Hegemony Good
Uniqueness
Hegemony High – General
US primacy unmatched
Flourney, Co-Founder Center for a New American Security, and Davidson, Professor Public Policy
George Mason, ’12 (Michele- Former US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Janine- Former US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans, July/August, “Obama’s New Global Posture” Foreign
Affairs, Vol 91 Issue 4, EbscoHost)
TOUGH ECONOMIC times have often been met in the United States by calls for a more modest foreign policy. But despite the global
economic downturn, in today's interdependent world, retrenchment would be misguided. The United States' ability to
lead the international community is still invaluable and unmatched. Its economy is still by far the
largest, most developed, and most dynamic in the world. Its military remains much more capable than
any other. The United States' network of alliances and partnerships ensures that the country rarely
has to act alone. And its soft power reflects the sustained appeal of American values. The United States should
not reduce its overseas engagement when it is in a position to actively shape the global environment to secure its interests.
US primacy unmatched – military and relative economic clout
Dorfman, Editor of Ethics and International Affairs, 5-22-’12 (Zach, “What We Talk About When We
Talk About Isolationism” Dissent Magazine,
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/articles_papers_reports/0127.html)
The rise of China notwithstanding, the United States remains the world's sole superpower. Its military (and to a
considerable extent, political) hegemony extends not just over North America or even the Western
hemisphere, but also Europe, large swaths of Asia, and Africa. Its interests are global; nothing is
outside its potential sphere of influence. There are an estimated 660 to 900 American military bases in roughly 40 countries
worldwide, although figures on the matter are notoriously difficult to ascertain, largely because of subterfuge on the part of the military.
According to official data there
are active-duty U.S. military personnel in 148 countries, or over 75 percent of the
world's states. The United States checks Russian power in Europe and Chinese power in South Korea
and Japan and Iranian power in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Turkey. In order to maintain a frigid peace between Israel and
Egypt, the American government hands the former $2.7 billion in military aid every year, and the latter $1.3 billion. It also gives Pakistan more
than $400 million dollars in military aid annually (not including counterinsurgency operations, which would drive the total far higher), Jordan
roughly $200 million, and Colombia over $55 million. U.S.
long-term military commitments are also manifold. It is one
of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the only institution legally permitted to
sanction the use of force to combat "threats to international peace and security." In 1949, the United States
helped found NATO, the first peacetime military alliance extending beyond North and South America in U.S. history, which now has 28 member
states. The United States also has a trilateral defense treaty with Australia and New Zealand, and bilateral mutual defense treaties with Japan,
Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea. It is this
sort of reach that led Madeleine Albright to call the United States the
sole "indispensable power" on the world stage.
Hegemony High – Military
US military primacy unmatched
Kagan, Foreign Policy at Carnegie, 1-17-’12 (Robert, “Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American
Decline” http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0117_us_power_kagan.aspx)
Military capacity matters, too, as early nineteenth-century China learned and Chinese leaders know today. As Yan Xuetong recently noted, “military
strength underpins hegemony.” Here the United States remains unmatched. It is far and away the most
powerful nation the world has ever known, and there has been no decline in America’s relative
military capacity—at least not yet. Americans currently spend less than $600 billion a year on defense, more
than the rest of the other great powers combined. (This figure does not include the deployment in Iraq, which is ending, or the combat forces in
Afghanistan, which are likely to diminish steadily over the next couple of years.) They do so, moreover, while consuming a little less than 4 percent of
GDP annually—a higher percentage than the other great powers, but in historical terms lower than the 10 percent of GDP that the United States spent on defense in the mid-1950s
and the 7 percent it spent in the late 1980s. The superior expenditures underestimate America’s actual superiority in
military capability. American land and air forces are equipped with the most advanced weaponry, and
are the most experienced in actual combat. They would defeat any competitor in a head-to-head battle. American naval power
remains predominant in every region of the world.
Rising powers don’t reduce US power projection capabilities
Kagan, Foreign Policy at Carnegie, 1-17-’12 (Robert, “Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American
Decline” http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0117_us_power_kagan.aspx)
But what about the “rise of the rest”—the increasing economic clout of nations like China, India, Brazil, and Turkey?
Doesn’t that cut into American power and influence? The answer is, it depends. The fact that other nations in the world are enjoying
periods of high growth does not mean that America’s position as the predominant power is declining,
or even that “the rest” are catching up in terms of overall power and influence. Brazil’s share of global GDP was a little over 2 percent in
1990 and remains a little over 2 percent today. Turkey’s share was under 1 percent in 1990 and is still under 1 percent today. People, and especially businesspeople, are
naturally excited about these emerging markets, but just because a nation is an attractive investment
opportunity does not mean it is a rising great power. Wealth matters in international politics, but there is no simple correlation between
economic growth and international influence. It is not clear that a richer India today wields greater influence on the global
stage than a poorer India did in the 1950s under Nehru, when it was the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, or that Turkey, for all the
independence and flash of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, really wields more influence than it did a decade ago. As for the effect of these growing economies on the position of the
United States, it all depends on who is doing the growing. The problem for the British Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century was not its substantial decline relative to the United
States, a generally friendly power whose interests did not fundamentally conflict with Britain’s. Even in the Western hemisphere, British trade increased as it ceded dominance to the United
States. The problem was Britain’s decline relative to Germany, which aimed for supremacy on the European continent, and sought to compete with Britain on the high seas, and in both
respects posed a threat to Britain’s core security. In the case of the United States, the dramatic and rapid rise of the German and Japanese economies during the Cold War reduced American
primacy in the world much more than the more recent “rise of the rest.” America’s share of the world’s GDP, nearly 50 percent after World War II, fell to roughly 25 percent by the early 1970s,
where it has remained ever since. But that “rise of the rest” did not weaken the United States. If anything, it strengthened it. Germany and Japan were and are close democratic allies, key
pillars of the American world order. The growth of their economies actually shifted the balance irretrievably against the Soviet bloc and helped bring about its demise. When gauging the
Does the growth of the Brazilian economy,
or of the Indian economy, diminish American global power? Both nations are friendly, and India is increasingly a
strategic partner of the United States. If America’s future competitor in the world is likely to be China, then a richer and
more powerful India will be an asset, not a liability, to the United States. Overall, the fact that Brazil, India, Turkey, and South Africa are enjoying a
impact of the growing economies of other countries today, one has to make the same kinds of calculations.
period of economic growth—which may or may not last indefinitely—is either irrelevant to America’s strategic position or of benefit to it. At present, only the growth of China’s economy can
be said to have implications for American power in the future, and only insofar as the Chinese translate enough of their growing economic strength into military strength.
Hegemony High – Navy
US Navy supremacy high – no current challengers
Maritime Security, ’11 (December 8, “US navy still eclipses China’s expanding fleet”
http://maritimesecurity.asia/free-2/procurement-2/us-navy-still-eclipses-chinas-expanded-fleet/)
China’s navy has hundreds of vessels at its disposal, among them nuclear submarines and an aircraft carrier, but it still does not
come close to the huge naval firepower wielded by the United States. Chinese President Hu Jintao called Tuesday for the country’s
navy to “make extended preparations for military combat”, further fuelling fears over Beijing’s ambitions in the highly strategic maritime area that surrounds it. The United
States, which recently reasserted its role as a Pacific power and said it will post troops in Australia,
responded by saying China had the right to develop its military capabilities, but should do so
“transparently”. China maintains a high level of secrecy around its People’s Liberation Army, the largest armed force in the world with an estimated 2.3 million troops. Around
300,000 of those are thought to serve in the navy, which comprises three fleets and has around 30 large missile destroyers, half a dozen nuclear-powered attack submarines and a small
number of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. This year it unveiled its first aircraft carrier, a 300-metre-long (990-foot) former Soviet naval vessel that had its first sea trial on August
10. By contrast, India — another major military power in the region — has around 132 warships, including an aircraft carrier, and 16 submarines, one of which is a nuclear submarine
the Pentagon warned that the PLA — still primarily a land force — was increasingly focused on
its naval power and had invested in high-tech weaponry that would extend its reach in the Pacific and
beyond. Nevertheless, experts say China’s naval capability pales in comparison with America’s huge and
technically highly sophisticated maritime force. The US Pacific fleet is the country’s largest, with 79 ships and
submarines off America’s west coast, 29 in Hawaii, 19 in Japan and four in the Pacific territory of Guam. Six of America’s 11 aircraft carriers have their
base in the Pacific, including the USS George Washington, which is docked at the Yokosuka naval base in Japan. At any given point, there are around 50 US naval ships in the
west Pacific. America’s huge naval operations combined with its geopolitical alliances in the region have
enabled it to contain China within what is known as a “brown water navy”. Hemmed in by an arc of powerful rivals in South Korea, Japan and
Taiwan, China suffers from severely limited access to the oceans that surround it. “The Chinese are also acutely aware of US
undergoing sea trials. Earlier this year,
military capabilities, as demonstrated in combat actions every year since 1991, and the gap between their capabilities and those of the US and its allies,” said Dennis Blasko, a Chinese military
“The Chinese are conducting their modernisation process with
no recent combat experience, no experience in fighting the kind of informationised war they are
preparing to fight.”
expert with the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation think tank.
Hegemony High – No Challengers
US primacy unmatched – no nation is a real threat
Friedman, Defense Fellow at Cato, and Logan, Director of Foreign Policy at Cato, ’12 (Benjamin- PhD
Candidate PolSci at MIT, and Justin; Spring, “Why the U.S. Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’”
Orbis)
The dirty little secret of U.S. defense politics is that the United States is safe—probably the most secure
great power in modern history. Weak neighbors, vast ocean barriers, nuclear weapons and the wealth
to build up forces make almost nonexistent the threats that militaries traditionally existed to thwart.
Americans cannot seriously fear territorial conquest, civil war, annexation of peripheral territories, or
blockade. What passes for enemies here are small potatoes compared with what worried most states
at most times. 4 Most U.S. military interventions affect U.S. security at best marginally. We have hopes
and sometimes interests in the places where we send troops, but no matter how much we repeat it to
honor the troops, it is untrue that they are fighting to protect our freedom.
