To Save the World Order

Sunday, September 30, 2018 - 12:00am

The Committee to Save the World Order

America’s Allies Must Step Up as America Steps Down

Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay

IVO H. DAALDER is President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013.

JAMES M. LINDSAY is Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

This essay is adapted from their forthcoming book, The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership (PublicAffairs, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay. Reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs.

The order that has structured international politics since the end of World War II is fracturing. Many of the culprits are obvious. Revisionist powers, such as China and Russia, want to reshape global rules [1] to their own advantage. Emerging powers, such as Brazil and India, embrace the perks of great-power status but shun the responsibilities that come with it. Rejectionist powers, such as Iran and North Korea, defy rules set by others. Meanwhile, international institutions, such as the UN [2], struggle to address problems that multiply faster than they can be resolved.

The newest culprit, however, is a surprise: the United States, the very country that championed the order’s creation. Seventy years after U.S. President Harry Truman sketched the blueprint for a rules-based international order [3]to prevent the dog-eat-dog geopolitical competition that triggered World War II, U.S. President Donald Trump has upended it. He has raised doubts about Washington’s security commitments to its allies [4], challenged the fundamentals of the global trading regime, abandoned the promotion of freedom and democracy as defining features of U.S. foreign policy, and abdicated global leadership. 

Trump’s hostility toward the United States’ own geopolitical invention [5] has shocked many of Washington’s friends and allies. Their early hopes that he might abandon his campaign rhetoric once in office and embrace a more traditional foreign policy have been dashed. As Trump has jettisoned old ways of doing business, allies have worked their way through the initial stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. In the typical progression, acceptance should come next.

But the story does not have to end that way. The major allies of the United States can leverage their collective economic and military might to save the liberal world order. France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the EU in Europe; Australia, Japan [6], and South Korea in Asia; and Canada in North America are the obvious candidates to supply the leadership that the Trump administration will not. Together, they represent the largest economic power in the world, and their collective military capabilities are surpassed only by those of the United States. This “G-9” should have two imperatives: maintain the rules-based order [7] in the hope that Trump’s successor will reclaim Washington’s global leadership role and lay the groundwork to make it politically possible for that to happen. This holding action will require every member of the G-9 to take on greater global responsibilities. They all are capable of doing so; they need only summon the will.

Economic cooperation is a good place to start, and G-9 members are already creating alternatives to the trade deals Trump is abandoning. But they will have to go further, increasing military cooperation and defense spending and using a variety of tools at their disposal to take over the U.S. role as the defender and promoter of democracy, freedom, and human rights across the globe. If they seize this opportunity, the G-9 countries will not just slow the erosion of an order that has served them and the world well for decades; they will also set the stage for the return of the kind of American leadership they want and that the long-term survival of the order demands. Indeed, by acting now, the G-9 will lay the basis for a more stable and enduring world order—one that is better suited to the power relations of today and tomorrow than to those of yesterday, when the United States was the undisputed global power. 

The World America Made 

The emergence of a rules-based order was not an inevitability but the result of deliberate choices. Looking to avoid the mistakes the United States made after World War I, Truman and his successors built an order based on collective security, open markets, and democracy. It was a radical strategy that valued cooperation over competition: countries willing to follow the lead of the United States would flourish, and as they did, so, too, would the United States. 

“The world America made,” as the historian Robert Kagan has put it, was never perfect. During the Cold War, the reach of American influence was small. The United States at times ignored its own lofty rhetoric to pursue narrow interests or misguided policies. But for all its shortcomings, the postwar order was a historic success [8]. Europe and Japan were rebuilt. The reach of freedom and democracy was extended. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S.-led postwar order was suddenly open to all. 

But that success also created new stresses. The rapid growth in the movement of goods, money, people, and ideas across borders as more countries joined the rules-based order produced new problems, such as climate change and mass migration, that national governments have struggled to handle. Economic and political power dispersed as countries such as Brazil, China, and India embraced open markets, complicating efforts to find common ground on trade, terrorism, and a host of other issues. Iran and Russia recoiled as the U.S.-led order encroached on their traditional spheres of interest. And the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the global financial crisis of 2007–8 raised doubts about the quality and direction of U.S. leadership.

Upon leaving office in 2017, U.S. President Barack Obama urged his successor to embrace the indispensability of U.S. leadership. “It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend,” he wrote in a note he left in the Oval Office. Trump took the opposite approach. He campaigned on a platform that global leadership was the source of the United States’ problems, not a solution to them. He argued that friends and allies had played Washington for a sucker, free-riding on its military might while using multilateral trade deals to steal American jobs. 

At the start of Trump’s tenure, his selection of proponents of mainstream foreign policy, such as James Mattis as secretary of defense and Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, for top national security jobs spurred hopes at home and abroad that he would temper his “America first” vision. But by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Paris agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal; embracing mercantilist trade policies; and continuing to question the value of NATO, Trump has shown that he said what he meant and meant what he said. He is not looking to reinvigorate the rules-based order by leading friends and allies in a common cause. They are the foes he wants to beat.

Trump’s preference for competition over cooperation reflects his belief that the United States will fare better than other countries in a world in which the strong are free to do as they will. But he fails to understand that doing better than others is not the same as doing well. In fact, he is forfeiting the many advantages the United States has derived from the world it created: the support of strong and capable allies that follow its lead, the ability to shape global rules to its advantage, and the admiration and trust that come from standing up for freedom, democracy, and human rights. 

Worse, by alienating allies and embracing adversaries, Trump is providing an opening for China to rewrite the rules of the global order in its favor. “As the U.S. retreats globally, China shows up,” Jin Yinan, a top Chinese military official, gloated last year. Beijing has positioned itself as a defender of the global trading system, the environment, and international law even as it exploits trade rules, builds more coal-burning power stations, and expands its control in the South China Sea. This bid to supplant the United States as the global leader is hardly destined to succeed. China has few friends and a lengthy list of internal challenges, including an aging work force, deep regional and economic inequalities, and a potentially brittle political system. But a world with no leader and multiple competing powers poses its own dangers, as Europe’s tragic history has demonstrated. The United States will not be the only country to pay the price for a return to such a world. 

