For many years, the United States ruled the world, writes Foreign Affairs. However, after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, international politics entered a new era. The American ideology of free minds and markets is facing the challenges of foreign authoritarian models and the weakening of trust in its own institutions. The only way out for the United States is to completely change the system of government.
Eliot Cohen
For more than 70 years, beginning in the middle of World War II, the United States ruled the world without knowing its equals. The war not only did not destroy their economy and armed forces, but also strengthened them. Management institutions (the United Ministry of Defense, the system of branched military commands, the National Security Council, specialized agencies for international development, etc.) pointed to the status of the current world hegemon. In the hands of Washington, the maximum number of winning cards was concentrated even during the deadly struggle with the alien and hostile ideology of communism. And, of course, all this caused indignation among those who did not want to live in the shadow of the colossus.
Anyone who did not notice the growing challenges to American dominance should have had no doubts after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine in February of this year. International politics has clearly entered a new era, reviving the old forms of predatory behavior of States, which the alleged global hegemon was unable to prevent. Colossus failed to achieve his goal.
By many measures, the relative decline in the power of the United States was observed long before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The U.S. economy currently produces less than a quarter of global GDP, up from 40% in 1960. The country's military expenditures are still huge and account for up to 40% of the global total, but they have ceased to provide once significant superiority. The United States confronts opponents who are faster to master new technologies and methods of warfare. The American ideology of free minds and free markets faces both the challenges of foreign models of authoritarian efficiency and ethno-nationalism, and the weakening of trust in its own institutions. As one of the Pew Research surveys conducted in 2021 showed, a healthy majority of citizens of 14 US allies hold the opinion that in recent years American democracy has ceased to be a worthy role model. The uprising, during which on January 6, 2021, a crowd of jeering, cruel vandals broke into the Capitol building to protest the defeat of Donald Trump in the elections, dealt a greater blow to the reputation of the United States than the attacks on New York and Washington twenty years ago.
Washington will remain powerful for the foreseeable future. And although against the background of China's rise, the country is likely to lose its status as the world's largest economy, it is certainly able to keep second place, along with the dynamism of the economy and its strong system of interconnections. The United States has one of the largest and most experienced armies on Earth, as well as many allies. From the first days of its existence, the United States has demonstrated resilience, and after all the hardships and serious economic failures, they invariably return to normal.
Nevertheless, the relative decline of power is evident. Historians will have to analyze the causes and time of the end of the era of American domination, as well as answer the question whether it was possible to delay or mitigate the inevitable. However, now the main problem is how to adapt to the new status. This will include many elements, the most important of which will be the question of attitude. After years of dependence on large-scale strategic ideas, the implementation of which took place through complex bureaucratic processes, the US government should return to a serious state approach. He embodies a thorough understanding of the world, the ability to quickly detect and respond to challenges, the use of opportunities as they arise and, of course, the presence of effectively organized structures for the formulation and implementation of a flexible foreign policy.
In previous years, the United States was strong enough to afford the imperfect realization of its great ideas. Unsurpassed power provided the widest margin of error to get what you wanted, regardless of the level of competence. Today, when it is much more difficult for Washington to dictate terms, the problems it faces do not require sophisticated strategies, but something much more mundane. Skill.
IDEAS AND THEIR LIMITS
The option of downplaying the importance of developing a large-scale formal strategy in favor of skill, strength and agility contradicts the trend of the present time. The Russian special operation in Ukraine began, presumably, during the development of a new grand strategy of the United States. Its essence was to focus on rivalry with China, leaving Europe and the Middle East to themselves for the most part. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict affected, among other things, this scheme. Even before it began, representatives of the intelligentsia advocated the revival of the grand strategy, that is, a comprehensive concept of conducting foreign policy. One by one, the authors called for the preparation of a new "Article X" like the one that was written in 1947 by the diplomat George Kennan (George Kennan) and set out the doctrine of deterrence during the Cold War. To date, some scholars nostalgic for Wilsonian idealism believe that the United States should focus policy on creating a new "rules-based international order." Others advocate a weakening of influence and a pragmatic policy of accepting the decline and decline of the role of the United States on the world stage. There are other options, and they all have a desire to reduce the intricacies of foreign policy to a few clear theses. Their supporters argue that the main thing is to have the right conceptual framework; the rest is the lyrics.