No challengers to US primacy
Blumenthal, Fellow at AEI, 3-22-’11 (Dan, “Why it’s Still a Unipolar Era”
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/march/why-its-still-a-unipolar-era/article_print)
Sometimes it takes a crisis to dispense with intellectual fads. The world’s response to Libya has made clear that currently fashionable arguments about the
“rise of the Rest” and the world’s new “nonpolarity” are simply untrue. Charles Krauthammer was wrong about one thing in his
description of the “unipolar moment” at the end of the Cold War: We are not living in a unipolar moment, we are witnessing a
unipolar era. Why? Because the “rest”—China and India—are unable and unwilling to lead. The current fashion in
foreign policy argumentation is to explain that America is in decline, particularly relative to Asia. The new declinists usually line up an impressive array of
statistics that tell a story of India and China’s high rates of economic growth, military spending, energy consumption, and so on. The new declinists have a point—the raw numbers are
power is about much more than raw numbers. It is the most elusive concept in politics. It usually cannot be measured accurately until it
Qaddafi is a case in point. The United States was
supposed to be entering a new era of constraints, perhaps even decline, bound by a severe financial debt crisis and an unwillingness to properly fund
impressive. But
is used. The recent example of the West’s decision to use force against Libyan leader Muammar
our military forces. Moreover, we have a president as ambivalent about exercising American power as we have seen in a generation. President Obama did all he could to dither and
Obama understood two things: the world order Washington
needs demands that Qaddafi be stopped, and only America could stop him. Obama’s rhetoric about the United States not
procrastinate while Qaddafi butchered his people. After all the hand-wringing, President
being in the lead against Qaddafi is just that: rhetoric meant to further a bizarre public relations agenda (Does anyone in the Middle East really believe we are not leading the effort in Libya?
What purpose does pretending to take a back seat serve except to satisfy the Western left-wing intelligentsia?). Until President Obama directed his staff to secure a UN Security Council
resolution and commit the U.S. military to stopping Qaddafi, the “international community” was paralyzed by inaction. The United Kingdom and France admirably made a strong moral and
strategic case for intervention, but could not act without U.S. leadership. What about China and India, countries that the new declinists identify as the future guardians of world order? The
best that could be said is they did not get in the way. Of the two, India is the greater disappointment. Washington applauds the potential of the relationship based in part on India’s impressive
democracy. India’s democratic character is supposed to bind it with the West to keep strong the liberal order that characterizes international politics. But with its decision to abstain from a
resolution that would end Qaddafi’s treachery, Delhi demonstrated that shared values do not extend to preventing a dictator from butchering his people. Delhi’s multicultural democracy is
impressive and there may be great potential for cooperation with Washington. But until Delhi sheds the vestiges of its self-indulgent and sentimental non-alignment policies, the chances that
it will exercise power on the world stage in a positive and meaningful way remain low. For the foreseeable future, Washington and Delhi are fated to cooperate on a narrow set of issues much
closer to India’s borders. Then there is China. Who knows why China decided to abstain rather than threaten a veto. Perhaps Beijing did not want another confrontation with Washington. But
the idea that China will rise to world leadership presupposes that Beijing has some vision of world
order beyond protecting its material interests. But so long as a committee of nine dictators rule China, this idea is a fantasy. In a country in which
citizens are blocked from Internet searches of the words “Arab” and “democracy,” it is farfetched to expect any help in felling extremists. Even closer to China’s borders, in Afghanistan—a
country whose failure can have serious deleterious consequences for China—Beijing has not seen fit to shed a drop of its blood or spend a yuan of its treasure. Instead, while NATO and the
United States fight and die for stability in South Asia, China has been building a military that can challenge the United States in the Pacific. The net effect is a less peaceful world. Instead of
contributing to the stability from which it benefits, China has made it more costly for the United States to provide the public goods upon which Asia’s prosperity depends. In turns out that
while measures of power such as gross domestic product growth, numbers of scientists and engineers,
and shares of decision-making in international bodies may tell us something about a country’s power,
they do not tell us enough. These crude calculations of power miss the intangibles of leadership:
political culture, values, and purpose. The West has a set of ideas about how the world should run. This vision includes the
sometime necessity of deposing a brutal dictator. India and China do not see a purpose for international politics beyond advancing narrow selfinterest. The fact that India is democratic means that it may one day decide to join the ideological West and exercise international power for grander purposes. China is run by dictators. Until
the most Washington should expect is for Beijing not to make problems worse. Forget about China
becoming a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Our diplomacy should encourage China to become a less irresponsible power. What the new declinists miss is that while
that changes,
the United States is not as far ahead of India and China in material strength as it used to be, the vision
of world order it shares with its NATO allies provides it with a moral strength and legitimacy
impossible to measure. The new declinists point to the ways in which the “Rest” can make life marginally more difficult for the West. But while the “Rest”
may carp from the sidelines and gum up the works on international trade and financial agreements,
when it comes to upholding international order, Delhi and Beijing will take a pass. We may be tiring of it, but the
Unipolar Era is alive and well.
Hegemony High – Asia
US primacy not at risk in Asia – current shift in grand strategy solves
Flourney, Co-Founder Center for a New American Security, and Davidson, Professor Public Policy
George Mason, ’12 (Michele- Former US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Janine- Former US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans, July/August, “Obama’s New Global Posture” Foreign
Affairs, Vol 91 Issue 4, EbscoHost)
STRATEGIC REBALANCING
AN OPTIMAL U.S. military posture must reflect the reality that resources will be limited in the coming
years and that the United States simply cannot be present everywhere. With that in mind, the Obama
administration's defense posture realignment will customize deployments based on the exigencies of
each region and U.S. priorities.
The most significant shift will be toward the Asia-Pacific region. President Barack Obama has made
clear that the United States is "a Pacific nation" and that it will "play a larger and long-term role in
shaping this region and its future." His emphasis is reflected in the Defense Department's January
2012 "strategic guidance" document, which states that "U.S. economic and security interests are
inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into
the Indian Ocean region and South Asia."
Accordingly, as U.S. responsibilities in Afghanistan wind down, the country's attention and resources,
both diplomatic and military, will begin to concentrate more on the Asia-Pacific region. The American
presence in Japan and South Korea will remain a cornerstone of this strategy, even as the United
States builds up its relationships with other Asian nations, especially those in and around Southeast
Asia. Already, last November, Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced plans for
enhanced U.S.-Australian military cooperation, including sending up to 2,500 U.S. marines to Australia
for joint training and exercises, increasing visits by U.S. aircraft to northern Australian airfields, and
conducting more calls by U.S. ships to various Australian ports.
The United States is also planning to deploy two new Littoral Combat Ships, small vessels designed to
operate close to shore, from Singapore and is exploring enhanced military cooperation with the
Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The details are still under discussion, but this cooperation will likely
include more joint exercises, troop rotations, and ship visits. Throughout the region, new bilateral and
multilateral training programs, especially those geared toward humanitarian relief, disaster
preparedness, interoperability, and capacity building, will help the region better counter transnational
threats, prevent conflict, and respond to crises.
In the Indian Ocean region, through which 70 percent of the world's petroleum products and 25
percent of global commerce sail, the United States is also deepening its partnerships. The Indian
military now conducts more exercises with the U.S. military than with any other. The United States
has also enhanced its security cooperation with India by selling New Delhi advanced military systems,
such as c-130, p-81, and c-17 aircraft.
Finally, Obama has made clear that after the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2014, the
United States does not intend to keep any permanent U.S. bases there. However, the strategic
partnership agreement that Washington and Kabul concluded in May laid the groundwork for a longterm security relationship between the two countries. Making good on that commitment will almost
certainly involve deploying a smaller number of U.S. forces to Afghanistan on a rotational basis. Those
troops will support joint counterterrorism efforts and continue to help build the capacity of the
Afghan National Security Forces. Meanwhile, the United States will no longer depend as heavily on the
Northern Distribution Network, which runs across the Baltic states and through Central Asia and which
NATO set up to keep its troops in Afghanistan supplied. Even so, the United States should seek to
maintain cooperative relationships with as many of the network's states as possible, given the strategic
flexibility these relationships provide in a region that lies at the crossroads between Europe and Asia.
A2: Defense Cuts
Defense cuts won’t happen – political bargaining
Friedman, Defense Fellow at Cato, and Logan, Director of Foreign Policy at Cato, ’12 (Benjamin- PhD
Candidate PolSci at MIT, and Justin; Spring, “Why the U.S. Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’”
Orbis)
Sequestration, however, is unlikely to occur. Neither the White House nor either party’s Congressional
leadership favors it. Democrats, however, understand the prospect of sequestration is a hostage they can
trade to Republicans in another budget deal. So, Democratic leaders—including the President—say that they
will not spare the Pentagon from sequestration without Republican compromise on other items , like the
expiration of some of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012. A deal of that type might include additional defense cuts made under normal budget
rules rather than sequestration. But if
Republicans take back the White House and Senate next fall, their first act
might be to prevent sequestration by cutting other spending.
Hegemony Sustainable
General
US hegemony sustainable – economic and military primacy and international
partnerships are key***
Susman, US Ambassador to the UK, 6-26-’12 (Louis, “America: Still the Indispensable Power?”
Chatham House,
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Meetings/Meeting%20Transcripts/260612sus
man.pdf)
Because an argument is being made by some academics, commentators and journalists that America is now in permanent decline. The argument goes that a gradual
but irreversible erosion of economic strength, the so-called ‘rise of the rest’, and the effects of two gruelling wars is stripping the United States of its power,
influence and authority. Now, there’s no doubt – as President Obama acknowledged in his speech to Parliament last year – that the international order is being
reshaped and that as we adapt to it, we face undeniable and significant challenges. But we
have overcome similar circumstances
before. In the 1950s and 60s the fear was we were falling behind the Soviet Union in technology and
ambition. The 1970s brought recession and unemployment to America; combined with a loss of faith
in our system after Vietnam and Watergate. At the same time, Japan’s economy was taking off. Then in the 1980s
and 90s the tiger economies of East Asia produced an economic miracle of rapid growth unparalleled
in modern history. Each time America’s standing was questioned. Each time America rose to the
particular challenges it faced. Time and again the doom mongers and the defeatists were proven
wrong. And I am confident that they will be again. There are many reasons for my conclusion but three factors stand out. First, the
strength of our economy. Second, our military prowess. Third, the power and scope of our international partnerships. Let me start with the strength and resilience
of the United States economy. Despite
being damaged by the most severe recession in more than 70 years,
America is still – by far – the world’s largest economy. Today the United States is responsible for one
quarter of all global economic output, just as we have been for more than four decades. Our economy
is growing – with the IMF, Federal Reserve and others projecting growth of somewhere between two
and three per cent this year. And the trend lines of the important economic factors continue to be strong.