The New Guard

The consequences of the United States’ abdication of global leadership have not been overlooked abroad. If anything, Trump’s policies have highlighted how much other countries have invested in the rules-based order and what they stand to lose with its collapse. “The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts in sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” said Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, early in Trump’s presidency.

That recognition has driven repeated efforts by U.S. allies to placate Trump. They have looked for common ground despite deep substantive disagreements—not to mention Trump’s ham-handed tactics, petty insults, and unpopularity among their own citizens. But so far, these efforts to compromise haven’t worked, and they aren’t likely to for one simple reason: what U.S. allies want to save, Trump wants to upend.

The United States’ friends and allies—with the G-9 countries in the lead—need to act more ambitiously. They must focus less on how to work with Washington and more on how to work without it—and, if necessary, around it. As German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told a Japanese audience in Tokyo last July, “If we pool our strengths . . . we can become something like ‘rule shapers,’ who design and drive an international order that the world urgently needs.” 

Of the potential areas for G-9 cooperation, trade holds the greatest promise, as the G-9 pulls significant economic weight and has already looked for ways to blunt Trump’s protectionist policies. The G-9 countries clearly have the capacity to push their point. Collectively, they generate one-third of global output, more than double China’s share and nearly 50 percent more than that of the United States. And they account for roughly 30 percent of global imports and exports, more than double both China’s and the United States’ share. 

As important as the economic pull of the G-9 countries is the willingness they have already shown to counter Trump’s mercantilist policies. After Trump withdrew the United States from the TPP shortly after taking office, Australia, Canada, and Japan led the effort to salvage the trade deal as a counterweight to China. In early 2018, the 11 remaining members agreed on a revised pact [9] that preserved most of the deal’s market-opening provisions; it will create a free-trade zone of 500 million people that will account for about 15 percent of global trade. Colombia, Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand are among the nations that have expressed an interest in joining the so-called TPP-11, broadening its potential clout. The EU is also a logical partner for the TPP-11 countries. It has already negotiated separate trade agreements with Canada, Japan, and South Korea and has begun negotiating one with Australia; the EU-Japanese deal created a market of 600 million people, the largest open economic area in the world. 

The TPP-11, the EU-Japanese free-trade agreement [10], and similar deals will intensify competition between the G-9 and the United States. The agreements give G-9 exporters an advantage over their U.S. counterparts in terms of market access and standards. But even with the growing need to work around or without the United States, the G-9 should still explore ways to cooperate with Washington. One example is the need to reform the World Trade Organization. Trump has repeatedly 

criticized the WTO, at times suggesting he might pull the United States out. That’s likely an empty threat, because leaving would decidedly disadvantage U.S. firms. But Washington and the G-9 share legitimate concerns about the global trading regime, particularly when it comes to China’s predatory practices. They might, for example, work to limit the sorts of subsidies that give state-owned enterprises in China and elsewhere a competitive advantage, replace the current system of “self-graduation” with objective standards for when developing countries must shoulder their full WTO obligations, and revamp the dispute-settlement process so that decisions are rendered more quickly and adhere more closely to the rules member countries have agreed on. 

Cooperation Is Key

Security cooperation will be more challenging. European allies have the necessary mechanisms for cooperation through NATO and the EU, but they don’t spend sufficiently on defense. Asian allies spend more on defense, but they lack an equivalent to NATO or the EU. Yet if G-9 members can make good on commitments to invest more in their own security, the potential waiting to be tapped is impressive. The G-9 represents a military power second only to the United States. In 2017, G-9 countries together spent more than $310 billion on defense, at least a third more than what China spends and more than four times what Russia spends. Every G-9 country ranked in the top 15 of the largest military spenders in the world. 

When it comes to defense, much of Trump’s criticism of U.S. allies is misguided, if not outright wrong. Despite Trump’s griping that allies don’t pay their fair share, they in fact cover a substantial part of the cost of the United States’ military presence in their countries: Germany contributes 20 percent of the cost, South Korea contributes 40 percent, and Japan pays half. What is more, the integrated command structures of U.S. and NATO forces act as a force multiplier to deliver a far bigger punch than would be possible if the United States had to act on its own. It should also not be forgotten that large numbers of allied troops have fought and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan and elsewhere. 

But Trump’s complaint about free-riding allies—which several of his predecessors shared but expressed more diplomatically—has some merit with regard to both European and Asian allies. No alliance can survive if its members refuse to carry their own weight, and many U.S. allies, especially in Europe, depend too heavily on Washington for their security. They conceded as much in 2014, when every NATO member pledged to spend at least two percent of GDP on defense by 2024. Although the United States’ global security responsibilities require it to spend far more, the two percent target would still represent a significant increase for many countries and allow Europe to carry its fair share of the overall defense burden. 

If all of NATO’s European members met the two percent target, their combined annual defense spending would jump from about $270 billion to $385 billion—an increase nearly twice the size of Russia’s total defense budget. An increase of that scale would allow for a major upgrade in military capabilities, especially if new funds were spent with an eye toward enhancing cooperation and connectivity among the armed forces. That is precisely the goal of the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation, founded earlier this year, which aims to deepen European defense cooperation. The challenge is to make sure that the aggregation of this military potential adds up to more than the sum of its parts by avoiding duplication, consolidating research-and-development expenditures, and procuring complementary military capabilities. 