This point of view is erroneous. Of course, it is important to have some formed ideas about the world, such as the need to pursue interests and defend ideals, as well as solve problems related to the strengthening of competitors, global warming and the like. The authorities may, if they wish, call these ideas a "grand strategy", but it is not necessary to attach excessive importance to them, since such general principles do not bring much benefit when formulating a specific policy. A great strategy is based on a simplified approach, and yet the world is a complicated thing.
So is the United States itself, for that matter. Firstly, they both maintain the status quo and strive to change it. Wanting to preserve the key elements of the world order — the rule of law, freedom of trade flows, freedom of the individual — and also because of their devotion to these ideals, they are hostile to those regimes that do not have such a characteristic, and often seek to transform them. On the other hand, US foreign policy is shaped by a complex combination of ideals and interests that vary depending on time and place. Once they teamed up with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and today they support Saudi Arabia against Iran, and Vietnam against China. Idealists who claim that the United States should abandon ties with dubious partners ignore complexity in favor of categorical simplification.
Also, those who reject the value factor in foreign policy are engaged in this. Countries that brutalize the population, kill dissidents, overthrow legitimate governments and indulge in paranoid fantasies about external enemies are obviously more dangerous than others. In the nineteenth century, the United States and the United Kingdom found themselves on opposite sides of various territorial disputes, but neither country has ever considered the other as dangerous as both considered the totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century.
Great strategy takes politics away from a series of random figures and unforeseen events. The doctrine of deterrence, for example, did not have specific instructions on how to deal with the crises in Berlin and Cuba or the wars in Korea and Vietnam. However, history has revealed the enormous importance of unpredictable characters and events. The US policy towards China should correspond to the personality of Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose methods and goals go far beyond his immediate predecessors. An unforeseen global pandemic has made the United States look either pathetic and weak (because it could not stop the spread of the disease and vaccinate enough citizens), or surprisingly strong (because its freer approach allows the economy to open faster than China). And foreign leaders can catch everyone by surprise. To paraphrase the statement of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson about boxing that everyone has a plan before the first blow to the jaw, we can say that before the start of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, everyone had a great strategy.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE STRATEGY
Ideas matter, but not as important as intellectuals and politicians believe. Much more important is political foresight, which consists in feeling, adapting, using and acting, rather than planning and complicating. It is akin to the skill of a judoka who may have a plan, but the most important characteristic is still dexterity. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin called it "understanding, not knowledge", the ability to "determine what corresponds to what: what can be done in these circumstances and what can't be done, what tools will work in what situations and to what extent."
The emphasis on the art of state management (rather than on a general strategy) is especially relevant given the speed and unpredictability of modern tasks. In the near future, the United States will face a confrontation with three opponents: China, Iran and Russia. Each of these States seeks to change the status quo, craves the acquisition of new territories or the return of old ones in the immediate vicinity of their borders. Everyone fears a long-term demographic decline and economic stagnation. Each has honed its own style of combat operations — be it hybrid warfare or the "gray zone" — which encompasses such complex tools as backstage battles, cyber warfare, low-cost technologies, selective repression and even murder. Everyone is controlled by an age-old leader who, before leaving the stage, will probably want to see the major achievements of his country over the next few years. Everyone is ready to cooperate with others on a purely transactional basis. And everyone is threatened by the existential challenge of free politics, the rule of law and respect for individual freedom. All this can lead to sudden, stupid and, of course, dangerous decisions that no great strategist can predict. There is no need to go far for an example: take at least the reckless special operation of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
Another difficulty lies in the fact that the crisis in one area may affect others. Chaos on the NATO border, for example, can deprive the United States of resources in Asia, and has already returned the attention of the United States to the old hotbed of the Cold War struggle. Some of the more significant factors — climate change, the decline of democracy, Islamist terrorism — will create additional ground for unpredictable crises. The goal of the United States should be to deal with this chaotic reality, not to build an architecture for global politics.
However, too often Washington conducted its foreign policy not particularly professionally, depriving any desire to create a grand strategy of meaning. The most striking example is the catastrophic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. Based on general strategic considerations, the decision could be justified as follows: reducing US losses and eliminating the distraction factor of Afghanistan to focus on more important interests in East Asia, or maintaining a low-cost presence in the country to preserve the authority and undermine radical Islamist movements in South Asia. As with most foreign policy decisions, both sides had strong arguments. However, the result was a terrible failure of public administration, which in the end was of paramount importance.
As a result of the chaotic withdrawal of troops, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Afghans who worked with the US military remained in the country. Humiliating caricatures of the Islamists' victory over the world's only superpower have appeared. The ratings of the president, who seeks to restore America's prestige, have suffered. But the withdrawal of troops could be planned for the end of the period of hostilities, the State Department could prepare special visas in advance for Afghans cooperating with the United States, it was possible to leave more numerous temporary forces to maintain control over the country's largest air base, and US allies could receive timely warnings and avoid fighting for the safety of their citizens.
