Is the era of American primacy ended?

(To Gino Lanzara)
20/11/17

Defining US foreign policy leads to having to consider basic concepts from which to then extend an attempt to analyze. Hegemony, Imperialism, and Supremacy propose perceptions that might attach to the American situation. That the US remains a superpower no doubt; that the definition of "American century"Coined by Henry Luce in the years 40 of the last century should be revised, however, is equally evident. The categorical interpretations are always to be taken with the springs, considering the ideological matrices underlying them; where Imperialism presupposes a totalitarian interference also in the internal affairs of the subordinate states, Egemonia postulates a noble and "moderate" principle of direction theorized by Tucidide, first and foremost as a cultural and non-coercive primacy, a benevolent leadership that, American case, however, comes to the point of meeting with domination on countries that conform to the imprinted hegemonic leadership.

The hegemony resides in the shrewd persuasion of a significant part of the political subjects involved to behave by addressing the interests and values ​​of the leading country, which acts in a context of sharing and not coercion. From this point of view, the hegemonic role is not a role acquired by divine right, but a presupposition that is constantly challenged by time and contingencies and which, in order to be preserved, needs constant updating. One wonders if the upper class Use has been and will be able to face this confrontation; to his (apparent) favor lies in the fact that since the end of 2 ^ WW, the USA has been the most significant and prominent hegemonic model of the whole story, along with the conviction that the idea of ​​"manifest destiny" and of "mission"Is an essential component of the collective spirit of the country itself. The end of bipolarism has highlighted the unilateralistic, technological-economic and military aspect that has led to a consolidation of hegemony on European actors and domination of the other countries concerned, even though globalization has created new players such as the China.

The case study, seen as recent US policy evolution, concerns the possibility that American hegemony may decline in a relatively short time, similar to what had happened in the past in the United Kingdom. The United States can boast an incomparable economic and military potential in the modern age, and above all, no obligation to defend overseas colonies, demonstrating that a hegemonic power does not necessarily have a formal empire, but must be able to have a naval power projected in the globe. Resuming the thought of Carl Schmitt, Thalassocracy is a hegemonic and globalizing task, since it submits the Earth to the logic of the Sea as it is bound to the supremacy of the streams. Also according to Brzezinski, the key American target is to avoid the formation of a Heartland that could question US maritime power.

The task of the recent Washington administrations should therefore be to preserve and strengthen this vision, inspiring the strategy of the last NATO missions; how to relaunch the hegemonic push by containing the inevitable friction with individual regional actors?

Taking into account the Soviet balance during the Cold War and the emergence of countries with the same American temperament, the US is now called to reaffirm, rather than a difficult hegemony, a solid supremacy capable of sublimate soft, hard, economic, and military power. However, the theory can not dissociate itself from reality, and in the American case it is necessary to deal with the two prevailing political souls (plus their nuances), the Democrat and the Republican, with the former still sensitive to the guilt of the Vietnam defeat and committed to pacifically validating an "exemplary" soft power; the second voted for kissinger realism voted to consolidate alliances and power projection. The theories about the "imperial" life cycles have always correlated economic power with geopolitical power; in spite of the explosion of financial bubbles and the failure of Bush and Obama's foreign policy to hold a central currency for both trade and sovereign wealth, it has allowed the US to acquire power with minimal costs thanks to a banking system dominant throughout the globe, able to block channels and access to funding, and usable in the same way and with the same methods as the Royal Navy cannons. The dominant position of the green card has allowed to accumulate a significant debt then "discharged" on other countries affected by the rebalancing burden, with the other coins in fact unable to replace the dollar.

What is becoming more difficult to interpret is the vision of international reality, the dialectical relationship between the "power - hegemony"And his"use - mission". Before Obama then Trump tried to resize the "mission"But with strong contrasts. Both The is With (e NeoCon) supported the various interventions without setting limits neither to the objectives, nor to the achievement of the prefixed targets but creating, unsuccessful after failure, a world populated by ideological enemies and in any case refractory to associate themselves with the vision of the mission designed by the USA. What is left to ask now is whether and how the Trump Administration's action can take place.

Obama has embarrassed embarrassing shortage of political courage in the face of an ambitious project, but in fact never really proposed to the American people, which envisaged a downsizing of the use of force with a simultaneous disengagement from the "hot" areas and the relaunch of the economic supremacy by creating an international space subject to US rules (TTIP, TAP). In addition to physiological Republican opposition, Obama has clashed with a paradoxical democratic interventionism and the problems created by allies committed to playing dense risks and driven by US inertia, so chilled to be able to mix all the useful elements to the genesis of a "perfect storm".

The predictions of the 1984 of Kehoane, which hoped for the birth of an international order with hegemonic characters but devoid of hegemony, have been defeated by the reality that in the new international order only finds chaos.