When it comes to military cooperation, U.S. allies in Europe have an edge over those in Asia. Asia has no equivalent to NATO and is unlikely to develop one anytime soon. U.S. allies there are, however, strengthening their defense and security cooperation in the face of China’s growing power and concerns over the reliability of the United States as a military partner. In January 2018, Australia and Japan pledged to work together more closely, including by allowing joint exercises of their armed forces. The two countries are also developing ties with India and exploring ways to conduct joint naval exercises. These early steps toward collaboration could evolve into regular planning, training, and cooperation on defense research, development, and procurement. 

The lack of deep, multilateral military cooperation among Asian allies is partially offset by their willingness to invest in defense. Australia and South Korea both spend at least two percent of GDP on their militaries. Australia and New Zealand have long sent forces in support of major military operations in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and even Europe, demonstrating their belief that their own regional security is linked to security worldwide. Japan spends just one percent of GDP on defense, in accordance with its unique pacifistic constitution drafted by occupying U.S. forces after World War II. In spite of constitutional constraints, the Japanese military [11] is one of the most capable in Asia, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has opened an important national debate about changing the constitution and increasing the country’s military capabilities. 

For the G-9 to function as a unit when it comes to security, European and Asian countries will need to collaborate more directly. Although the major European military powers are unlikely to take on a large defense role in Asia, they can and should do more. The threat posed by North Korea has long preoccupied European capitals, and European forces continue to be part of the UN command established at the onset of the Korean War. China is a major concern as well. Europe has a critical interest in ensuring freedom of navigation throughout the Asia-Pacific region and sustaining a balance of power there. Strengthening defense ties between Europe and Asia will be key to counterbalancing China’s rise. During a May 2018 visit to Sydney, French President Emmanuel Macron had this goal in mind when he called for an alliance among Australia, France, and India, saying, “If we want to be seen and respected by China as an equal partner, we must organize ourselves.”

Stepping Up

Liberal democracy has come under assault after many decades of advancing across the globe. Led by China, authoritarian countries are openly challenging global rules and ideas about freedom and making the case that their sociopolitical systems work better than liberal democracy. The rise of populist movements in many Western countries has led to increased support for illiberalism even within established democracies. A growing refugee and migration crisis is challenging liberal norms regarding tolerance and diversity. But the loss of the United States as a strong global leader is perhaps the biggest change. 

For 70 years, Western allies shared a commitment to democracy, freedom, and human rights and a belief that advancing them globally was an essential contribution to international peace and prosperity. The G-9 needs to carry on this work, even if Washington bows out. It can start by taking the lead in international institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank. Washington’s voice has fallen silent in these forums. The G-9 countries must speak up loudly, clearly, and in unison in favor of democracy and freedom wherever and whenever these are challenged. 

Political exhortation is unlikely to be sufficient on its own. The G-9 needs to flex its economic muscles, too. For example, it could use trade preferences and development assistance as leverage (a strategy China never shies away from). In 2017, the G-9 spent more than $80 billion on official development assistance, well over twice what the United States spent. Conditioning aid on the protection and promotion of democracy, freedom, and human rights would be a powerful way for G-9 countries to defend and extend these core values.

The G-9 will also have to use military force independent of Washington. France and the United Kingdom have already led military interventions for humanitarian purposes, mainly in northern and western Africa. In June 2018, together with seven other EU allies, the British and the French agreed to establish a joint military force to intervene in times of crisis. This is another small but important step that could serve as a model for similar collaborations. 

Protecting The Order

To be effective, the G-9 will have to institutionalize in some form. Annual leader summits and regular meetings of foreign, defense, and other ministers will be needed to give the group’s efforts weight and significance. The G-9 could also form an informal caucus in international institutions, such as the UN, the WTO, and the G-20. In strengthening formal ties and cooperation, the G-9 should avoid appearing exclusive; it should at all times welcome the participation and support of like-minded countries, including the United States. The goal should be to uphold and rejuvenate the existing order, not to create a new, exclusive club.

The primary obstacle the G-9 will face, however, isn’t likely to be institutional; it will be a lack of political will to step up and defend the order. Washington has exhorted its European and Asian allies to carry more weight for years and has been met mostly with shrugs and excuses. Meanwhile, countries such as Germany and Japan have grown comfortable complaining about U.S. policy but remain unprepared to take on more responsibility. European countries have tended to look inward, and U.S. allies in Asia have preferred to deal with Washington bilaterally rather than work with one another.

U.S. allies are also tempted to avoid taking action by the hope that Trump might not actually do what he threatens or that a new president will take office in January 2021, and the storm will pass. But Trump’s first 20 months in office suggest that he believes his nationalist, unilateralist, and mercantilist policies have produced “wins” for the United States. And even if Trump serves only one term, his successor may pay a political price for trying to reclaim a global leadership role for the United States. Although recent polls [12] by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and others have shown that the American public rejects critical parts of “America first”—support for an active U.S. role in the world, for trade deals, and for defending U.S. allies has increased markedly since Trump took office—the idea that lingering resentment toward ungrateful allies propelled Trump to victory has become conventional wisdom in some circles. Without evidence that the United States’ partners are doing their fair share, a new president may choose to remain on the sidelines of international politics and focus on domestic issues.

The G-9 must act now to prepare for such risks. Yet at the same time, it should recognize that without U.S. help, it can sustain the order for only so long. In the long run, the best the G-9 can hope to accomplish is to keep the door open for the eventual return of the United States. The challenges to the postwar order are too broad and the task of collective action too great to expect G-9 members to sustain alliances, maintain open markets, and defy democratic regression indefinitely. Unlike the United States, the G-9 consists of nine different political entities (including one that represents 28 nations), each of which faces distinct political pressures and requirements. Their ability to act in concert and to lead globally will invariably be less effective than that of a single great power.

Fortunately, “America first” need not become America’s future. Instead, it could be a productive detour that reminds Washington and its allies why the order was created in the first place. Indeed, by investing more in that order and carrying a greater share of the burdens and responsibilities of global leadership, the G-9 may not only help sustain the order but also place it on a more stable and enduring foundation. The outcome may be one many U.S. leaders have long sought—a more balanced partnership with European and Asian allies in which everyone contributes their fair share and has a say in how the order should evolve to meet the new challenges.