Unemployment nationally is at 8.2% – down from a peak of 10% in October 2010. More than four million private sector jobs
have been created in the past two years. There is a renewed consumer confidence - essential to a selfsustaining
recovery – where people are no longer paying off their credit cards but out spending again. The Troubled Asset Relief Program – known as
TARP – has ensured that our banks are stable and well capitalized. TARP authorized the Treasury to use up to $700 billion to stabilize banks and other financial
institutions. Ultimately, only $410 billion was disbursed – including $245 billion to recapitalize the banks. The Treasury is now confident that overall TARP will cost
less than $50 billion – in fact, the financial assistance we provided banks will actually result in taxpayer gains of approximately $20 billion. The stronger position of
banks is helping to support broader economic recovery, including a 30% increase in private investment in equipment and software. Lending to companies is also
rising by over 10% a year. And America is still the No. 1 choice for foreign investment. US exports increased almost 16% last year to $2.1 trillion. That is well on track
to achieving America’s ambitious goal of doubling exports by 2015 under the National Export Initiative. Our manufacturing sector is
making a
strong comeback for the first time since the 1990s. The United States has added nearly half a million
manufacturing jobs since the beginning of 2010. The revival is evidenced by General Electric bringing back manufacturing operations
from China and opening new plants in America. The French company Michelin is investing $750 million in a new plant and factory expansion in South Carolina. And
there is no better example of the recovery in American manufacturing than the United States automobile industry. In 2008, 400,000 jobs across the car-making
industry were lost. Two of the big three manufacturers were on the brink of administration. Today, GM
is the No. 1 car-maker in the world,
Chrysler is growing faster in America than any other car company, and Ford is posting record profits. So
while always guarding against complacency, the American economy is on the right path to a return to full health. But one of our greatest and most
enduring strengths comes from the fundamentals of our economic approach. Our philosophy is built
on the whole-hearted belief in free trade. While other nations – including some of the fast-growing emerging economies –
still trade behind barriers, the United States continues to embrace market-based principles. Free trade
means every country, every business, and even every individual, has a chance to compete. That in
turn creates the very jobs and wealth that lift people and communities out of poverty – both at home and
abroad. America has firmly rejected protectionist policies; reaffirming our commitment to open markets with a number of new international free trade agreements.
We are also open to immigration. Our ethnically diverse society and a culture of opportunity
continues to draw talent from around the world. The latest OECD records show that more than 1.1 million
foreigners came to live permanently in America in 2009. A survey by Gallup published in April once again put the
United States as the most desirable destination for immigrants. Another distinct advantage America enjoys is the
entrepreneurial spirit embedded in our DNA. Equally, our faith in free enterprise and freedom of thought and speech helps stimulate creativity and innovation.
Today our companies – many of them small start-ups – are at the forefront of the highgrowth, R&D-based industries of the future. It is also worth noting that
America is blessed with an abundance of natural resources. From the most arable land of any country on Earth to a diverse range
of energy sources that will leave us increasingly energy independent. Current crude oil production is the highest since 2003, we
have been the world’s largest producer of natural gas since 2009, we have vast shale oil deposits, and
use of renewables such as wind and solar has doubled since 2008. All these underlying strengths make me confident that
the United States will continue to be a vibrant and vital global economic power. And a strong economy, of course, underwrites our second enduring strength: the
capability and reach of our military. Clearly, we are in a period of transition; turning the page on a decade of war and at the same time dealing with our budget
deficit. But despite
what some might say, America is not dismantling its defences. The truth is that in the wake of
9/11 and our response to it, our defence budget grew at an extraordinary pace. In 2001 – the year of the attacks – annual defense
spending was $319 billion. By 2011 it had more than doubled to $691 billion a year. So we are taking the difficult step of reducing our
planned defence spending by around $45 billion a year over a period of 10 years. But this adjustment is in no way going to
undermine America as the foremost military power on earth. Our defense budget was – and still is –
larger than roughly the next 10 countries combined. The new approach combines the need for deficit
reduction with a recognition of the changing nature of the security threats we face. Today our policy
encompasses a more agile, flexible, rapidly deployable and technologically advanced military – complemented with strong international alliances and multilateral
cooperation. Which brings me to America’s third core strength, which is the power of our partnerships. Partnerships
are essential in the 21st
century. Today’s challenges are too many, too immense and too complex for one country to go it
alone. This administration is intent on expanding and intensifying US engagement with other nations
and with international institutions. As a result, the United States now has a range of formidable alliances
on every continent. We don’t see ourselves as a super-power believing unilateral action can solve
everything. A more direct, confrontational approach advocated by some in previous decades is clearly no longer appropriate – nor, I should add, would it be
effective. The complexity of today's challenges demand a different style of American leadership. That's why today we see ourselves as a super-partner applying
Secretary Clinton’s focus on ‘smart power’. In Libya, for example, we used an effective range of tools – including diplomatic, economic, military, and humanitarian –
in the multilateral alliance against Colonel Gaddafi. And we will continue to play a central role within the United Nations and NATO – and also inside the G8, G20,
the World Bank, and the IMF. At the same time, we
are forging new relationships across Asia-Pacific, which is fastbecoming a strategic and economic center of gravity. This is what the Pacific pivot is all about. As a
truly global power, we have widespread, enduring interests in the region – and they demand our
widespread, enduring presence. But turning our face towards Asia-Pacific does not mean turning our back on Europe. We are
constantly reinforcing ties with our oldest and strongest allies, including our special relationship with
the United Kingdom. Building and maintaining strong, mutually beneficial partnerships, however, does not come from government alone. Successful
and enduring alliances are not simply born from the President signing a treaty, a trade agreement or military pact. They are entrenched and sustained by a range of
additional assets that are hard to quantify but nonetheless highly significant: our values, our customs and culture, our institutions and organizations. In effect, what
the United States represents to the world. Take
the timeless appeal of the values we embrace. Values of freedom,
democracy, human rights, tolerance, opportunity and the rule of law. These are the values we
promote on the international stage. And one way others learn what we stand for, and who we are,
and what aspirations we share comes from the power of our example. America’s standing and
influence is not only built on economic and military authority. Consider how the US was one of the
first countries to send a message to the corporate world on transparency and bribery. We passed the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because it was the right thing to do – even though it possibly put
American companies at a disadvantage. America was also among the first to take humanitarian action
following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year. We sent relief supplies, elite
search and rescue teams, and disaster response experts - while the American Red Cross provided
shelter for some of those made homeless. The exceptional work of American NGOs and foundations
around the world also provides US leadership on a number of global causes. In 2011 alone, American individuals,
corporations and foundations donated almost $300 billion to charities. But it is not just the immense resources our NGOs bring to their efforts, it is also the
boldness of their vision. The Carter Center – the organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter – is close to eradicating Guinea worm disease. It is also
promoting democracy through monitoring elections across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. And look at Bill and Melinda Gates. How easy it would have been for
them to slip into comfortable early retirement, using their wealth to hide from the world’s troubles. Instead, they were determined to use their personal fortune to
help confront and overcome some of the world’s toughest health problems. This enlightened approach to public service and social responsibility is an explicit
demonstration of America’s ‘hidden’ role as a global leader. Another
source of international influence comes from our
educational institutions. The excellence of our universities helps us to cultivate some of the world’s
best and brightest minds. Indeed, America remains the No. 1 destination for foreign students – attracted by a system that gives them the opportunity
to pursue and achieve their ambitions. According to the QS World University Rankings, 11 of the top 15 universities in the world are located in the United States.
Perhaps that is why the US can also claim more Nobel Prizes than any other country . This widespread appeal of America is
part of what makes us strong because it means our alliances are built on conviction not convenience. We do not stand alone in the world. We face our challenges in
partnership with others. And yes, of course, America has enormous challenges. So nothing I have said this evening is intended to sound either boastful or
complacent. We recognize that we constantly have to work, and that there is still a lot to do to maintain our leadership in a turbulent world undergoing significant
transformation. But I do believe strongly that our continued leadership is more important than ever. And America is not perfect, we know that. Unemployment is
still too high; the need for deficit reduction is essential and must be addressed; there remain issues around equality in our society; and aggressive partisanship is
causing dysfunction in our government and cannot be ignored. In these and many other areas, we know our country needs to do more: to heal wounds, take
courageous decisions, and adapt to new circumstances. But the
lesson from history is that America has always shown the
capacity to overcome its difficulties. In the past decade, we’ve endured the deadliest terrorist attacks
in modern history; two conflicts that have lasted longer than both world wars; and a global financial
crisis on scale unprecedented in a generation. Through it all, America has retained its global
leadership. And, as I have outlined this evening, the sources of our influence are many and they are durable. Our economic strengths are
unequaled. Our military power unrivaled. And our international partnerships unsurpassed. I believe
that our weaknesses pale in comparison to our resilience and our strengths. This is why I can say with
confidence that ultimately America will remain the indispensable global power.