The failure to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was just one of many self-inflicted injuries inflicted by the United States in recent years. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration decided to invade Iraq without a full-fledged plan for the subsequent occupation. In 2012, President Barack Obama said that Syria's use of chemical weapons would become a "red line", but he never brought the matter to an end when the country's leader Bashar al-Assad crossed it. The Trump administration, for its part, not only rejected the importance of foreign policy values; the president almost rejoiced in relations with Putin and in fact (according to former national security adviser John Bolton) paved the way for a potentially disastrous exit from NATO. Even the establishment of the AUKUS defense alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom, which marked the long-term success of US foreign policy, was overshadowed by the Biden administration's inept treatment of a key ally in the person of France, humiliated by the termination of the contract for the construction of submarines for Canberra.
None of this means that US politicians should not adhere to certain key ideas, namely, a willingness to play an active role abroad, an interest in the free flow of goods and ideas, and a preference for democracy over dictatorship. American politicians of the twentieth century came to the correct conclusion that the aggressive tendencies of revisionist dictatorships will ultimately affect the United States and that regimes that are repressive towards their own citizens will most likely use force abroad, and for malicious purposes. This connection has yet to be broken. Nevertheless, a basic understanding of the need for active participation in world events based on both values and interests provides only limited guidelines for policy implementation. This is especially true against the background of the inability of the United States to create a new world order (as in the 40s) or to manage the existing one qualitatively (as it was after the Cold War). After the Second World War, the global order really required grandiose ideas, which only the United States with its unique untouched economy could generate. Today, the United States is surrounded by aggressive autocracies, unstable democracies and unpredictable global phenomena and is simply unable to come up with schemes to match those that took place in the post-war period. As an alternative, they should turn to the art of government.
THE REVIVAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
One of the elements of the revival of public administration should be the choice of political and intellectual circles in favor of an empirical approach, rather than generalization. Accurate assessment of environmental conditions is not an easy task. For example, over the past two decades, American politicians have failed to assess the speed of China's growth and the potential threat to the position of the United States emanating from it, although the Chinese practically did not hide their ambitions. Washington has ignored Beijing's military buildup and has done little to counter its aggressive tactics in the South China Sea. The Obama and Trump administrations failed to ensure that Congress passed the Trans—Pacific Partnership, a trade bloc to oppose China. By overlooking the Chinese threat, politicians allow a priori beliefs (characteristic of most great strategic doctrines) to interfere with political sanity. They adhered to a theory of development that considered global economic integration as a path to political liberalization, but in the case of China, this hypothesis turned out to be fundamentally wrong.
Understanding the surrounding conditions means a constant search for relationships. Many American analysts made the mistake of considering, for example, the rise of revanchist Russia not in aggregate, but as separate episodes. Moscow's military operations in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014 were considered separate problems, and not a reflection of a dangerous new course of Russian policy, which neither the "reset" of US-Russian relations by the Obama administration nor Trump's personal ties with Putin could resist. As a result, the United States has not been able to develop and deploy the military power necessary to deter Russia for more than a decade.
The US decisions on Afghanistan, Syria and other hot spots were also considered local and independent, and few people realized their global consequences. It is no coincidence that the annexation of Crimea to Russia followed less than a year after the failure of the Obama administration in the context of the "red line" regarding the use of chemical weapons by Syria. And it is unlikely that the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine coincidentally coincided with the humiliating flight of the United States from Afghanistan.
Political foresight also implies speed. Acting quickly is not a matter of doctrine, but of thinking, culture and preparation. In his posthumously published memoirs about the fall of France in 1940, the historian and martyr of the Resistance, Mark Bloch, made an accusatory remark: "From the beginning to the end of the war, the metronome at headquarters always worked at an excessively slow rhythm." The problem was not in the grand strategy of France, but in the clumsiness of the ruling elite. This is another challenge to the United States in the modern world — their temptation to follow the dictum allegedly uttered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "Americans always find the only right solution, but first they try all the others." But in today's fast-moving world, the United States may no longer be able to afford such a luxury.