Allied leaders know that they need to take more action. They understand that although the demise of the liberal order will cost the United States dearly, it will cost them even more. Great-power competition will intensify, predatory trade practices will spread, and the democratic reversal already under way will pick up speed. “The times when we could completely count on others, they are over to a certain extent,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel remarked [13] a few months after Trump came to office. “We Europeans really must take our fate into our own hands.” Now is the time for Germany and the other G-9 countries to match deeds to words. If they settle for complaints and laments, they will have more than Trump to blame for the passing of the rules-based order.

The World According to China

Understanding the world China seeks to create by 2049, when the PRC turns 100.

By Bradley A. Thayer and John M. Friend

October 03, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inevitably as China becomes more powerful and influential in international relations, Beijing will fundamentally change the international system created by the United States and the Cold War. The key question for international politics is what kind of world does China seek to create by 2049 — the centenary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Will China sustain the present liberal system or forge another anchored on its ambitions, culture, and desires? Millennia of Chinese history strongly suggests the latter. In this essay, we illuminate China’s model of global governance and touch upon its derivative economic and political features.

Conceiving of what type of world China will create is significant for three reasons. First, it is critical for the United States to understand so that the full scope of China’s strategic ambitions and direction may be understood. Second, as China grows in power and influence, it is essential to comprehend what China will sustain of the present global order versus what it will replace. U.S. decision-makers should expect that the world China would like to create by 2049 will be fundamentally different. The economic order will be a curious mix of hyper-capitalism and neomercantilism. The political order will be authoritarian. Third, understanding China’s ambition and grand strategic objectives allows the United States to develop policies and undertake measures to thwart them. Whether the United States can maintain its position as the pre-eminent force for free and open societies in the face of a rising challenge from China is likely to be a defining element of international politics in the 21st century and is of immediate U.S. national security policy interest.

The world by 2049 will be defined by the realization of Chinese power. China will be the world’s greatest economic and political force, including alliances and global presence. While its power will make it the dominant state in international politics, the central issue is how China will use its power. Will China join the liberal world order or will it transform Western rules, norms, and institutions?

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China’s grand strategic vision is primacy — China will and should be the dominant force in international politics. China’s vision is defined by Xi Jinping’s phrase “One World, One Dream,” which is a modern form of tianxia, or “all under heaven.” This concept serves as the foundation of China’s imperial ideology — the Chinese conception of how the world should be ordered.

The concept of “all under heaven” is the genesis of the Chinese worldview with respect to how China ought to be ruled, its position in international politics, and the subordinate role required of other states. It implies, first, an ethnic Han polity, which is inherently authoritarian. Second, it requires that a single powerful monarch, the Chinese emperor (“Son of Heaven”) should rule the entire civilized world — which by definition should be unified under the emperor’s control so that disorder and chaos may be avoided, and reason and just rule may triumph.

The fundamental ideas and values that forged China’s political culture remain today. What China will want in 2049 dovetails with what China wants today or wanted in its imperial past. There is a profound continuity in the Chinese worldview, its imperial ideology, including why its political leaders sincerely believe its domination provides the best outcome for its denizens and for all states in international politics. For most of its history, China was the epitome of power and held a dominant position in East Asia. Its relationship with neighboring countries was based on a hierarchical tribute system that provided China will vast amounts of power, influence, and prestige. Thus, we can appreciate why a resurgent China with an emboldened leadership desires to recapture a modern form of this position.

China’s Economic Goals

In the economic realm, China is actively seeking to replace the liberal principles of the Washington Consensus with its own development model. A curious amalgamation of hyper-capitalism with neomercantilist policies, the “China Model” offers subsidized development to developing countries with no strings attached. This model is advanced as “value neutral,” as it does not require governments to adopt democratic principles or uphold basic human rights.

Beijing’s implementation of this model will follow a two-track process that has both short-term and long-term objectives. In the short term, China will work within the present international trade regime, support established norms, and continue to maneuver within this system to accomplish its foreign policy objectives, which are primarily dependent on maintaining economic development and trade. Since the economic reforms of the Deng Xiaoping era, China has accepted many of the norms and rules of the liberal world order, joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) for example, and, over time, become more involved in key international organizations, such as the United Nations. This initial embrace of multilateralism was a combination of choice and necessity, as China’s economic development was dependent upon global integration, expanding its political influence, and developing its soft power.

At the moment, Beijing is unable to overturn completely Western rules and institutions, as it does not have the capacity or incentive to transform the existing international order. Therefore, in the near term, China will continue to work within the Western-led multilateral institutions and tout its support for the established order. Beijing’s short-term strategy is to maintain the system that has made possible its economic growth and minimize resistance to its actions until its replacement is fully functioning. By not directly challenging the global economic order, Beijing is able to sustain the “peaceful rise” ruse and attract the strong support of many Western academics and policymakers who believe that China will never replace the system responsible for its success.

China will continue to embrace multilateralism and become more involved in international institutions like the WTO. However, while accomplishing these goals, Beijing will simultaneously develop Chinese-led economic institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which Chinese political elite argue uphold and deepen liberal values and principles.

In the long term, by the PRC’s centenary, as it becomes more powerful and the United States declines in influence, Beijing will push for reforms that promote hyper-capitalism and minimize liberal democratic principles within Western-led international institutions. As more countries join Chinese-led institutions, Beijing will be able to use its economic power as leverage to persuade — through a combination of sticks and carrots — Western and non-Western governments to support and adopt these reforms. Despite China’s rapid opening to international trade, Beijing will continue to pursue a dirigiste model and neomercantilist policies. In this regard, China’s involvement in multilateral institutions is purely strategic. Beijing seeks to mute threat perception and establish a network of economic relations that it can use as leverage and a means to advance its own foreign policy agenda. As China rises, Beijing’s call for hyper-capitalism will be overshadowed by its mercantilist tendencies and cultural chauvinism.

