more allies than any great power in history and good friends, as well. People around the world seeking a better life still dream of becoming Americans.”
The Fifth truth is that the US must never stop trying to move beyond the realist motivations of power in its actions. In the aftermath of two world wars, the United States was arrogant enough to believe that it could create a better world than the one that caused two major wars. American policymakers and leaders should never forget that it succeeded. Even with the tensions of the Cold War and nuclear weapons, the world has been a better and more peaceful place under US leadership. That does not make the US perfect. It has made a lot of mistakes in the foreign policy arena, but external disdain for what the United States built is unjustified and the US should defend itself rhetorically. Internal repudiation of US efforts is unpardonable. US leaders need to keep the faith. Principles such as national sovereignty, democracy, and the rule of law, often find no natural home in a realist foreign policy, but the US should never forget them. Principles, even unevenly applied ones, are still superior to a world solely determined by weakness and power. Senator Albert J. Beveridge put it dramatically in 1885, “it is a noble land that God has given us; a land that can feed and clothe the world; a land whose coastlines would enclose half the countries of Europe; a land set like a sentinel between the two imperial oceans of the globe; a greater England with a nobler destiny…have wo no mission to perform, no duty to discharge to our fellowman?” The necessity of the United States to use power to create a stable world order should never overshadow using that stability to push for the creation of a system that lifts the US and others to the higher ideals that define its character.
It is unlikely that any desirable effort by the United States will allow it to maintain an unquestioned hegemony. It also seems like the political will of the public to do so is waning. However, these are not good reasons for the United States to pull back from the world. Nor does it mean the United States has lost its ability to proactively shape the world around it. Building a multipolar system can create a world that maintains US primacy, allows for growth and change among nations, and pushes back against forces that would threaten the United States and the international order. An intentional multipolar system would allow for all of that and create a controlled reduction in the US burden to maintain all of that on its own.
Thought provoking. I'm curious to see how rhetoric can improve the public image of the historic good our nation has done in the international realm.
Interesting points. It will be fascinating (and terrifying) to see how this plays out over the next few years. The domestic chaos does not necessarily inspire great hope, however.