“Russia's Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States," the Washington Post reported last week, citing a classified document it obtained.
Meanwhile, the passage of new U.S. aid to Ukraine has led to rejoicing
among those who see the war as a chance —"to see Russia weakened," in the blunt phrase of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2022.
These are both attempts to affect the international balance of power, which is the subject of DEFP's newest explainer
from Fellow Christopher McCallion. After exploring how power balances
are measured and made, McCallion argues that U.S. "pursuit of primacy"
leads to a less favorable and less stable balance at both the global and
regional scale.
How power balances work
- "The 'balance of power' refers to the distribution of capabilities
among states, as well as a possible equilibrium between them."
- "A state's military power is based on several factors, especially
its economy and population," with nuclear weapons playing "a
complicating and often paradoxical role."
- Assessments of power are always approximations, not least because
of "intangible and inherently unquantifiable factors," like national
resolve in the face of a perceived existential threat.
- "To survive in an anarchic world, states 'balance' against rivals that threaten to become overwhelmingly powerful."
What happens when there's a hegemon?
- Those who want Washington to seek global primacy tend to argue for
"hegemonic stability theory," which says the U.S. can increase stability
by accruing disproportionate power as a global hegemon.
- Foreign policy restrainers see pursuit of primacy as counterproductive and destabilizing.
- "[T]he more expansive the hegemon's commitments to its allies and
partners, the more likely it will find itself at odds with distant great
powers with whom it might otherwise be able to peacefully coexist."
- "By threatening distant states on behalf of its security
dependents, the hegemon accelerates counterbalancing by other powers and
engenders opposition."
- "In large part, this explains the U.S. butting heads with Russia
in Europe, China in Asia, and Iran in the Middle East, despite the
remote threat these states pose to the United States itself."
The risk of pursuing primacy
- For decades, the U.S. "has, in Christopher Layne's words, attempted
to '[substitute] American power for the balance of power.'" In
practice, despite good intentions, this makes the world less stable and
less safe.
- U.S. pursuit of primacy suppresses "the independent power
potential of its allies, who until recently were the other major
industrial nations."
- "This means the U.S. has been swimming upstream against the
general tendency of international politics and making life harder for
itself than it needs to be."
- "It also ignores the presence of capable states in these regions
that would likely otherwise provide for their own security and balance
against emerging threats if the U.S. were not maintaining them as
dependents."
- In East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East alike, U.S. "buck
passing" would lead to a tolerable balance, not the successful hegemonic
ascent of a rivalrous state.
- If our "goal is security rather than power for its own sake, it
would be more effective to take a 'hands-off' approach by incentivizing
regional powers to provide for their own security and allowing regional
equilibria to emerge."
Read the full explainer: "Grand strategy: The balance of power"
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"Some
cheer aid for Ukraine and deplore aid to Israel. Others, the reverse.
Structurally, though, the outcome is this: $95 billion to prop up an
unsustainable U.S. global primacy, in this case to fund wars for which
we and our partners conspicuously lack a sound strategy."
– Carnegie Senior Fellow Stephen Wertheim on last week's passage of a new round of war aid [X]
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Poll: Younger Americans are less likely to say major conflicts are important to U.S. national interests
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Survey data published by Pew Research Center
shows a substantial generation gap in Americans' perceptions of the
Israel-Hamas war, tensions between Taiwan and China, and Russia's war on
Ukraine. "For all three conflicts we asked about," Pew reports, "the
oldest Americans are more likely than younger Americans to perceive them
as important," with particularly large gaps (25 percent each) on the
matters of Israel and Taiwan.
See more results on related questions from Pew here.
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Today, when the prospects for
negotiations appear dim and relations between the parties are nearly
nonexistent, the history of the spring 2022 talks might seem like a
distraction with little insight directly applicable to present
circumstances. But Putin and Zelensky surprised everyone with their
mutual willingness to consider far-reaching concessions to end the war.
They might well surprise everyone again in the future.
Read the full analysis here, and see also a response in The Guardian from the Stimson Center's Emma Ashford:
[T]his history refutes the notion that neither Ukraine nor
Russia is willing to negotiate, or to consider compromises in order to
end this war. Some Western supporters of Ukraine point to extreme
statements by Russian elites to argue that there can be no negotiated end
to this conflict—Russia will never be satisfied until it is victorious.
Yet these early negotiations clearly disprove that point. Both sides
presented their demands, and traded drafts back and forth with
concessions on certain issues.
Read more from Ashford here.
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