Employing neomercantilist tactics when convenient, Beijing has, on many occasions, used economic power to coerce and punish states that directly or indirectly challenge its authority, security interests, and foreign policies. For example, in response to the installation of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, Beijing strongly encouraged its citizens to boycott South Korean companies, such as Hyundai, AmorePacific, and Lotte, and implemented a ban on tour groups visiting the country, all of which significantly impacted the South Korean economy and forced Seoul to negotiate with Beijing.

By 2049, Western-led institutions will remain, but their liberal principles will be diluted by reforms required by Beijing. As China’s economic power increases and more countries in both the developed and developing world become dependent on Chinese trade and investment, Beijing will use its economic statecraft to pressure countries to downplay or abandon their democratic values and liberal policies. At same time, Chinese-created and led institutions will have weakened traditional institutions, as over the long term China will find it easier to advance its domination through its own institutions.

China’s Political Objectives

In the political domain, China seeks the triumph of authoritarianism in international politics. In the past, China’s view of international relations was based on hierarchy and status. Today, this hierarchical perception remains. Chinese paternalism shapes Beijing’s relations with countries perceived as inferior, be it China’s heavy-handedness in the South China Sea or its business practices in Africa and Latin America. Such behavior also suggests that China sees itself as the hegemon of Asia and, as a result, is sensitive to foreign influence in the region and quick to respond aggressively to territorial disputes with neighboring countries. China’s imperial ideology can be clearly seen in statements made by President Xi Jinping on the “Chinese Dream,” particularly his emphasis on “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and developing “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In fact, Xi’s consolidation of power within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) following the 19th National Congress in October 2017, along with the comparison of “Xi Jinping Thought” with Deng’s and Mao’s thought among Chinese intellectuals and party officials, has many China watchers rightfully concerned that Xi is becoming too powerful.

While the theme of “national rejuvenation” has been used in one way or another by Chinese leaders since Sun Yat-sen, Xi is the first to export the Chinese dream narrative to a global level.  On the whole, a common view in China is that this rejuvenation is simply recapturing China’s lost international status and power. Thus, it is not novel, but is for China rather a return to the proper order of international politics.

If Xi’s “Dream” is realized, we can envision a world where by the mid-21st century, democratic governments survive in the West, but Beijing’s political model will have the upper hand in the international system. As with the Cold War, the struggle is material — economic and military power matter — but will also and ineluctably be ideological. Certainly, its course will pose, and its outcome answer, an ideologically dispositive question: Will egalitarianism remain the dominant ideal in international politics, or will it cede leadership back to authoritarianism? However lamentable, due to the expansion of China’s power and influence, it is likely that authoritarian politics will be the norm without serious challenge from the West. It is probable that China will advance this new wave of authoritarianism to augment its legitimacy. Touting its superiority, Beijing will also advance arguments not dissimilar from “The End of History” arguments made in the West in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In contrast to the liberal democratic and free market principles of the Washington Consensus, Beijing’s political model is offering the developing world a regime-type neutral investment model based on “noninterference” in domestic affairs and the promise of “no strings attached” loans and other forms of financial assistance. This business model is part of China’s “charm offensive” and appears to be growing in popularity, as many around the world see the Chinese way of doing business as a better alternative to the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund or the push for democratic reform often associated with Western aid.

During the Cold War, the United States served as a global beacon for political elites who embraced certain values and ideas. Today, China is offering authoritarian values that are appealing to governments whose hold on power is threatened by U.S. principles such as the rule of law, free speech, democracy, and transparency and accountability in government.

By 2049, China will be ideationally self-confident and able to exert dominance more effectively in the economic, political, and military realms. Beijing will no longer integrate or negotiate but rather expect others to accept the China Order. Indeed, we are already witnessing the early stages of international politics under Chinese dominance. China’s ongoing development of military bases in the South China Sea is a clear violation of international law and its attempts to suppress free speech, particularly criticism of the CCP, outside its own borders speaks volumes to its goal of supplanting liberal values with authoritarianism.

Bradley A. Thayer is a Professor, University of Texas, San Antonio and John M. Friend is a Visiting Scholar, University of Hawai’i. They are authors of How China Sees the World: Han-Centrism and the Balance of Power in International Politics (Potomac, 2018).

The Unconstrained Presidency

Monday, August 13, 2018 - 11:00pm

The Unconstrained Presidency

Checks and Balances Eroded Long Before Trump

James Goldgeier and Elizabeth N. Saunders

JAMES GOLDGEIER is Professor of International Relations at American University and a Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

ELIZABETH N. SAUNDERS is an Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Service and a Core Faculty Member in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.

In the age of Donald Trump, it often feels as though one individual has the power to chart the United States’ course in the world all by himself. Since taking office as U.S. president, Trump has made a series of unilateral decisions with enormous consequences. He walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He imposed tariffs on Canada, China [1], Mexico, and the European Union. In June, he single-handedly upended the G-7 summit by insulting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and withdrawing the United States from the group’s joint communiqué. In July, his European travels produced more diplomatic fireworks, with a NATO summit [2] in Brussels that raised questions about his commitment to the organization—before his deferential press conference [3] with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Each choice has brought howls of outrage—but little real pushback. Congress, for example, has proved unable to block the president from starting a trade war [4] with China and with U.S. allies. For all of Trump’s talk of a shadowy “deep state” bent on undermining his every move, the U.S. government’s vast bureaucracy has watched as the president has dragged his feet on a plan to deter Russian election interference [5]. Even the United States’ closest allies have been unable to talk Trump [6] out of damaging and potentially withdrawing from institutions of the liberal international order that the country has led for decades. How can a political system vaunted for its checks and balances allow one person to act so freely? 

