Is the United States’ era of global leadership over? From war to famine, the world is on fire and a lack of political will on the part of Washington is being blamed.
In a recent interview, NATO’s former secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, attributed the spate of conflicts engulfing the world to “American hesitance to actually lead.” Rasmussen added that “if the U.S. is not exercising global leadership, then the bad guys would take advantage of the situation.” In other words, it is not just that the end of Pax Americana is fraying the global security order—Pax Americana is ending because the U.S. is now too cowed to lead.
Consider how the Biden administration seems unwilling to push back on Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, which the Biden administration sees as self-defeating. On top of that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted that his government will not seek a two-state solution when the war against Hamas is over, a view that runs directly counter to longstanding U.S. policy as well as the Biden administration’s declared position on establishing a sustainable peace in the aftermath of the current conflict. Despite this, U.S. President Joe Biden has been unwavering in his support of Netanyahu, even to the point of diverting munitions originally destined for Ukraine to Israel.
Or go back a few years to the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, which some critics portrayed as a sign that Washington was no longer willing to bear the costs of upholding global order. Even if the functional goal of creating a stable state in Afghanistan was not achievable, maintaining a military footprint there would have demonstrated that the U.S. was committed to preserving some semblance of stability. Some even went as far as to claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been emboldened by Biden’s decision, thereby contributing to his own decision to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine.
While the accuracy of those claims is questionable, and Biden is far from isolationist in his tendencies, Rasmussen’s comments suggest a lack of assertiveness by Biden during this time of crisis. Despite the follies committed by former President George W. Bush, perhaps Biden needs a bit more of the decisiveness exhibited by the Bush administration?
There is, however, another view. Rather than demonstrating a lack of will, Biden can be seen as a savvy grand strategist who recognizes the new limits of U.S. power. The international system is changing, now marked by an emerging multipolarity and the increasing assertiveness of quasi-states. Rather than Biden’s policies reflecting hesitancy, they might instead show that, in the face of this new structural reality, the U.S. has lost the capability to respond to all these simultaneous crises. Biden’s hesitancy isn’t a sign of fecklessness. To the contrary, he’s doing the best he can, given the resource constraints he faces.
There is no denying that the material base for U.S. global power is under strain. To begin with, the U.S. simply doesn’t have enough munitions to supply all of the countries that it needs to militarily support. Even one of Biden’s signature foreign policy achievements—the AUKUS submarine deal between Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.—seems to be hampered by insufficient U.S. shipbuilding capacity. And economically, the ability of the U.S. to use economic coercion as a tool of statecraft has been increasingly undermined by, most notably, Russia’s ability to find willing alternative buyers.
Furthermore, domestic divisions place the U.S. in less of a position to represent the values that so long underpinned U.S. leadership of the “liberal international order.” From restricting reproductive rights to controversies over freedom of _expression_ on university campuses, the U.S. is finding it difficult to maintain its image as a bastion of universal freedom and protector of human rights. This, in turn, undercuts its ability to cultivate and exploit soft power around the world.
Lost capability is a bad thing if you think that the provision of global public goods, such as stability and peace, requires the actions of a global power, a hegemon, like the United States. If one sees the U.S. as the “indispensable nation” that must always be “caught trying”—because “trying and failing better [is] than not trying at all”—then it is indeed concerning.
Rather than demonstrating a lack of will, Biden can be seen as a savvy grand strategist who recognizes the new limits of U.S. power.
But Washington’s diminished ability to be assertive in global affairs isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For starters, perhaps it will put the United States’ European allies on notice that they do need to step up more to solve the world’s problems, instead of always relying on the U.S. to do so. In the case of support to Ukraine, it is well recognized—even by European officials—that they cannot fill in for the loss of U.S. support. But rather than simply acknowledging and accepting that position, perhaps the nations of Europe should take steps to ensure that, if necessary, they can stand on their own. After all, such action would fulfill a long-standing demand of numerous U.S. presidents and defense secretaries, not just former President Donald Trump.
Indeed, in a rather prescient article from the early 1990s at the beginning of Washington’s so-called unipolar moment, the international relations scholar Kenneth Waltz wrote that U.S. forbearance, even in cases when it had the capability, could be a good thing. Waltz acknowledged that “the old limitations and restraints now apply weakly to the United States,” given its preponderant military and economic might in the aftermath of the Cold War. But he hoped that, as the sole remaining superpower, the U.S. would opt for, “not an isolationist policy, which has become impossible, but a forbearance that will give other countries at long last the chance to deal with their own problems and to make their own mistakes.” Waltz, it’s worth noting, was not optimistic of that occurring.
Thirty years later, perhaps the U.S. really does lack the political will for global leadership, as Rasmussen lamented. And yet, it could also be the case that the U.S. hesitancy to lead is not a matter of lacking will so much as lacking ability. It is not in the same position to police the world and serve as the sole provider of global order as it was when Waltz wrote his prescient article.
Now forbearance is no longer a choice, but a necessity, meaning other stakeholders will have to step up and carry the load. In that respect, Biden appears to be making the best of what is a difficult situation. Make no mistake, the U.S. is still a powerful nation. But having power is not the same as being all-powerful.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.