Relative
US not declining – maintaining relative lead
Drezner, Professor International Politics Tufts, 1-22-’12 (Daniel, “Predictions about the death of
American hegemony may have been greatly exaggerated” Foreign Policy,
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/22/predictions_about_the_death_of_american_hege
mony_may_have_been_greatly_exaggerated)
So, America is doomed, right? To be honest, this sounds like a lot of pious baloney. As Michael Beckley points out in a new article in
International Security, "The United States is not in decline; in fact, it is now wealthier, more innovative, and more
militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991." The whole article is worth a read, and a good cautionary tale on the dangers of
overestimating the ease of national catch-up: The widespread misperception that China is catching up to the United States
stems from a number of analytical flaws, the most common of which is the tendency to draw conclusions about the U.S.-China
power balance from data that compare China only to its former self. For example, many studies note that the growth rates of
China’s per capita income, value added in hightechnology industries, and military spending exceed those of the United States and then conclude that China is catching up. This focus
on growth rates, however, obscures China’s decline relative to the United States in all of these
categories. China’s growth rates are high because its starting point was low. China is rising, but it is not catching up. What about the future? One could point to the last few months of
modestly encouraging economic data, but that's ephemeral. Rather, there are three macrotrends that are worth observing now before (I
suspect) they come up in the State of the Union: 1) The United States is successfully deleveraging. As the McKinsey Global Institute notes, the
United States is actually doing a relatively good job of slimming down total debt -- i.e., consumer, investor and public
debt combined. Sure, public debt has exploded, but as MGI points out, that really is the proper way of doing things after a financial bubble: The deleveraging processes in Sweden and Finland
in the 1990s offer relevant lessons today. Both endured credit bubbles and collapses, followed by recession, debt reduction, and eventually a return to robust economic growth. Their
experiences and other historical examples show two distinct phases of deleveraging. In the first phase, lasting several years, households, corporations, and financial institutions reduce debt
significantly. While this happens, economic growth is negative or minimal and government debt rises. In the second phase of deleveraging, GDP growth rebounds and then government debt is
the United States is most closely following the Nordic path towards
deleveraging. Debt in the financial sector has fallen back to levels last seen in 2000, before the credit
bubble, and the ratio of corporate debt relative to GDP has also fallen. US households have made
more progress in debt reduction than other countries, and may have roughly two more years before returning to sustainable levels of debt.
gradually reduced over many years.... As of January 2012,
Indeed, the deleveraging is impressive enough for even Paul Krugman to start sounding optimistic: the economy is depressed, in large part, because of the housing bust, which immediately
suggests the possibility of a virtuous circle: an improving economy leads to a surge in home purchases, which leads to more construction, which strengthens the economy further, and so on.
if you squint hard at recent data, it looks as if something like that may be starting: home sales are
up, unemployment claims are down, and builders’ confidence is rising. Furthermore, the chances for a
virtuous circle have been rising, because we’ve made significant progress on the debt front . 2) Manufacturing is
And
on the mend. Another positive trend, contra the Harvard Business School and the GOP presidential candidates, is in manufacturing. Some analysts have already predicted a revival in that
US
manufacturing is entering an upturn that is not just a bounce-back after the recession, but a sign of a
longer-term structural improvement. Manufacturing employment has grown faster in the US since the recession than in any other leading developed economy,
sector, and now the data appears to be backing up that prediction. The Financial Times' Ed Crooks notes: Plenty of economists and business leaders believe that
according to official figures. Productivity growth, subdued wages, the steady decline in the dollar since 2002 and rapid pay inflation in emerging economies have combined to make the US a
the US has had some huge gains in productivity, and we have seen unit
labour costs actually falling,” says Chad Moutray, chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers. “A lot of our members tell us that it sometimes is
more attractive location. “Over the past decade,
cheaper to produce in the US, especially because labour costs are lower.” Now, whether this boom in manufacturing will lead to a corresponding boom in manufacturing employment is much
more debatable. Still, as The Atlantic's Adam Davidson concludes: "the still-unfolding story of manufacturing’s transformation is, in many respects, that of our economic age. It’s a story with
much good news for the nation as a whole. But it’s also one that is decidedly less inclusive than the story of the 20th century." 3) A predicted decline in energy insecurity. British Petroleum has
Growth in shale oil and gas supplies will make
the US virtually self-sufficient in energy by 2030, according to a BP report published on Wednesday. In a development with
enormous geopolitical implications, the country's dependence on oil imports from potentially volatile
countries in the Middle East and elsewhere would disappear, BP said, although Britain and western Europe would still need Gulf supplies.
BP's latest energy outlook forecasts a growth in unconventional energy sources, "including US shale
oil and gas, Canadian oil sands and Brazilian deepwater, plus a gradual decline in demand, that would see [North
issued their Energy Outlook for 2030. The Guardian's Richard Wachman provides a useful summary:
America] become almost totally energy self-sufficient" in two decades. BP's chief executive, Bob Dudley, said: "Our report challenges some long-held beliefs. Significant changes in US supply-
import dependence in what is today's largest energy importer will
decline substantially." The report said the volume of oil imports in the US would fall below 1990s levels, largely due to rising domestic shale oil production and ethanol
and-demand prospects, for example, highlight the likelihood that
replacing crude. The US would also become a net exporter of natural gas. Note that this will take a while, and doesn't mean that the U.S. will be energy independent. Still, it's quite a trend. Or,
Since the Second World War, the pattern in the global political economy has been for the
United States to adjust to systemic shocks better than any potential challenger country. A lot of very smart people
rather, trends.
have predicted that this time was different -- the United States wouldn't be able to do it again. These trends suggest that maybe, just maybe, that might be wrong. Am I missing anything?
Structural
US hegemony sustainable- structural power from international finance prevents
declines
Cafruny and Schwartz, 13 (Alan W., Professor, Department of Politics, University of Virginia, and Herman
M., Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs, Hamilton College, 2013, “Exploring the Global Financial
Crisis”, <https://www.rienner.com/uploads/511e64f2eb948.pdf>)ZBris
Beyond the mainstream, a range of alternative analytic perspectives challenged many of the assumptions behind the dominant narrative of
decline. Critics
of the thesis of US hegemonic decline located the source of global economic disarray not
in the decline of US power and leadership but rather in the more forceful and self-interested exercise
of US power, especially in the sphere of monetary relations (Calleo 1982; Strange 1982). A vigorous Marxist tradition
developed and for a brief period enjoyed considerable status within the discipline of IPE. Marxists defined the crisis not primarily in terms of US
hegemonic decline and uneven development, but rather in terms of the contradictions inherent in post–World War II Fordist regulation and
inexorable tendencies toward overaccumulation (Harvey 1982; Magdoff and Sweezy 1987). Yet by the mid-1990s, new and largely
unanticipated developments in the international political economy appeared to confound many of these theories and perspectives. Contrary to
the expectations of many, a new era of trade liberalization emerged as a result of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT), subsequent establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and a host of regional and bilateral free trade agreements,
including most prominently the Single European Market and the North American Free Trade Agreement. The deregulation
of capital
markets in the United States and Britain ultimately set in motion a corresponding massive increase in
global capital mobility, as states either followed suit voluntarily or as a result of IMF-supervised
structural adjustment programs. The debt crisis of the developing countries that resulted from the Volcker shocks of 1979 and
ensuing monetarism ultimately produced neither greater third-world militancy nor an NIEO but rather acquiescence to the Washington
Consensus. The hallmark of the Washington Consensus was the imposition of harsh austerity on debtors. Notwithstanding
the
human suffering caused by these policies, the gradual industrialization across significant sections of
the global South, and most notably the rise of BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), appeared to confound the
expectations of dependency theorists. The new era of globalization was enhanced first by the entry of
1.2 billion Chinese into the global market economy and then another 300 million more from the
former Soviet bloc. These developments, alongside growing migration flows from the South to the North, reinforced the triumph of
neoliberalism at the expense of the more embedded form of post–World War II capitalism (Gill and Law 1988). Finally, the thesis of
declining US hegemony appeared to be premature ; far from being in decline, US structural power
appeared to have been prolonged and, in some respects even deepened as a result of “Bretton Woods II.”
Because of the depth and attractiveness of its capital markets, the United States could run unending
deficits while consuming 25 percent of world output and as much as 75 percent of global capital flows
by generating increasingly larger trade deficits with impunity. Whereas the crises of the 1930s and 1970s occurred in
the context of intellectual concerns with public goods, political economy, and society, the triumph of neoliberalism of the 1980srepresented a
return to individualism, as Marx and Keynes were marginalized by reassertion of micro foundations of economic, political, and even cultural life
(Rodgers 2011).
Hegemony structurally sustainable
Beckley, Fellow International Security Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, ’12 (Michael- Professor PolSci Tufts, Winter, “China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will
Endure” International Security, Vol 36 No 3, ProjectMuse)
Hegemony is indeed expensive and provocative, but these declinist arguments tell only part of the story. The United States is both “system-maker and
privilege-taker”—it pays a large share of system-maintenance costs but takes a disproportionate
share of the benefits.36 The basic claim of the alternative perspective is that these benefits outweigh the costs. Most obvious, the
United States, as hegemon, possesses an array of tools with which to reward and punish. It can
provide, restrict, or deny access to the U.S. market, technology, foreign aid, support for membership
in international organizations, bribes, and White House visits. These tit-for-tat bargains with individual states, however, are not as
consequential as the United States’ power over aspects of the international system itself. In the alternative perspective, hegemony is not just preponderant
power, it is “structural power.”37 It is the power to set agendas, to shape the normative frameworks
within which states relate to one another, and to change the range of choices open to others without
putting pressure directly on them. It is, at once, less visible and more profound than brute force. Seen in this light, the United States is neither benevolent nor
feeble, but coercive and capable, and the goods it produces “are less collective goods than private ones, accruing primarily to the hegemon and thus helping maintain its hegemony.”38
Military superiority, for example, allows the United States to employ “force without war,” pressuring other
countries into making concessions by shifting military units around or putting them on alert.39 It also
allows [End Page 48] the United States to run a protection racket, garnering influence through the provision
of security. As Joseph Nye explains, “Even if the direct use of force were banned among a group of countries, military force would still play an important political role. For example,
the American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in
the costs of
maintaining U.S. military superiority are substantial. By historical standards, however, they are
exceptionally small.41 Past hegemons succumbed to imperial overstretch after fighting multifront wars against major powers and spending more than 10 percent (and often
100 or 200 percent) of their GDPs on defense.42 The United States, by contrast, spends 4 percent of its GDP on defense and
concentrates its enmity on rogue nations and failed states. Past bids for global mastery were strangled before hegemony could be fully
consolidated. The United States, on the other hand, has the advantage of being an extant hegemon—it did not
overturn an existing international order; rather, the existing order collapsed around it. As a result, its dominant position is entrenched to the point that “any
bargaining situations. Sometimes the linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of statesmen’s minds.”40 To be sure,
effort to compete directly with the United States is futile, so no one tries.”43 The dollar’s global role may handicap American exports, but it also comes with perks including seigniorage,44
reduced exchange rate risks for U.S. firms involved in international commerce, competitive advantages for American banks in dollarized financial markets, and the ability to delay and deflect
foreign governments that hold dollar reserves depend on U.S.
prosperity for their continued economic growth and are thus “entrapped,” unable to disentangle their interests from those of
the United States.46 Rather than [End Page 49] seeking to undermine the American economy, they invest in its continued expansion.47 Finally, given its position at the
top of the world trade regime, the United States can distort international markets in its favor.48 Declinists
expect the hegemon to use its power magnanimously. According to the alternative perspective, however, American foreign economic policy involves
the routine use of diplomatic leverage at the highest levels to create opportunities for U.S. firms.49 U.S.
current account adjustments onto other countries.45 More important,
trade officials, “acting as self-appointed enforcers of the free trade regime, asserted the right with their own national law to single out and punish countries they judged to be unfair
Globalization, therefore, may not be a neutral process that diffuses wealth evenly throughout the
international system, but a political process shaped by the United States in ways that serve its
interests.
traders.”50
A2: Unsust. – China
No China threat- limited by lack of democratic reforms and not zero-sum game
Onnis, 13 (Barbara, researcher at the DISPI - Faculty of Political Sciences, Spring 2013, “Has China Plans for
World Domination?”, Comparative Civilizations Review,
<https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/CCR/article/viewFile/20787/19259>)ZBris
Misreading about China are a quite common . One of the most frequent ones concerns the reemergence of China as a great power, which is unquestionably one of the most important geopolitical
events in this century. The extraordinary economic growth that China has sustained in the last
decades has not been followed, as many had hoped, by democratic reforms. It has witnessed instead an exponential
growth in its political and diplomatic weight, under the one-party rule, aiming to regain the central role it had played for millennia as the
Middle Kingdom which was undermined by the incursions of imperialist Western Powers starting from the second half of the 18th century.