In reality, the problem goes well beyond Trump, and even beyond the well-documented trend of increasing presidential power. Constraints on the president—not just from Congress but also from the bureaucracy, allies, and international institutions—have been eroding for decades. Constraints are like muscles: once atrophied, they require bulking up before the competitor can get back in the game. Trump did not create the freedom of action he is now routinely displaying. He has merely revealed just how difficult it is to prevent it. 

In Congress, the combination of declining foreign policy expertise [7] among members and increasing political polarization has reduced the ability of legislators to supervise the executive branch even if they had the appetite to do so. The bureaucracy, meanwhile, has lost its incentive to cultivate and wield expertise as decision-making has become centralized in the White House and congressional action and oversight on foreign policy have declined. And U.S. allies, for their part, have become less able to check the president’s foreign policies as the alliances have become ensnared in U.S. partisan politics. Similarly, the post–Cold War era has frequently seen presidents circumvent international institutions.

Going forward, any attempts to stem the growth of presidential power will have to confront not just the damage done by Trump but also the deeper problem that damage has exposed: that the bodies charged with constraining presidential power have been steadily losing both their willingness and their capacity to rein in presidents. Many have written eloquently, particularly since 9/11, about the need for checks on presidential power. But the reality is that Congress is in no shape to reclaim its role in foreign policy—and neither are the other traditional sources of constraint on U.S. presidents. It may take a major shock, such as the rise of China, to reboot the system. 

Legislators Gone AWOL

The Constitution grants Congress the ability to constrain the president on issues such as trade and the use of force. Although formal votes on presidential foreign policy are rare, the legislative branch can act as a check [8] on the president in several other, more informal ways. Senators and representatives can hold hearings that generate debate and expose decisions to public scrutiny. They can also force the president to anticipate congressional reactions to policy, leading him to check himself before Congress checks him—an important, if often invisible, form of oversight. For example, he might shape the details of a controversial international agreement to make sure members of Congress will not balk. 

But Congress’ oversight of U.S. foreign policy has declined markedly [9] since the early Cold War, and especially since the mid-1990s. As the political scientist Linda Fowler has put it, “Something is amiss in the Senate and its national security committees.” The two Senate committees tasked with oversight of foreign policy and national security—the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee—have held substantially fewer hearings (both public and private) over time, resulting in far less supervision of major foreign policy endeavors, such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, than was the case for Cold War–era military interventions. 

Why this decrease? The rise of partisanship is one important reason. Although foreign policy has never been fully isolated from politics, political polarization began to rise in the 1970s, and it increased sharply in the 1990s. Today, members of Congress reflexively support their own party. In periods of unified government, this means extreme deference to the president. In periods of divided government, it means congressional gridlock. Neither scenario yields much in terms of congressional oversight. 

Polarization also gives presidents reason to simply ignore Congress when making foreign policy. As the political scientist Kenneth Schultz has argued [10], with members less willing to cross the aisle, it is “more difficult to get bipartisan support for ambitious or risky undertakings, particularly the use of military force and the conclusion of treaties.” And so presidents opt for alternatives such as executive agreements over formal mechanisms such as ratified treaties. Consider the Iran nuclear deal. In 2015, President Barack Obama, concerned that he could not get a treaty with Iran past the Republican-controlled Congress, chose to make an executive agreement (which made it all too easy for Trump to tear up the deal later).

Another trend that has sapped Congress’ influence is the decline of congressional expertise on foreign policy and national security. Simply put, legislators used to know more about foreign policy than they do now. Greater expertise strengthened Congress’ formal and visible role, since committees could engage in greater oversight of the executive branch. Expertise also reinforced Congress’ invisible means of constraining presidential power. Presidents had to think about how a seasoned committee chair or member would assess a policy. During his initial escalation of the Vietnam War, for example, President Lyndon Johnson was careful to maintain the support of powerful committee chairs, such as Senator J. William Fulbright, who led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1959 to 1974. Fulbright shepherded the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through the Senate in 1964, but two years later, his probative hearings helped shift public opinion against the war. 

Congressional expertise also led to serious, bipartisan policies that could force the president’s hand. A good example is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, an initiative for safely securing and dismantling weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat from Georgia, and Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana—two defense stalwarts who had been deeply involved in arms control agreements during the Cold War—proposed it in 1991 as an amendment to the annual defense bill. The George H. W. Bush administration initially opposed the legislation because it diverted $500 million previously authorized for other purposes, but Nunn and Lugar prevailed, backed up by 86 votes in the Senate. They were able to pass their bill because the existing polarization was still manageable and because both senators were respected experts on defense and foreign policy.

The program was a high-water mark of expertise-informed legislation. In the years since, legislators have become less and less interested in the details of foreign policy. In 1994, a small group of newly elected congressional Republicans even proudly declared that they did not own passports. 

Several factors explain the decline in expertise. Changes in the way senators now divide up committee roles, by increasing the number of committees they sit on, have led to greater breadth at the expense of depth. The media, facing fragmentation and declining budgets, have paid less attention to the crucial committees, especially the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, thus diminishing their value as reputation burnishers on Capitol Hill. Increased turnover has led to less seniority, particularly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reducing the number of specialists to whom other senators can look for leadership on complex issues. Add in polarization and gridlock, which, by reducing overall congressional activity, also reduces the incentives to develop specialties, and the result is a Congress with decidedly less expertise. 

An inflection point in the long-term decline of congressional oversight came after 9/11, when Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, a measure intended to combat terrorism but that presidents ended up interpreting broadly. For nearly 17 years, the AUMF has served as the legal justification for expanding military operations across the Middle East, many of them only tenuously related to the original intent. But legislators have shown little appetite for seeking a new AUMF, which would constrain the president when it comes to the many counterterrorism missions the United States now conducts in places such as Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. That’s because the status quo actually suits many members of Congress. It lets them avoid voting on military operations—always risky, since they can be held accountable for their decision on the campaign trail—and it allows them to fixate on the legality of the operation without having to take a position on its wisdom.

