United States: The Dysfunctional Superpower
America Confronts Serious Domestic Calamities & Major External Threats
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Whether America likes it or not, it now faces significant domestic and external crises.
In a scintillating new essay in Foreign Affairs, the former US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama) spells out in detail how the United States got to this unenviable situation and what it must undertake to ward of the external threats. His in-depth essay is de rigueur reading for theoreticians and practitioners of international relations (Sep. 29).
Gates, the quintessential theoretician-cum-practitioner, is of the opinion that never before in its history has the United States confronted such graver threats to its national security.
Never before has the US faced four allied antagonists – Russia, China, North Korea and Iran – simultaneously. What other observers may term the Evil Axis, could within a few years have a collective nuclear arsenal that is double that of the United States.
Not since the end of the Korean War has the United States to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia.
And no one can remember a time when a major antagonist had as much economic, scientific, technological and military power as China does today.
Domestic Constraints
Unfortunately, as Gates points out vividly, currently the United States is not at all in a position to provide the strong and coherent response necessary.
America’s fractured political leadership – both Republican and Democratic, in the executive White House and in the legislative Congress – have failed miserably to make clear to the American public the intimate ramifications of domestic and external policies.
Thus, the American public in general is supinely unaware of the grave threats – and the interconnections — posed by the countries of the Axis of Evil.
Bruce Stokes, Visiting Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund writes convincingly: “American global leadership faces a crisis – not of economic vitality, diplomatic prowess, or military strength but of legitimacy”, (“The Decline of the City Upon a Hill”, Foreign Affairs, Oct. 17).
Biden has blabbered about the grand contest between democracies and autocracies, but the fact is that the US has failed to articulate a long-term strategy to ensure that the United States, and democratic values more broadly, will prevail. This is especially true of winning the hearts and minds of the Global South.
Perceptions & Convictions of Putin & Xi
The leaders of America’s two main rivals have much in common, but two traits stand out:
- Both Putin and Xi are convinced that it is their personal destiny to restore the glorious days of their countries’ imperial past
- Both believe steadfastly that the developed democracies have passed their prime and have entered an irreversible decline.
[As an outsider, observing the terrible and unbelievable antics of the Republicans inside and outside of Congress, and the political madness of their champion Donald J. Trump, one can truly believe that the U.S. is in terminal decline].
But the acute danger lies elsewhere. Both Putin and Xi have already made major miscalculations at home and abroad and are most likely to make even more in the near future. A new world order after their conceptions would be an unmitigated disaster for the entire planet.
[And the roles of India, Brazil and South Africa are quite bizarre, to say the least].
Washington must, therefore, change Xi’s and Putin’s calculus with strategic vision and bold action.
Unfortunately, according to Gates, “the United States finds itself in a uniquely treacherous position: facing aggressive adversaries with a propensity to miscalculate yet incapable of mustering the unity and strength necessary to dissuade them.”
Successful deterrence requires certainty of commitments and constancy of response.
Unfortunately, American dysfunction has made American power erratic and unreliable – with potential catastrophic effects.
Xi’s Ambitions
Xi’s aspirations and sense of personal destiny entail significant risk of war in the Western Pacific, according to Gates.
Xi has already dramatically miscalculated at least three times:
- By departing from the supreme pragmatist Deng Xiaoping’s maxim of “hide your strength, bide your time’.
- Xi’s leftward ideological swing in economic policies.
- Xi’s “Zero Covid” policy.
Xi’s first priority is preserving the absolute power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
He has made it clear that his second priority is incorporating the self-ruled island of Taiwan into the mainland for which he has three options:
- Relentless measures short of war to pressure Taiwan to pre-emptively surrender;
- Imposing a full-scale naval blockade of the island;
- Launching an all-out invasion to conquer the island.
Putin’s Failed Gamble
Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014. He was successful in annexing some territory because of the cowardly appeasement policy of the Western powers.
He started an all-out invasion a second time in February 2022. This time, he was completely out of his element. His catastrophic Russia.
His use of brute force has failed miserably to bring Ukraine to its knees. His war efforts are now being sustained by China, Iran and now even North Korea.
He is avoiding a total military collapse only through a spineless and gutless nuclear threat – in fact, this pariah state par excellence [ also supported wholeheartedly by Biden’s intime friend Narendra Modi ] is holding the whole world to ransom by weaponizing energy and basic food.
Russia retains the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. And it has ten times as many tactical nuclear weapons – about 1,900.
Putin is confident that his modernized nuclear arsenal will deter any military action against Russia.
Consequently, he is counting on a rough military stalemate to exhaust the Ukrainians, betting that by next spring or summer, the public in Europe and the United States will tire of sustaining them.
Sam Greene, Professor of Russian Politics at King’s College, London paints a realistic, but unflattering picture of the West struggling to understand Russia – but could still help Ukraine win (“The Black Box of Moscow”, Foreign Affairs, Sep.22).