However China’s
economic success has alarmed many analysts and has prompted politicians – both in
Western as well as in some Asian countries – to wonder what kind of power would an increasingly
strong and assertive China become. Many observers have subscribed to the realist argument that its
rise would be a kind of “zero-sum” game where the rise of one power leads to the decline of another. Indeed, over the past
decade there has been a heated debate in the West over the potential challenge of this rising power, not only to the Asia-Pacific region but also
to the entire world. The
common perception in the West, and especially in the USA, is that China is both a voracious
economic competitor and a threatening political and military challenger, an emergent superpower
with growing indefinite intention that acts exclusively in its own interests , even to the detriment of the
international order. However, the Chinese leaders persist in reiterating the “peaceful” intentions of their
country, arguing that in an integrated global economy, China’s stability and development is essential
for world peace and prosperity.55 To reduce distortion about China’s current and future plans for
world domination, it should be wise to try to understand the thought of China’s leaders – past and present
– instead of analyzing only what they say or what they do. And, more importantly, Westerners should understand
China’s domestic situation and the growing challenges the country is facing. This would certainly help to better comprehend the fact that in
spite of all projections which foresee China overtaking the United States in the next few decades as the largest economy in the world, it is
unlikely that China will also be automatically the leading nation.
No China threat- US still dominant militarily regardless of Beijing
Bandow 6/13 (Doug Bandow, J.D. from Stanford University & senior fellow at Cato, 13 June 13, Cato
Institute, “No Need to Fear China’s Military Build-Up,” http://www.cato.org/blog/no-need-fear-chinasmilitary-build)kw
America’s and China’s presidents are meeting amid popular fears that Beijing is set to surpass Washington as the globe’s premier power.
However, America’s
advantages remain overwhelming, including in military strength. The U.S.
Department of Defense recently published its latest report on the Chinese military, warning that the
People’s Republic of China “continues to pursue a long-term, comprehensive military modernization
program designed to improve the capacity of its armed forces to fight and win short-duration, highintensity regional military conflict.” Beijing’s advances are real. However, as I point out in my latest article on the China-US Focus
website, the Chinese military poses little threat to America. As I explain, the PRC is focusing on Taiwan, a mission which
conflicts with Washington’s objectives but does not threaten U.S. security. The PRC has no interest in war with America or
any design to threaten U.S. territory, population, or prosperity. Rather, China envisions a world in which it has greater
influence and America has less. While this world may not be a better place—certainly from Washington’s viewpoint—it will inevitably arrive.
The U.S. should not view Beijing’s challenge as primarily military, which must be resisted with force. Equally important is the question of
capabilities. China is the world’s number two in military spending—DOD estimates the equivalent of between $135 billion and $215 billion. But
America’s advantage remains huge. Washington possesses the world’s biggest and most powerful military and continues to
spend far more than the PRC, three or more times on the U.S. “core,” non-war budget.
China rise literature is statistically flawed – only snapshots partial statistics
Beckley, Fellow International Security Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, ’12 (Michael- Professor PolSci Tufts, Winter, “China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will
Endure” International Security, Vol 36 No 3, ProjectMuse)
With few exceptions, however, existing studies on the decline of the United States and the rise of China suffer from at
least one of the following shortcomings.5 First, most studies do not look at a comprehensive set of indicators. Instead they
paint impressionistic pictures of the balance of power, presenting tidbits of information on a handful
of metrics. In general, this approach biases [End Page 42] results in favor of the declinist perspective because most
standard indicators of national power—for example, gross domestic product (GDP), population, and energy consumption—conflate size with
power and thereby overstate the capabilities of large but underdeveloped countries. For example, in a recent study
Arvind Subramanian contends that “China’s dominance is a sure thing” based on “an index of dominance combining just three factors: a country’s GDP, its trade (measured as the sum of its
The United States and China, however, are each declining
by some measures while rising in terms of others. To distinguish between ascendance and decline writ large, therefore, requires analyzing many
indicators and determining how much each one matters in relation to others. Second, many studies are static, presenting single-year
snapshots of U.S. and Chinese power. This flaw tends to bias results in favor of the alternative perspective because the United States retains a significant lead
in most categories. The key question, however, is not whether the United States is more powerful than China at present, but whether it will remain so in the future. Without a
dynamic analysis, it is impossible to answer this question. This study addresses these shortcomings by comparing
the United States and China across a large set of economic, technological, and military indicators over
the past twenty years. The results are mixed, but the bulk of the evidence supports the alternative perspective. Over
the last two decades, globalization and U.S. hegemonic burdens have expanded significantly, yet the United
States has not declined; in fact it is now wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful
compared to China than it was in 1991. China has narrowed the gap in terms of GDP and now exports a greater volume of high-technology products and
employs more scientists than any country in the world. However, GDP correlates poorly with national power ; more than 90 percent of China’s high-tech
exports are produced by foreign firms and consist of low-tech components; and China’s quantitative advantage in scientists has not yet
translated into qualitative advantages in innovation. The United States suffers from a huge debt problem that its political system appears ill-suited
to solve. China, however, faces its own fiscal mess, which may be more intractable than America’s. The
widespread misperception that China is catching up to the United States stems from a number of
analytical flaws, the most common of which is [End Page 43] the tendency to draw conclusions about the
U.S.-China power balance from data that compare China only to its former self. For example, many studies note that the
exports and imports of goods), and the extent to which it is a net creditor to the world.”6
growth rates of China’s per capita income, value added in high-technology industries, and military spending exceed those of the United States and then conclude that China is catching up.
This focus on growth rates, however, obscures China’s decline relative to the United States in all of these
categories. China’s growth rates are high because its starting point was low. China is rising, but it is
not catching up.7
China GDP figures irrelevant and not predictive
Beckley, Fellow International Security Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, ’12 (Michael- Professor PolSci Tufts, Winter, “China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will
Endure” International Security, Vol 36 No 3, ProjectMuse)
The case for the decline of the United States and the rise of China rests heavily on a single statistic:
GDP. Over the last twenty years, China’s GDP has risen relative to the United States’ in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), though it has declined in real terms.84 Regardless of which
measure is used, however, most projections have China overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economy before 2050, and some as early as 2015.85 Economic size,
however, does not necessarily make China a contender for superpower status . After all, China was the largest
economy in the world throughout most of its “century of humiliation,” when it was ripped apart by
Western powers and Japan. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, ruled a quarter of the globe for more than a century, but was never, even
at its peak, the largest economy in the world. Britain’s GDP was far smaller than China’s and India’s for all of the eighteenth century and much of the
nineteenth century.86 Britain, however, was able to establish imperial control over India and to defeat China militarily, imposing unequal treaties on Beijing, acquiring Hong Kong and various
other concessions, and establishing a sphere of influence in East Asia. This
dominance stemmed not from the absolute size of Britain’s
economy, but from its superior level of economic development, measured in terms of per capita
income, which was the highest in the world and several times higher than China’s and India’s at the time.87 This is not to say that size is irrelevant. Luxembourg’s per capita income is
almost double that of the United States, but its tiny population precludes it from raising a meaningful army, let alone entering the ranks of the great powers. [End Page 58] It is, however,
GDP is not synonymous with national power, and that countries with larger economies do
not necessarily have more resources at their disposal. Half a billion peasants will produce a large
volume of output, but most of it will be immediately consumed, leaving little left over for national
purposes. As Klaus Knorr argued, what matters for national power is not wealth, but “surplus wealth.”88 It is therefore
important to recognize that
significant that the average Chinese citizen is more than $17,000 poorer relative to the average American than he was in 1991 (see figure 1). SOURCE: International Monetary Fund, World
Economic Outlook Database, October 2010. PPP stands for purchasing power parity. On the other hand, the United States has accumulated great wealth in part by borrowing from abroad at
an unprecedented rate. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the United States’ public debt will remain greater than 60 percent of GDP through 2020.89 In the coming years, U.S.