Obama’s decision in August 2013 to seek congressional authorization [11] for the use of force in Syria in response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons may at first glance look like a sign of deference. But it actually exposed how weak legislators’ war-making powers had become. Unable to gain backing even from the United Kingdom, Obama announced that he would seek congressional authorization before launching an attack. Apart from a few Republicans who insisted that the president could not strike Syria without legislative approval (something they would not insist on later when Trump carried out strikes in 2017), most members were visibly eager to avoid being drawn into the debate—thereby proving how much Congress had been sidelined. As Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, confirmed in his memoir, the president sought a vote knowing he might lose, which would firmly demonstrate legislators’ lack of support for greater U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. (As events played out, the issue became moot when, at Russia’s prodding, Syria pledged to give up its chemical weapons.) 

Congress is equally reluctant to stand up to the president on trade. Despite misgivings over Trump’s protectionist measures, Democratic and Republican legislators have essentially given up on the issue. In June, Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed a bill that would require the president to seek congressional approval for tariffs [12] enacted in the name of national security. But he has not been able to gain sufficient support for the measure from fellow Republicans, who, with midterm elections looming, are reluctant to cross Trump.

There still are some dedicated foreign policy hands willing to fight to give the legislative branch a voice. In 2017, for example, Congress managed to impose additional sanctions on Russia against the president’s wishes. But overall, Congress has relinquished its authority on foreign policy and trade to the executive branch—and would have trouble reclaiming it even if it wanted to. 

The Bureaucracy Sidelined

The United States’ emergence as a global power a century ago required the development of a strong civil and foreign service to manage relations with other nations. Knowledgeable and experienced bureaucrats came to serve as ballast against impulsive changes. Naturally, presidents have found it frustrating that they cannot get the bureaucracy to do their bidding. President Harry Truman, for example, complained that the “striped pants boys” at the State Department were failing to implement his policies. But in recent decades, some of the same forces that have weakened Congress have also undermined the bureaucracy’s ability to check presidential power.

Ever since Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Security Council, presidents have tried to sideline the career bureaucrats at the State Department in favor of a more politically attuned White House cadre on the NSC staff. Building on President John F. Kennedy’s establishment of a more White House–centric foreign policy process, Henry Kissinger, as President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, cut the bureaucracy out of important initiatives, such as the opening to China and arms control talks with the Soviet Union. His counterpart during the Carter administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski, ensured that White House dominance over foreign policy continued, for example, by keeping the State Department out of negotiations in 1978 over the normalization of relations with China. 

Although President Ronald Reagan reempowered the State Department for a brief period under the leadership of George Shultz—in part by shuffling through six national security advisers in his two terms—the pendulum swung back under President George H. W. Bush. His powerful secretary of state, James Baker, sidelined his own bureaucracy and relied on a handful of political appointees to manage such policies as German reunification and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The following three administrations steadily expanded the NSC, whose professional staff doubled in size with each presidency. From just 50 staffers under George H. W. Bush, it grew to 100 under Bill Clinton, 200 under President George W. Bush, and 400 under Obama. No longer was the NSC functioning merely as a coordinator of policy; it was also implementing it, largely at the expense of career officials in the State Department. Even officials at the Pentagon came to feel overpowered. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates complained of “White House micromanagement of military affairs.”

Presidents may find a more powerful NSC useful, but it weakens the bureaucracy’s ability to provide strong, independent expertise. Political insiders chosen by the president to run White House operations because of their loyalty may have little experience crafting policy. Clinton, for example, came into office after 12 years of Republican administrations; his relatively inexperienced White House team struggled mightily on policy regarding Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. But the more that policies are crafted and implemented by the White House, the less incentive bureaucrats have to use their expertise to fill the void. If bureaucrats aren’t given a hand in crafting and implementing policy, why bother?

Far from stopping presidents from steadily drawing the machinery of foreign policy closer to the Oval Office, Congress has played its own role in the erosion of the bureaucracy as a check. With the increasing importance of quick presidential action during the Cold War, Congress acquiesced in the growth of presidential power, not only over itself but also over the bureaucracy. As the political scientists Sean Gailmard and John Patty have argued, if Congress could not restrain the president, their next best option was “to ensure that the president’s policy choices [were] supported by trustworthy advice that the president [would] heed.” If the president was going to centralize foreign policy and listen mainly to officials in the White House, Congress at least wanted the chief executive to make informed decisions. So it has done little to restrain the growth of the NSC staff.

There is, however, one part of the U.S. government bureaucracy that has seen growth rather than decline: the Pentagon. Especially since 9/11, U.S. foreign policy has been steadily militarized, and Congress has funded the Pentagon at higher and higher levels without increasing oversight concomitantly. The main victim is the State Department. In Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, regional military commanders can eclipse U.S. ambassadors in bilateral relationships. The military does have an impressive ability to get things done quickly, but the risk is that policy will tilt too much toward using force to solve problems. As Secretary of Defense James Mattis has said, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”

Despite these trends, the State Department was able to maintain its deep reservoir of expertise for many years, which gave it some power to shape presidential decision-making. But under Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, the executive branch’s disdain for the State Department reached its apex. Positions at the undersecretary and assistant secretary levels were left vacant. In December 2017, Barbara Stephenson, a former ambassador and president of the American Foreign Service Association, reported that the U.S. Foreign Service officer corps had lost 60 percent of its career ambassadors since January of that year. And despite congressional outcry, Tillerson refused to spend funds [13] that had already been allocated for countering Russian and terrorist propaganda, and he even supported further cuts to his own department’s budget (one thing Congress did not allow). Tillerson’s successor, Mike Pompeo, announced [14] in May that he would lift the State Department’s hiring freeze and bring its “swagger” back, but as of July, it remained to be seen whether he would fulfill that promise. 