It is therefore the end of the "American century"? Joseph Nye rejects the hypothesis of decline, whether external (relative) that internal (absolute) despite the appearance of new international actors in the wake of the financial crises that have happened. To presume that the US is actually at risk of losing ground in favor of China would have the effect of confusing the principles of decline in terms of power management projected on its three dimensions, military, economic and soft persuasive. Among the international actors considered, the most dreadful is the Dragon; However, concrete data on the hand, even where China should economically overcome the United States, war and moral suasion of Washington would remain strong for a few decades. Europe is still devoid of identifiable and unified political and social personalities with a leading foreign policy of poor part participants' vision and rich in demagogy, while Japan, while enjoying a strong economy and a voluntary leadership, has to deal with a demographic problem of rare severity; Russia, driven by nationalism and anti-liberalism, is affected by an institutional structure and a weak, corrupt legal system and with a GDP unable to compete with the American one, while India fights against its paradoxes: a rare military arsenal power versus large pockets of widespread poverty; Brazil, more and more a clay-rich giant, potentially very rich, but prey to corruption and serious infrastructural shortages.

Only China has a growing GDP, with rapidly evolving FFAAs and a strong presence in cyberspace capable of triggering asymmetric conflicts, but with marked social and economic inequalities, frequent corruption and persistent and unsettled illiberalism. In summary Nye believes that even in the years to come, it will not be possible to exclude from leadership American, and if this ever gets lost, it will only happen to US responsibility, not merit of others. The endogenous factors are many, largely inherited from the past, and certainly not chargeable to this administration.

Looking back at the latest American politics, it is impossible to see how the White House has succeeded in three different "dynasties" of different political color: the Bush, the Clinton, the Obama. Despite the stability ensured by presidential re-election and exercise The of power sometimes in almost family form, the continuing openness of "internal discussion forums on social and cultural issues" that only led to fractures that could not be easily sanctioned, could lend the US the ability to use their own soft power. It is evident that a renewed Doctrine of Monroe it would not help America, but it is equally evident that obama's failure to use the constant popular consultation for the highest-level decisions has led the electorate to radical decisions. In this particular historical moment, President Trump is perhaps the least suitable and less paid politician in the art of diplomacy, but it is equally true that the political legacy left by the The is one of the most difficult to handle.

Europe, protected for a long time by the US, now seeks a difficult coordination between states that guarantee a common defense and, above all, exempt from paying the common (or reducing) pro-Atlantic alliances with Germany aimed at creating political and commercial divisions; North Korea, a culpably unresolved issue for years and handed over to Trump's hands, with democratic administrations committed to curing that pivot to Asia and those economic incentives and incentives that have allowed China to become one of the main ones competitorsbut urging Japanese revanscism, now more than ever aimed at regaining national pride never lost; the Ukrainian question, deflated and no longer controlled; the Syrian tragedy (in the picture an image taken last year in Palmyra), perhaps one of the peaks of decisionlessness of the administration The; the problems related to the openings granted but not ratified by Congress, the Castrista regime; the Arab Spring, abandoned to the many tragic outcomes, not least the assault on the American consulate seat in Benghazi; last but not least, the Israeli-Palestinian issue linked to Iran's "nuclear" concessions, a destabilizing regional power that aspires (perhaps even already reaching its target) to atomic power, which "force" the current US administration to reconsider the Saudi and above all Israeli relations, neglected by Obama, and now crucial for controlling the area by the only true secular democracy of the MO. Trump's negotiating and diplomatic relations (high and low) over the past year by Trump would appear to be aimed at reconfirming at least a supremacy that the US does not intend to grant, both from the predominant economic point of view and soft power.

Agree with the participants' vision Nye, and rapping it to reality, we can say that the age of American primacy has not yet come to an end, but it certainly is about significant changes, even because it is nevertheless necessary to consider the possibility that one day - not so far away - a country equally as enterprising and above all capable of directing force relations more decisively than it was in the post-bipolar world, they wanted the USA: the "Yankee"They are even more than prepared for war competition, but it seems that they have failed to realize that in international relations, the conflict, which is and should remain an exception, has in fact embarked on a diplomatic failure that America, in last 25 years, has appeared even more predisposed. The 21st century will still be inspired by the United States with their network of global alliances, and despite the failure of the smart power clintonian then resumed by Obama. Despite the assertion and publicity, the failure of obaminal multilateralism has deprived the US of an objective political vision, of the ability to imagine and realize a future attached to the power of the country that cultivated it, enabling a republican return more decisive and marked than it was it is reasonable to expect.

Henry Kissinger, on the Washington Post, wondered if the United States "needed a foreign policy"; probably Americans should simply abandon a narcissistic vision by embracing a more realistic and aware of the consequences of the decisions of a nuclear power. America first therefore, on a real basis and not based on frustrating or renunciating policies capable of destabilization only; although it is true that the US continues to swing between universalism ed exceptionalism, Between idealism e realismor, it is crucial that they rethink the thought of Otto von Bismark, for which "they are not the discussions they count but the potential". And the US holds it. And how.

(photo: US Army / US Navy / US Air Force / US Marine Corps / Online Defense / US DoD)