policymakers will be forced to either decrease public spending or allow interest costs on the national debt to rise ruinously. Either option will retard economic growth. Managing such high
levels of debt will be especially difficult if the [End Page 59] dollar loses its position as the international reserve currency, an outcome that some experts think is likely.90
At first
glance, China’s fiscal future appears much brighter than the United States’. The Chinese economy grew 8 percent annually
throughout the global financial crisis, and its reported debt-to-GDP ratio is only 19 percent.91 China’s true level of public debt, however, is likely much
higher than reported because a great deal of state spending is funneled through investment entities
connected to local governments. Estimates that take this spending into account put China’s debt-toGDP ratio between 75 and 150 percent.92 The Chinese government projects annual growth rates of 7 percent between now and 2030. Some prominent
investors and economists, however, believe Chinese growth will plunge to 2 to 5 percent within the next decade following
the collapse of a “debt-fueled bubble.”93 These predictions are speculative and may turn out to be overly pessimistic.94 What is more certain, however, is that
several factors that allowed for rapid Chinese growth (e.g., a surplus of cheap labor and capital, expanding export markets abroad, and sufficient
water supplies) are disappearing.95 Chief among these factors is China’s “demographic dividend.”96 In the 1950s and [End Page 60] 1960s, the Chinese government encouraged
Chinese women to bear multiple children to boost the working-age population. In the 1970s, however, the Chinese government reversed course and instituted the one-child policy. As a result,
China will soon confront the most severe aging process in human history. Within twenty years, China
will have 300 million pensioners, causing the ratio of workers per retiree to plummet from 8 to 1
today to 2 to 1 by 2040.97 The fiscal cost of this swing in dependency ratios may exceed 80 to 100 percent of China’s GDP.98 SOURCE: United Nations, World Population
Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database (New York: United Nations, 2010). The United States, by contrast, “can be said to be a
young and even a developing country.”99 Its working age population will grow by 17 percent over the next forty years while that of all the other major powers
(except India) will decline (see figure 2).100 Moreover, its pension system is better funded, its public welfare commitments more modest, and its citizens more productive (in [End Page 61]
Global aging,” Mark Haas writes, “is therefore not only likely to
extend U.S. hegemony . . . but deepen it as . . . other states are likely to fall even farther behind.”102
terms of hours worked and years employed) than any other major power.101 “
Declinists claim that a rising GDP helps China attract foreign investment and compel foreign firms to transfer advanced technology to Chinese enterprises.103 The fundamental assumption
behind this claim is that a nation’s GDP reflects the size of its domestic market. Market size, however, is a measure of consumption whereas GDP is a measure of production. China’s citizens
produce many goods, but they consume relatively few. The Chinese market is much larger than it used to be, but it has shrunk relative to the U.S. market over the last two decades: China now
imports less compared to the United States than it did in 1991.104 More important, China’s bargaining power vis-à-vis foreign firms seems to be waning.105 Wholly foreign-owned enterprises
now account for 70 percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) flowing into China, whereas joint ventures between foreign and Chinese firms have steadily declined (see figure 3). Such rampant
foreign ownership never occurred in past cases of successful technological development (Japan and Korea grew with almost zero FDI or foreign ownership) and with good reason: wholly
the
United States is now wealthier compared to China than it was in 1991. This prediction runs counter to
declinism and provides suggestive support [End Page 62] for the alternative perspective. The trends discussed above may
foreign-owned enterprises, unlike joint ventures, are generally under no obligation to transfer technology to local partners and may crowd domestic firms out of the market.106 In sum,
change, and historians may one day look back on the recent financial crisis as the beginning of a massive transfer of wealth and power from the United States to China. Such an outcome will
depend on, among other things, the relative rates of innovation in each country.
Rumors of a credible Chinese threat have been greatly exaggerated
Nye ’12 Joseph S. Nye, Jr., co-founder of IR neoliberalism, University Distinguished Service Professor at
Harvard and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, “The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be
a ‘‘Post-American’’ World,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 215-217
An area where I agree with Layne is the shift of wealth from West to East. In The Future of Power, I identify that transition as one of the two
great power shifts of this century (the other is the power diffusion from states to nonstate actors, about which Layne is silent). In inter-state
politics, the most important factor will be the continuing ‘‘return of Asia.’’ In 1800, Asia had more than half of the world population and the
world’s product. By 1900, after the industrial revolution in Europe and America, Asia’s share shrank to one-fifth of the world product. By 2040,
Asia will be well on its way back to its historical share. The
‘‘rise’’ in the power of China and India may create instability, but it
is a problem with precedents, and we can learn from history about how our strategies can affect the
outcome. It is a mistake, however, to exaggerate Chinese power. For more than a decade, many have viewed China
as the most likely contender to balance American power, or surpass it. Some draw analogies to the challenge imperial Germany posed to Britain
at the beginning of the last century, though Germany surpassed Britain in 1900, and China has a long way to go to equal the power resources of
the United States. Even
when the overall Chinese GDP passes that of the United States, the two economies
will be equivalent in size, but not equal in composition. China would still have a vast, underdeveloped
countryside, and it will begin to face demographic problems from the delayed effects of its one-childper-couple policy. As the Chinese say, they fear the country will grow old before it grows rich. Per capita
income provides a measure of the sophistication of an economy. China will probably not equal the
United States in per capita income until sometime near the middle of the century. In other words, China’s
impressive growth rate combined with the size of its population will likely lead it to pass the American
economy in total size, but that is not the same as equality. Moreover, linear projections can be
misleading, and growth rates generally slow as economies reach higher levels of development. China’s
authoritarian political system has thus far shown an impressive power conversion capability, but whether China can maintain that capability
over the longer term is a mystery both to outsiders and to Chinese leaders. Unlike India, which was born with a democratic constitution,
China has not yet found a way to solve the problem of demands for political participation (if not
democracy) that tend to accompany rising per capita income. Whether China can develop a formula that
can manage an expanding urban middle class, regional inequality, and resentment among ethnic
minorities remains to be seen.
A2: Unsust. – Globalization
Globalization won’t kill hegemony – relative gain for the US
Beckley, Fellow International Security Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, ’12 (Michael- Professor PolSci Tufts, Winter, “China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will
Endure” International Security, Vol 36 No 3, ProjectMuse)
There is much to these arguments, but once again the declinist case tells only part of the story. Globalization has increased developing countries’
access to advanced technology, but it has also spawned a new mode of production—globally
networked production—that may undercut their long-term technological development. In the past, industries were
mostly self-contained within countries, allowing rising states (e.g., the United States, Germany, Japan, and South Korea) to use targeted investment and trade barriers to cultivate
internationally competitive industries.61 Today, however, such protective barriers may no longer be available because “the world’s wealthiest countries—though hardly paragons of free
trade—do not tolerate the sorts of protectionism they once did.”62 In other words, “[T]he conventional technological upgrading ladders have been kicked away in the [World Trade
The international trade regime affords poor countries some leeway to protect their infant
industries, but these [End Page 52] countries generally lack the legal capacity necessary to take advantage of
such provisions.64 Lower trade barriers, coupled with advances in technology (particularly digitization), allow lead
firms to “slice up the value-chain—to produce a good in a number of stages in a number of locations, adding a little bit of value at each stage.”65 According to the
alternative perspective, the result is a global division of labor in which firms in developed states specialize in research
and development (R&D), branding, and marketing while outsourcing manufacturing and basic engineering to developing countries.66 By farming out production
activities to the developing world, U.S. companies reap “dynamic self-reinforcing competitive
advantages,” tapping pools of cheap labor and investing the savings in technological modernization
and rejuvenation.67 They have become “global flagships,” deriving power from their control over proprietary resources and their capacity to coordinate transactions among the
various nodes of the production system.68 By controlling integral technologies and standards, lead firms can discipline
lower-tier partners and constrain their development. Latecomers face pernicious competition not only from powerful incumbents but also from
Organization] era.”63
hordes of low-cost competitors from elsewhere in the developing world. The globalization of production makes cheap, high-quality manufacturing a widely available commodity. And because
technology diffuses rapidly across borders, shop-floor innovations quickly spread from one manufacturer [End Page 53] to another. As competition rises, profit margins and time horizons
shrink. In response, fledgling firms eschew long-term investments in R&D and instead focus on lowering costs in existing activities, “mastering open processes instead of developing proprietary
ones.”69 In theory, globalization should help developing countries obtain and absorb advanced technology. In practice, however, this may not occur because some of the knowledge and
infrastructure necessary to absorb certain technologies cannot be specified in a blueprint or contained within a machine. Instead they exist in peoples’ minds and can be obtained only through
80 percent of the wealth of the United States is made up of
intangible assets, most notably, its system of property rights, its efficient judicial system, and the
skills, knowledge, and trust embedded within its society.71 If this is the case, then a huge chunk of what separates
the United States from China is not for sale and cannot be copied. Economies and militaries used to consist primarily of physical goods
“hands-on” experience.70 The World Bank recently calculated that
(e.g., conveyor belts and tanks), but today they are composed of systems that link physical goods to networks, research clusters, and command centers.72 Developing countries may be able to
purchase or steal certain aspects of these systems from abroad, but many lack the supporting infrastructure, or “absorptive capacity,” necessary to integrate them into functioning wholes.73
For example, in the 1960s, Cummins Engine Company, a U.S. technological leader, formed joint ventures with a Japanese company and an Indian company to [End Page 54] produce the same
truck engine. The Japanese plant quickly reached U.S. quality and cost levels while the Indian plant turned out second-rate engines at three to four times the cost. The reason, according to Jack
Baranson, was the “high degree of technical skill . . . required to convert techniques and produce new technical drawings and manufacturing specifications.”74 This case illustrates how an
Compared to developing
countries such as China, the United States is primed for technological absorption. Its property rights,
social networks, capital markets, flexible labor laws, and legions of multinational companies not only
help it innovate, but also absorb innovations created elsewhere.75 Declinists liken the U.S. economic
system to a leaky bucket oozing innovations out into the international system. But in the alternative perspective, the
United States is more like a sponge, steadily increasing its mass by soaking up ideas, technology, and
people from the rest of the world. If this is the case, then the spread of technology around the globe may
paradoxically favor a concentration of technological and military capabilities in the United States.
intangible factor such as skill can lead to significant productivity differences even when two countries have access to identical hardware.
A2: Unsust. – Economics
No imperial overstretch—our budget is slimming and our economy is maintaining
relative efficiency
Nye ’12 Joseph S. Nye, Jr., co-founder of IR neoliberalism, University Distinguished Service Professor at
Harvard and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, “The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be
a ‘‘Post-American’’ World,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 215-217
It is currently fashionable to compare American ‘‘hegemonic decline’’ to that of Britain or imperial Rome. It would be ahistorical to believe that
the United States will have a preponderant share of power resources forever. However, the
word ‘‘decline’’ mixes up two
different dimensions: absolute decline in the sense of decay, and relative decline in which the power
resources of other states grow greater or are used more effectively. Rome, an agrarian society with
little economic productivity and much internecine warfare, succumbed not to the rise of another
empire but to absolute decay, while Britain declined relative to the rise of new powers such as Germany and
the United States. And the ‘‘declinists’’ of the 1980s whose theories Layne tries to rescue developed a theory of ‘‘imperial overstretch’’
in which defense expenditures constantly increase as a share of GDP until the ‘‘hegemon’’ collapses. This theory helps explain the
collapse of the Soviet Union where defense expenditures eventually exceeded 20% of GDP, but in the United States,
despite two ill-advised wars in the past decade, defense expenditure at 6% has decreased from its
Cold War levels of 10%. The analogy with British decline is misleading. Britain had naval supremacy and an empire on which the sun
never set, but in 1914, Britain ranked only fourth among the great powers in its share of military personnel,
fourth in GDP, and third in military spending. With the rise of nationalism, protecting the empire became more of a burden
than an asset. For all the loose talk of American empire, the United States is less tethered and has more degrees of
freedom than Britain had. And while Britain faced rising neighbors in Germany and Russia, America benefits from two
oceans and weaker neighbors.