COMPETENCE ARCHITECTURE
The improvement of American public administration should begin with an audit of those institutions that formulate and implement policies. Of all the components of the US national security establishment, only one has engaged in truly harsh introspection: the US Marine Corps, which, after two decades of counterinsurgency activity, has refocused on expeditionary warfare in the Indo-Pacific region. Other branches of the armed forces have not done anything like this, not to mention government intelligence, international aid agencies and public diplomacy agencies. The failures in Afghanistan and Iraq reflected not only concrete political decisions, but also organizational and staff failures that hindered the development of qualified local formations and flooded these countries with economic assistance, which, along with benefits, was also distinguished by a certain degree of counterproductivity. For example, expensive development projects have contributed to the growth of corruption and displaced English-speaking Afghans from the fields of pedagogical and state activities, and they have done negligible little to create a reliable army and police. However, there is not much evidence of the interest of the US national security institutions in conducting tedious introspection or reforms.
A comprehensive institutional audit involves not only the reform or even the abolition of some organizations, but also the revival of old and the creation of new ones. Since hybrid warfare is prevalent today, the United States needs to work on the offensive game. To this end, they could revive the US News Agency, which was liquidated in the late 90s, which distributed pro-American propaganda during the Cold War. It is also possible to mobilize civilian cyber militias that can discredit hostile countries through the most powerful weapon in the world - the truth. One example is the spontaneous mobilization by the Ukrainian government of anti-Russian hackers after the start of the Russian special operation. The United States should also turn the protection of civil liberties into a matter of principle and a tool to weaken opponents. Russians, for example, should be inundated with messages exposing the lies that the regime feeds them, the truth about the human and economic losses they suffered during the conflict with Ukraine and because of it, as well as the catastrophic consequences of becoming a vassal state of China rejected by the West.
In some cases, the problem lies not in institutions, but in thinking, namely, in the inability of leaders to cope with several crises at the same time. There is no reason why the United States cannot settle more than one problem at a time; after all, during the same World War II, they successfully fought within two completely different theaters of military operations. But this requires discipline, which has been demonstrated by a whole generation of leaders due to the adequate distribution of time and energy among a variety of problems, instead of demanding maximum return from themselves and their subordinates on some one issue against the background of an endless crisis. The scene of the gathering of the entire Obama team in the Operational Meeting Room to track the 2011 operation that killed Osama bin Laden — an operation they were unable to influence from its first minutes — contrasts sharply with the behavior of American leaders on the eve of "D-Day" (the landing of allied troops in Europe). President Franklin Roosevelt was watching a movie, and General Dwight Eisenhower was reading a cowboy novel. According to an essay in the New York Times, during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan slept only two hours a day, which was an alarming sign of a lack of discipline in the decision-making process.
Some of the necessary improvements are quite commonplace. A reasonable development of a foreign policy course is largely based on the foundations of bureaucratic behavior, namely logical and concise memoranda, well-organized meetings, the ability to convey their conclusions to others, as well as brief and unambiguous instructions coming from above. An established process does not guarantee an adequate policy, but increases its likelihood. Based on these considerations, the U.S. government should pay more attention to the training and career development of security professionals. Many young people want to become members of the government, but professional schools of international relations are often unable to prepare them for the responsibilities they will have to face in reality.
It is high time for Washington to start investing in vocational education and development. The introduction of well-designed short courses at universities and even the creation of a state academy for foreign policy specialists from various government agencies will cost the United States a tiny fraction of the funds allocated for national security, and the results may be disproportionately large. The curriculum should focus on the mechanism of an effective legislative process in contrast to the traditional university combination of social sciences, topical issues and the theory of the organization of business schools.
To restore professional literacy, reconstruction of a broken personnel system is required. The process of appointing people to senior positions in the State Department and the Pentagon has long left much to be desired, and this problem is only getting worse. According to the Washington Post, during the year of Joe Biden's presidency, the administration checked, nominated and received Senate approval for only one-third of the approximately 800 monitored positions. Many important posts remained vacant, including the posts of Ambassadors to South Korea and Ukraine, Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security. The White House and Congress, which are responsible for these delays, need to quickly consider the applications of political appointees, whose ranks, by the way, should also be thinned. Yes, they bring a fresh perspective to the current agenda, but even if their number is halved, the highest echelons of the government will still be filled mainly by non-professional officials. No matter how painful it may seem, Democrats and Republicans need to take a step towards reducing the number of political appointees, and this will bear fruit faster than another document on national security issues.