No Allies to Lean On

Amid the declining power of Congress and the bureaucracy at home, one important check on presidents’ foreign policies has been consultation with allies. Following World War II, the United States coordinated closely with its allies on major decisions, often acceding to their domestic needs. In part, such deference was driven by the necessity to maintain unity in the face of the Soviet threat. Presidents understood that if the most powerful country in the world flexed its muscle without regard to the concerns of others, it would create a backlash. And so less powerful allies were largely able to act as a check on American power.

In the late 1940s, during negotiations around implementation of the Marshall Plan, Truman allowed the United Kingdom to maintain privileged trading access [15] to its colonies and dominions for the sake of avoiding a rift in the transatlantic alliance. In the late 1970s, the United States reassured Western European allies through NATO’s “dual-track” decision, whereby the United States would deploy long-range theater nuclear forces in Europe while pursuing arms control negotiations with the Soviets. And in the aftermath of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Baker went around the world meeting with every head of state or foreign minister whose country had a seat on the UN Security Council (as well as with those of many countries that ended up contributing troops to the eventual operation), while George H. W. Bush worked the phones to secure passage of a UN resolution authorizing the use of military force if Iraq did not leave Kuwait. As Baker later acknowledged, Bush’s decision to stop short of capturing Baghdad as the U.S. military was routing Iraqi forces was partly due to concerns that doing so would break apart the international coalition.

But in the 1990s, the United States increasingly came to believe that as the lone superpower, it had both the ability and the duty to shape the world to its liking. By the end of the decade, U.S. allies felt tossed around, as exemplified by French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine’s bitter reference to the United States as a “hyperpower.” The UN, too, came to constrain U.S. power less and less, in part thanks to the efforts of congressional Republicans who deeply opposed the institution. 

In the run-up to the 1999 war in Kosovo, Clinton bypassed the UN altogether because he knew that China and Russia would veto a resolution, but he still led the U.S. military operation through NATO in order to enhance its legitimacy. The United States willingly ran all target options through a vetting process within the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s political decision-making body, and the French, in particular, slowed down a number of American requests. 

After George W. Bush came into office, he took unilateralism to new heights. But he did seek minimal allied cover for the invasion of Iraq, and he even attempted to secure a second UN resolution, in part to help British Prime Minister Tony Blair domestically. A first resolution had been passed in late 2002 giving Saddam Hussein a final chance to comply with Iraq’s disarmament agreements but not specifically authorizing war against Iraq. And when France and Russia said they would veto a second resolution, Bush declared that he was acting with a “coalition of the willing.” Going it completely alone was a bridge too far. Still, the invasion is rightly seen as a clear example of the United States ignoring some of its closest allies. Part of the resulting fallout was the politicization of U.S. alliances, with American supporters of the war criticizing those countries that stayed out (as when a Republican legislator overseeing the House cafeteria renamed French fries “freedom fries”). 

Obama ran on a platform of repairing the United States’ relationships, and as president, he brought allies and international institutions more squarely back into the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. But the damage had already been done. No longer were alliances basic commitments to be upheld regardless of who occupied the Oval Office; increasingly, they were objects of partisan debate. When Obama decided to intervene in Libya through NATO in 2011, with UN Security Council authorization, Republicans, instead of championing the inclusion of allies, criticized him for “leading from behind,” [16] as one of his advisers characterized the strategy. And later, when he negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran, the support of U.S. allies did little to bring Republicans on board, showing the declining effect of allies as a domestic consensus builder. 

If alliances continue to be viewed in such partisan terms, as the political scientist Daniel Drezner has argued [17], “the stock of allies will rise or fall depending on the partisanship of who is in the White House.” This would damage not only the visible, legitimizing role of alliances, whereby the public is more likely to support foreign policy initiatives that are backed by allies or multilateral institutions, but also their quiet, consultative function. During crises, allies can serve as both useful checks and valuable resources. But some future presidents may find themselves dangerously unfettered by allies. Others may want to turn to them, only to find that they are unwilling to pick up the phone.

The Future of Checks and Balances

U.S. presidents have long had more leeway in foreign policy than in domestic policy, but their control has never been total. Yet since the end of the Cold War, checks and balances that once limited presidential power in matters of foreign policy have been eroding. Trump’s unconstrained exercise of executive power did not come out of nowhere: it was made possible by the culmination of long-term trends. As a president who seems distinctly uninterested in the views of others, Trump could hardly have asked for a more suitable system.

Many of the constraints on foreign policy are invisible [18]. Presidents will anticipate pushback from Congress and restrain themselves accordingly. They will worry about generating enough international support and offer concessions to allies in closed-door meetings. The invisibility of these constraints makes them difficult to appreciate until they are needed. What Trump is exposing is that these constraints are already largely unavailable, and they cannot be reconstituted instantaneously. 

Can anything be done? The end of the Cold War unleashed the power of the American presidency. It may take the rise of China as a peer competitor for the American people and their leaders to realize that in order to make better foreign policy, the United States needs the wisdom and restraint offered by a Congress and a bureaucracy that have real power and serious expertise, as well as allies and international institutions whose utility is valued. The rising threat that China poses to U.S. interests could lead to a revival of congressional expertise in foreign policy, support for strengthening the United States’ diplomats, and a realization that allies and international institutions enhance U.S. power in managing the threat.

Short of that, Congress will likely continue to have little knowledge of or interest in foreign policy, the White House will still fail to take full advantage of the talent of the U.S. diplomatic corps, and presidents will go on ignoring the views of even close allies. This is now the unchained, unconstrained presidency. It didn’t start with Trump, but it has exploded since he took office, and Americans will be living with its consequences for a long time to come.