Actually our economy is still awesome
Nye ’12 Joseph S. Nye, Jr., co-founder of IR neoliberalism, University Distinguished Service Professor at
Harvard and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, “The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be
a ‘‘Post-American’’ World,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 215-217
Layne sees the current financial situation of the United States as proof of decline—even though the 2011 downgrading of America’s
credit rating by Standard and Poors led to an increase rather than a decrease in bondholders’ desire to
purchase US treasury bonds. Similarly, Layne refers to ‘‘China’s vote of no confidence in the dollar’s future,’’ but there is a gap
between Chinese declaratory and practical policy. Despite its various declarations, China continues to hold dollars and is a
long way from internationalization of the renminbi. The United States has very real problems and certainly needs to deal
with its debt and deficit problems, but the American economy remains highly productive. America remains first in
total R&D expenditures, first in university rankings, first in Nobel prizes, first on indices of
entrepreneurship, and according to the World Economic Forum, the fifth most competitive economy
in the world (China ranks 26th). Moreover, the United States remains at the forefront of such cutting-edge
technologies as bio-tech and nano-technology. This is hardly a picture of absolute economic decline such as in ancient Rome.
Some observers worry that America will become sclerotic like Britain at the peak of its power a century ago. But American culture is far more
entrepreneurial and decentralized than was that of Britain where the sons of industrial entrepreneurs sought aristocratic titles and honors in
London. And despite recurrent historical bouts of concern, immigration
helps keep America flexible. In 2005, foreignborn immigrants had participated in one of every four technology start-ups in the previous decade. As
Lee Kwan Yew once told me, China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, while the United States can
not only draw on a pool of 7 billion people, but can also recombine them in a diverse culture that
enhances creativity in a way that ethnic Han nationalism cannot.
Economics are irrelevant to unipolar stability theory
Wohlforth ’12 William C. Wohlforth, Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Chair of the
Department of Government, “How Not to Evaluate Theories,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56,
219-222
Unless I missed something, Layne’s theory is about how unipolarity generates systemic forces that work for a rapid return of bi- or
multipolarity. Much of Layne’s essay, by contrast, is about economics, primarily the shift in global GDP shares. As I noted earlier, Layne
is
certainly correct that the financial crisis and ‘‘great recession’’ accelerated China’s relative economic
rise. But he provides no argument or evidence to show that the unipolar distribution of capabilities
stimulated, prompted, influenced, or affected this change in any way. As William Thompson (2006:17) observed,
Layne never explains ‘‘why uneven growth should be viewed as a function of unbalanced power.’’ The
causes of economic growth are exogenous to the theories under discussion, so fast or slower-thanexpected economic growth of China, the United States, or any other country has no bearing on the
veracity of those theories. Even if we were to accept Layne’s claim that a new polar structure has emerged, it would have little to do
with arguments he advanced about unipolarity. Indeed, Layne provides no argument or evidence that clearly links the
financial collapse, great recession, and consequent ballooning of the US budget deficit to the
international system at all (at least, as scholars of international security construe it). I am not aware of any study that shows a
connection between any US security commitment and the causes of the economic downturn. The downturn might affect the
United States’ willingness to sustain defense spending at 4–5% of GDP and may even prompt
Washington to reevaluate some of its security commitments (though Layne probably exaggerates the magnitude), but
that does not mean that defense spending or security commitments caused the downturn in the first
place. Exogenously generated economic changes do not validate the balance-ofpower realists’ arguments.
A2: Multilat Shift Coming
Shifts to multilateralism are irrelevant- the US engages multilaterally to achieve their
own ends
Beaver, 13 (Kathryn E., The College of William and Mary, April 24, 2013, “United States Foreign Policy and
Multilateral Institutional Effectiveness”,
<https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/bitstream/handle/10288/18178/KathrynBeaver2013_text.pdf?sequence=2>)ZBris
For the U.S. there are several factors that contribute to the decision to enter a multilateral agreement. A
general consensus among
scholars concludes that since the end of the Cold War, U.S. ambivalence towards international
organizations has increased. The Bush era, from 2001 to 2008, has been characterized as a major shift towards unilateralism.28 This
could be attributed to the failures of some multilateral endeavors, such as Bosnia and Somalia, or to factors such as domestic political
structures, the role of interest groups, and U.S. exceptionalism. There have been some studies that argue that the United States‘ global
dominance has not led to an increase in cooperation, even if it is by American standards, as hegemonic stability would suggest. Rather, some
scholars believe that U.S. dominance has been expressed through its pursuit of unilateralism, instead of cooperation through multilateral
engagements.29 According to realist logic, the structure of multilateralism and the commitment to shared norms or principles despite
significant costs and self-restraint are not attractive to a great power like the U.S. This contradicts the theory of hegemonic stability, but
provides context to why the U.S. would choose to engage unilaterally.30 There has been some scholarship on the extent to which U.S.
engagement with international organizations has affected the organization itself. These scholars have generally assumed that the impact of U.S.
policy on the terms and success of an agreement would be immense.31 The
application of power can come in the form of
anticipatory surrender—smaller states giving up their power and actions to the interests of a larger
state because they believe the payoffs will be higher—or in the capacity to set agendas. Both of these
methods are ways that the U.S. can dictate the outputs and the process of international organizations
and therefore greatly affect their efficiency and legitimacy. 32 Some scholars have attempted to answer the question of
the impact of the U.S. on particular multilateral regimes. Gautnam Sen and Ngaire Woods analyze U.S. power on the WTO and World Bank/IMF
respectively.33 In those two instances, the
U.S. is a major player in that it sets policy, holds significant
administrative capacity, and provides the primary market for action. Both conclude that without U.S.
power, both organizations would not have the capacity to effectively achieve its goals. This thesis
contributes to the work already done by these scholars, and looks at issues outside of the realm of world trade and international monetary
regimes. So while the essays by Sen and Woods are useful for cases in which the U.S. has already supported, there is still a significant empirical
gap on organizations and treaties that the U.S. has not signed or ratified.
Liberal internationalism isn’t a reason why we can’t have US hegemonic preeminence
Crowley 13 (Leigh is a writer for e-International Relations the world’s leading website for students of international politics, “In the
Context of Debates Over US Decline and Rising Powers, Critically Compare and Contrast US Grand Strategy Options. Which One Would You
Follow and Why?”, http://www.e-ir.info/2013/06/13/us-grand-strategy-options/)
The Project for a Strong and United America forcibly argues that that the United States not only has
the unique ability to lead, ‘but an imperative to do so – for the protection of its own interests and
values, as well as for the advancement of democratic values, human development, and security
around the world’.[29] Advocates of primacy grand strategy argue that liberal internationalism fails to
understand the real nature of the international system; they believe the international system is far from
benign – it is a dangerous place where states compete for power. Furthermore, the only way to protect
your interests from competing powers is to carry a big stick.¶ It would be a misguided assumption that
liberal internationalism requires the United States to relinquish its preeminent position in the
international system. Rather, it calls for all states to work within the frameworks of international
institutions and the United States taking a lead role by promoting democracy, human rights and other
liberal values. [30]¶ The fusion of liberal internationalism and offshore balancing is the best grand
strategy option available to the United Sates. As argued by Ikenberry, the United States has lost its
authority to lead the liberal order and therefore must renegotiate its place.[31]¶ Widespread
disapproval of American intervention outside of the rules-based system, as seen in the 2003 invasion in
Iraq coupled with the rapid economic rise of China, has seen its unipolar moment elapse, though it
remains first amongst equals. The United States must now adjust to a new multipolar world despite still
possessing great power. This power should be used to promote the liberal order. As it has done since
1945, the United States will still possess the power to shape the liberal order in its own interests, but
the point of departure from previous grand strategies is that it should become fully immersed in
international institutions and operate within the rules. Leading by example and operating within the
rules-based system draws and locks in rival powers to the liberal order. Locking in rivals into the liberal
order underwrites American security, as the costs of leaving the liberal order are so high that rivals will
not seek to counter balance a preeminent United States
Answers To
A2: Econ Turns Heg
Increased debt won’t hurt military primacy
Cohen, Senior Fellow New America Foundation, 7-13-’12 (Michael, “This Week In Threat Mongering—
The Debt Version” The Century Foundation, http://tcf.org/blogs/botc/2012/07/this-week-in-threatmongering-the-debt-version)
The fact is, if last year’s debt limit debacle hasn’t already convinced other nations to be skeptical of
America’s future, then I think we’re probably in the clear. Of course, the debt limit debate is instructive in this regard. Even
though both parties agreed to a mandated reduction of the defense budget, which would basically return the Pentagon budget to FY 2007
levels (or what some might call, non-crazy levels of spending), the ink was barely dry on the agreement before both parties began falling over
themselves to restore the cuts. The House of Representatives even went so far as to take a sledgehammer, earlier this year, to key social safety
net programs in order to prevent the Pentagon from taking a haircut. Secretary of Defense Panetta practically ran around Washington with his
hair on fire decrying the impact of sequestration cuts. O’Hanlon
and Lieberthal’s predictions of doom are fanciful at
best and are based on the notion that the world is a dangerous place when in fact it’s never been
safer. But even if they are right that their calamitous series of events could occur, there are about $690 billion reasons to
believe that the sort of defense cuts that would lead to this series of events will never happen—
especially when the country can rely on esteemed national security experts to convince Americans
that if it were to occur the world would descend into a dystopian state. But that isn’t even the worst part of the
debt-is-a-national-security-threat argument—O’Hanlon and Lieberthal, as well as pretty everyone else who makes this assertion, don’t appear
to understand the difference between debt and economic growth. Yes, America’s
economy is weak; but it has very little to
do with the fact that we have a lot of debt. Indeed, the problem is that the federal government hasn’t
taken on enough debt in order to grow our economy, create jobs and pull ourselves out of the worst
economic downturn since the Great Depression. Quite simply, the government has failed at one of its most basic
responsibilities in the face of economic calamity—spending money (even that which is borrowed) in order to fill the gap in aggregate demand.
As Ezra Klein rightly points out, the world is desperate to loan us money so that we can spend it on important national priorities, rebuild out
infrastructure and create jobs. Instead we have folks telling us that we should be reducing our debt . . . and that it’s a national security priority.
