The growing weakness of United States can be attributed more to the domestic issues rather than its overseas proxy wars. The country is gradually losing status of largest ‘economic power’ as well as its ability to fix internal problems.
The peak period of the US hegemony lasted less than 20 years, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the financial crisis of 2007-09. The country was dominant in many domains of power—military, economic, political and cultural.
The height of American hubris was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it hoped to remake not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but the whole Middle East. The United States not only overestimated the effectiveness of its military power to bring about deep political change, but also underestimated the impact of its free-market economic model on global finance.
The decade ended with its troops bogged down in two counterinsurgency wars and a financial crisis that accentuated the inequalities of US-led globalization had brought about.
The degree of uni-polarity in this period has been rare in history, and the world has been reverting to a more normal state of multi-polarity ever since, with China, Russia, India, Europe and others gaining power relative to counter the US.
Afghanistan’s ultimate effect on geopolitics is not likely to be small. The US may have survived an earlier, humiliating defeat when it withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, but regained its dominance within little more than a decade. The much bigger challenge to the US global standing is domestic.
American society has become deeply polarized and has found it difficult to find consensus on virtually anything. This polarization started over conventional policy issues like taxes and abortion, but has since metastasized into a bitter fight over cultural identity.
Normally a big external threat such as a global pandemic should be the occasion for citizens to rally around a common response. But the covid-19 crisis served rather to deepen divide in the United States, with social distancing, mask-wearing and vaccinations being seen not as public-health measures but as political markers. These conflicts have spread to all aspects of life, from sport to the brands of consumer products that red and blue Americans buy.
Many analysts believe that the US influence abroad depends on its ability to fix its internal problems. Polarization has affected foreign policy directly.
During Barack Obama’s presidency, Republicans took a hawkish stance and scolded Democrats for the Russian “reset” and alleged naivety regarding Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump turned the tables by embracing Putin, and today roughly half of Republicans believe that the Democrats constitute a bigger threat to the American way of life than Russia does.
There is more apparent consensus regarding China as both Republicans and Democrats agree it is a threat to democratic values. A far greater test of the US foreign policy than Afghanistan will be Taiwan, if it comes under direct Chinese attack. Will the United States be willing to sacrifice its sons and daughters on behalf of that island’s independence?
Would the US risk military conflict with Russia should it invade Ukraine? These are serious questions with no easy answers. A reasoned debate about the US national interest has to be conducted primarily through the lens of how it affects the partisan struggle.
The biggest policy debacle of President Joe Biden’s administration in its first year has been its failure to plan adequately for the rapid collapse of Afghanistan.
Biden has suggested that withdrawal was necessary in order to focus on meeting the bigger challenges from Russia and China. Obama was never successful in making a “pivot” to Asia because the US remained focused on counterinsurgency in the Middle East.
In 2022, the administration needs to redeploy both resources and the attention of policymakers to deter geopolitical rivals and engage with allies.
The United States is not likely to regain its earlier hegemonic status, nor should it aspire to. What it can hope for is to sustain, with like-minded countries, a world order friendly to democratic values. The ability do this depend on recovering a sense of national identity and purpose at home.
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