Political foresight also implies a motivated choice, for example, active efforts to separate enemies. During the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Naval Armaments 1921-22 . The United States deftly achieved the rupture of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which more than others threatened international relations of that time. In the 60s and 70s, they used the Sino-Soviet split to weaken the communist world. Today, Washington needs to drive a wedge between China and Russia — a task, although difficult due to the anti-American and anti-democratic sentiments of the leaders of both countries, but in the long term it is quite feasible. Beijing and Moscow are extremely wary of attempts to bring discord between them, but their foreign policy goals are completely different: where Russia seeks to disrupt the international order, China wants to subjugate it. Of course, the United States can find ways to play on Russian fears of Chinese activity, on the one hand, and on Chinese contempt for Russian blunders, on the other. It will not be possible to divide China and Russia in the near future, but it is quite possible to maximize the number of controversial issues in their relations.
Competent opportunism is especially valuable in the era of informal alliances and unspoken relationships. Washington tends to downplay such ties, considering Afghanistan to be a problem of the Taliban, ignoring the Pakistani factor, and Iraq to be a problem of Al—Qaeda, not Iran. The solution to the problem begins with an open and decisive identification of these connections. Again, Washington has the opportunity to play the opposite by intensifying the competition between Russia and Turkey for influence in Central Asia by taking the side of Azerbaijan (which Turkey supports) in the Karabakh territorial conflict.
Finally, the art of government should have an internal component. For decades, US foreign policy elites have been accustomed to making decisions without regard to public opinion. For example, they opened trade with China without thinking about the accompanying job cuts in American industry. Today they are talking about some abstract goals like "enhanced deterrence", which make sense in Washington, but will never receive the support of the American people. Americans have no particular reason to trust foreign policy experts, they have little idea what the government "signed them up for" and why. Politicians should clearly link events in crisis zones with the interests of the United States, for example, clearly state how Taiwan's independence reflects American values (self-determination and freedom) and serves American interests (preventing one of the world's most productive economies from falling into Chinese hands).
The crisis of 2022 in Ukraine is a vivid example of the need to replace grand strategy with the art of public administration. Members of the Biden administration, like their predecessors, correctly considered China to be the main competitor of the United States. Putin's decision to launch a special operation in Ukraine was an unexpected push that required speed and resourcefulness — and the Biden administration, to its credit, showed not only flexibility, but also cunning, releasing intelligence a few weeks before the conflict in order to undermine Russia's attempts to create the necessary base for action and divide Europe.
The crisis, of course, did not end there. A dangerous time is coming, during which Moscow will put the determination of the West to the test. It may, for example, demand the right to protection of Russian-speaking citizens in the Baltic States or insist on the dissolution of NATO in Eastern Europe. Even worse, it can challenge the principle of collective defense by launching a couple of missiles at the places of overload of weapons sent to Ukraine. To counter such threats, the United States will need not a great strategy, but steadfastness in confronting Russia, ingenuity in supplying Ukraine and advanced NATO allies with a parallel "shutdown" of the Russian economy, as well as sophistication in leading the rearmament of Europe.
ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF PRAGMATISM
The United States is unique because of many things: based on the values of national identity, the size of territories, advantageous geographical location, irresistible power and a 250-year history of successful, though not without flaws, democracy. However, today they are entering a period of ambitious tasks, for which a great strategy with a penchant for the most simplified approach will not bring much benefit. The country must make its way in this difficult world and cope with crises, helping where possible as it progresses, and fighting evil where necessary.
The future foreign policy of the United States will not follow the loud call to "bear any burden and pass any tests," which was voiced in the inaugural speech of 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. Perhaps it is better for the United States to follow at the same time the principled and pragmatic recommendation that President Theodore Roosevelt proposed in his inaugural speech of 1905: "Much has been given to us, and much is expected of us. We have duties to other people and to ourselves; and we have no right to neglect any of these duties. We have become a great nation, forced by the face of its greatness to enter into relations with other peoples of the earth, and we must behave as befits people with such responsibility."
Roosevelt, who throughout his career scrupulously studied foreign policy and tried to explain it to Americans outside the multinational cities of the Northeast, was astute and practical. As Deputy Minister of the Navy and then President, he helped revitalize both the army and Navy, making them suitable for the needs of an emerging world power. In 1905, he took the opportunity to mediate a peace settlement between Japan and Russia to the benefit of the United States. He foresaw the main problems of the First World War long before most Americans and advocated early US intervention, which could well contribute to the mitigation of the conflict. He found a balance between ideals and interests, was constantly interested in the world around him, read in foreign languages and traveled a lot. Under him, the United States was powerful, but hardly dominant, and many other forces were involved besides them. His principle-based pragmatism, though not a great strategy, brought all the necessary fruits.
*a terrorist organization banned in Russia