Above all, Putin is hoping very much that his friend Donald Trump will rise to challenge Biden and the Democrats and frustrate their efforts to support Ukraine.
America Impaired
And that is the crux of the problem. America is fighting a two-front war – one against antagonists abroad, principally against the new axis of evil; and second, a domestic front against Trump and his cohorts of MAGA-Republicans (“Make America Great Again”).
These are ‘Americans in name only’ [‘AINO’] , they are fundamentally against basic American values – they have long been treacherous and traitorous and do not respect the laws or the Constitution itself.
Thus, they choose to ignore reality. The United States is currently in quite a strong position vis-à-vis both China and
Above all, the US economy is doing quite well.
Business investment in new manufacturing facilities, some of it subsidized by new government infrastructure and technology programmes, is booming.
New investments by both governments and private business in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, robotics, and bioengineering promise to widen the technological and economic gap between the United States and every other country for many years to come.
Diplomatically, the war in Ukraine has handed the United States new opportunities. Russia’s naked aggression has allowed the US to strengthen and expand NATO.
Gates concedes that the US military has been healthily funded in recent years, and modernization programmes are underway in all three arms of the nuclear triad – intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), bombers, and submarines.
America’s Political Dysfunction & Policy Failures
There is no denying the fact that America’s chronic political dysfunction and policy failures are undermining its overall success.
It would not be correct to argue – as Gates has done – that the US economy is threatened by runaway federal government spending.
Nor have politicians – at least Democrats – failed to see Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as basic necessities, rather than as “spiraling cost of entitlements”.
Trump’s administration was an unmitigated failure diplomatically. His disdain for US allies, his soft spot for authoritarian leaders, his capacity to sow doubt about US’ commitments to its NATO allies, and his generally erratic and unreliable behavior greatly undermined US credibility and respect across the globe.
[And this atrocious, evil person – with no saving grace whatsoever — has no compunction to seek a new term as US president; and half the US population is willing to support him!].
And most unfortunately, just seven months into the administration of President Joe Biden, the United States’ abrupt, thoughtless, inconsiderate and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan further damaged the world’s confidence in Washington.
But this was only the tip of the iceberg of the negligence of US diplomacy towards the Global South.
As Gates rightly concludes, the US competition with China and even Russia for markets and influence is global. It cannot afford to be absent anywhere.
The US can now turn the tables and counter neo-colonial and neo-imperial policies world-wide!
However, Biden considers India’s Modi a close and reliable strategic ally. This trust is misplaced. India cannot be considered a leader of the Global South, it is too close to the naked aggressor Russia and violater of the UN Charter.
Moreover, Modi’s India has a miserable domestic human rights record. Now it is practicing ‘might is right’ and using targeted external extermination as an inherent part of its foreign policy to get rid of ‘enemies of the state/motherland’. The US cannot tolerate such reprehensible foreign behavior. India’s aspiration to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council must, therefore, be kept on ice.
Meeting the Moment: A New Reorientation?
Gates concludes: “The epic contest between the United States , travelers on the other is well underway.”
He argues that to ensure that the US is in the strongest possible position to deter its adversaries from making additional strategic miscalculations, US leaders – both Democratic and Republican – must repair the breakdown in the decades-long bipartisan agreement with respect to the US’ leading role in the world.
Gates writes that US leaders – on both sides of the aisle – must make it clear to Americans in general that despite the high costs, US global leadership is sine qua non for preserving international peace and security.
The highest priority is the crucial nexus between the European and Asian theatres – that a successful Ukrainian resistance to the Russian aggression is crucial for deterring China from invading Taiwan.
[The current academic discussion about the world losing its unipolar moment and trending towards a multipolar order seems far-fetched and other worldly!].
Gates points out that American global leadership has provided 75 years of great-power peace – the longest stretch in centuries. He insists that the US President, the Congress and all US leaders must relentlessly point out the need for continuing US leadership in the world – to keep authoritarian predators at bay.
Restoring US domestic public support for US global leadership is indeed the highest priority policy-wise, but before exercising that crucial role, the US must first take other significant steps:
- The US needs to go beyond “pivoting” to Asia.
- The US’ strategy must incorporate all the instruments of its national power.
- The US must rethink its nuclear strategy in the face of a Sino-Russian alliance.
- Congress must change the way it appropriates money for the Defense Department.
Less Talk, More Action
In the face of continuing real and present danger – both domestically and internationally – Gates makes a powerful plea for more concerted action, given that:
- The US domestic scene is far from orderly (to put it mildly);
- The American body politic has turned inward;
- Congress has descended into bickering, incivility, and brinkmanship;
- Successive US presidents have either disavowed or done a poor job explaining America’s global role.
However, recognizing that a problem exists and taking steps to ameliorate the situation, will go a long way to contend with such powerful, risk-prone autocrats and make the world safer.
As war-time British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of the United States in 1943: “The price of greatness is responsibility.”
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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