So while debt-mongers are right to be concerned about America’s economic future, their diagnosis is way off-base. Indeed, a
greater
focus on reducing the national debt will mean less resources to grow the economy, less money for
infrastructure, less money for improving our education system and less money to support clean
energy initiatives . . . unless O’Hanlon, Lieberthal, Haass, and Mullen believe that cutting government spending to reduce the deficit will
somehow grow the economy. It won’t. Instead, it will make things worse. In fact, the misguided focus on debt is a good part of the reason that
our economy remains so weak. We’ve devoted so much energy to worrying about the debt that we are supposedly leaving for our
grandchildren that we forgot to think about the terrible economy and high unemployment that we are bequeathing to Americans today. We
need to utilize the tools at our disposal to make this situation better.
US economic collapse won’t end hegemony
Edelman, Senior Associate of the International Security Program at Harvard, ‘10 (Understanding
America’s Contested Primacy, http://www.csbaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010.10.21Understanding-Americas-Contested-Supremacy.pdf)
American decline and the longevity of a unipolar world order will not be determined purely by
economic gains or losses. The future shape of the international system will depend on broader
measures of national power than the percentage of global production that a given state controls.
Measuring national power, however, is notoriously difficult. In an unprecedented situation of unipolarity, with little historical precedent to guide analysts, the measurement of relative power
shifts is perhaps harder still.
A2: Offshore Balancing
Obama not transition to offshore balancing now – still foreign intervention
Walt, Professor IR Harvard, 12-1-’11 (Stephen, “A bandwagon for offshore balancing?” Foreign Policy,
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/01/a_bandwagon_for_offshore_balancing)
Beinart is a smart and independent thinker, and he deserves credit for recognizing where things are now headed and for calling his readers' attention to it. But he doesn't fully
grasp some of the essential features of offshore balancing. His (and Obama's) version of this strategy
remains highly interventionist; the only difference is that Washington now uses drones, cruise
missiles, and special forces instead of large land armies. But we are still violating other states'
sovereignty and killing terrorists and civilians in several different places, including some areas that are hardly vital interests. As
we are witnessing in Pakistan, this approach is inflaming anti-Americanism, radicalizing the Pakistani diaspora, jeopardizing the overdue effort to leave Afghanistan, and quite possibly making
Obama and Beinart's version of the strategy still assumes that it is America's
responsibility to solve security problems in places like Yemen or Central Asia, instead of relying
primarily on others to do it.
the terrorism problem worse over time. And
Internal Links
Economy Key
US economic growth key to sustaining military primacy
Beckley, Fellow International Security Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, ’12 (Michael- Professor PolSci Tufts, Winter, “China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will
Endure” International Security, Vol 36 No 3, ProjectMuse)
Wealth functions as a source of power because it insulates a state from dependence on others and
provides things of value that can be used in bargaining situations. As Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye point out, economic
interdependence involves relations of asymmetric vulnerability.80 Wealthy states are better equipped
to wield market access and economic sanctions as tools of influence over others. They also have more
capital to fund technological innovation and military modernization. All states face the dilemma of
balancing short-term spending against long-term economic growth. This predicament, however, is less acute for wealthy states,
which can sustain significant investments in innovation and military power with a relatively small percentage of their total resources. The ability to innovate, defined as the
creation of new products and methods of production, also constitutes a source of power. Like wealthy states, innovative countries are less
dependent on others and more capable of producing goods that others value. Innovation also creates
wealth and tends to beget further innovation as individual discoveries spawn multiple derivative
products and improvements. Innovative activity therefore tends to cluster in [End Page 56] particular places and provide certain countries with significant
technological and military advantages. As Joshua Goldstein has shown, “The country creating a major cluster of innovations often finds
immediate military applications and both propels itself to hegemonic status and maintains that status
by that mechanism.”81 Military power is generally considered to be the “ultima ratio” of power because
it functions as a decisive arbiter of disputes when it is used and shapes outcomes among states even
when it is not. Military capabilities can be used to destroy, to back up coercive threats, and to provide protection and assistance. When performed well, these actions can alter the
behavior of other states. Military superiority can also generate wealth by, for example, making a country a more secure and attractive place to invest, as well as provide the means to coerce
other countries into making economic concessions. The RAND study found that nuclear weapons were of less importance than conventional capabilities for national influence. Thus, I do not
consider them in the following analyses. The authors of the RAND study explain: “Even though nuclear weapons have become the ultima ratio regum in international politics, their relative
inefficacy in most situations other than those involving national survival implies that their utility will continue to be significant but highly restricted. The ability to conduct different and
sophisticated forms of conventional warfare will, therefore, remain the critical index of national power because of its undiminished utility, flexibility, responsiveness and credibility.”82 The key
national power is multifaceted and cannot be measured with a single or a handful of metrics. In
allot more space to economic indicators than to military indicators. This is not because economic power is
necessarily more important than military power, but rather because most declinist writings argue that the United States is in economic, not military, decline. Moreover, military
power is ultimately based on economic strength. International relations scholars tend to view civilian and military realms as separate entities, but
militaries are embedded within economic systems. In a separate study, I show that countries that excel in producing
commercial products and innovations also tend to excel in producing military force.83 Part of this advantage stems
from greater surplus wealth, which allows [End Page 57] rich states to sustain large military investments. Economically developed states, however, also derive
military benefits from their technological infrastructures, efficient production capacities, advanced
data analysis networks, stocks of managerial expertise, and stable political environments. In short,
economic indicators are, to a significant degree, measures of military capability. Focusing on the former, therefore, does
point is that
the analyses that follow, I
not imply ignoring the latter.
Forward Deployment Key
Forward deployed forces key to global stability and deterrence – withdrawing for
economic reasons is misguided
Flourney, Co-Founder Center for a New American Security, and Davidson, Professor Public Policy
George Mason, ’12 (Michele- Former US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Janine- Former US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans, July/August, “Obama’s New Global Posture” Foreign
Affairs, Vol 91 Issue 4, EbscoHost)
THE LOGIC OF SUSTAINED FORWARD ENGAGEMENT DURING THE Pentagon's last global posture review, in 2004, then U.S. Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld's guiding principle was closing overseas bases and bringing home U.S. troops stationed abroad. In contrast, the
Obama
administration has emphasized making the country's forward posture more efficient and effective.
American forces stationed abroad should be aiming to prevent conflict, build the capacity of key
partners, maintain core alliances, and ensure the U.S. military's ability to secure American interests in
critical regions. Forward engagement, as this approach is called, does not mean policing the world or letting
other countries free-ride on U.S. security guarantees. And partnership does not mean relinquishing
American sovereignty to regional and international institutions. Rather, forward engagement means
leveraging the United States' biggest strength, the ability to lead, while encouraging others to share
the burden. The cornerstone of forward engagement will be positioning U.S. troops in vital regions to
help deter major conflicts and promote stability, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. As the long-term
U.S. deployments in Europe and Asia have demonstrated, the physical presence of military forces sends a powerful message
to potential adversaries. Some believe that troops garrisoned at home are just as effective a deterrent, given the global reach and
technological superiority of the U.S. armed forces. But that argument, which was the cornerstone of Rumsfeld's posture vision, ignores the
realities of time, distance, logistics, and politics. As
the United States' experience in the two Iraq wars
demonstrated, it takes weeks, if not months, to deploy a force of the size and strength required for
some of the most likely and most dangerous scenarios the United States could face around the world.
Furthermore, moving troops from the United States to a conflict zone just as tensions begin to rise can
exacerbate or escalate a crisis. Forward-postured forces also reassure allies of the United States'
commitment to their security. On the Korean Peninsula, for example, the presence of some 28,000 U.S. personnel reminds Seoul
that the United States stands ready to defend South Korea against North Korean aggression. Further south, U.S. naval and air forces engaged in
Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand give allies in Southeast Asia greater confidence that the United States will not abandon the
region at a time of great change and uncertainty. Should deterrence fail, forward-stationed military forces are well placed to facilitate a
collective response. As
the recent NATO operation in Libya showed, responding to threats requires
guaranteed access to supply routes and bases, diplomatic support, and, ideally, the help of allies in
the field. Quickly assembling a posse to get the bad guys might have worked in old Westerns, but it
does not work in complex, high-tech military operations. For those, common-command-and-control
protocols, interoperable technologies, doctrines, and planning processes should be developed well in
advance. And more than any other forces, forward-stationed forces can spearhead those preparations. They can
conduct regular training exercises with allies to identify and correct shortfalls, build trust among U.S.
and allied service members, and develop the shared practices that make the militaries work together
more effectively in the field. Another good reason for forces to remain engaged abroad, even in peacetime, is to serve as an
investment in burden sharing. Training and conducting real-world missions with allies and partners, such as the
United States' multilateral antipiracy operations off the Horn of Africa aid its freedom-of-navigation
exercises in the Persian Gulf, helps build up their capacities. Such engagement also promotes a shared
vision of the world, in which the rule of law dominates, disputes can be resolved without the use of
force, and commerce flows freely. In turn, such partners: are more able to address problems at home without the need for U.S.
forces. Such relatively small investments in peacetime activities can mean not having to put American men and women in harm's way later.
Forward engagement is not only an effective way to safeguard U.S. national security interests; it is also a responsible and efficient way to
position U.S. forces in a time of economic constraint. The political scientists Joseph Parent and Paul MacDonald argued in these pages ("The
Wisdom of Retrenchment," November/December 2011) that closing U.S. overseas bases and bringing U.S. personnel home would save billions
of dollars. Such an argument misunderstands how U.S. armed forces are sustained abroad and underestimates the expense of relocating them.
The United States has 1.4 million men and women in uniform. All of them, and their families, must be housed and trained somewhere. It is not
necessarily cheaper to do that in the United States, especially since some countries, including Germany, Japan, and South Korea, help foot the
bill for U.S. facilities stationed there. Furthermore, it would be a colossal misallocation of resources to abandon significant capital investments-for example, the world-class U.S. Army training center in Hohenfels, Germany--only to build duplicate facilities at home. The United States
should position its forces to provide national security in the most efficient and responsible way possible. In
the coming years, the
U.S. military will likely be operating in a tight budget environment, but Washington can get more for
less by positioning a larger percentage of its forces in key regions. Take, for example, the rotation cycles of U.S. naval
ships. For every ship out securing sea- lanes or deterring aggression, there are three others in various stages of maintenance or in transit.
Porting ships closer to their areas of operation in Europe or Asia would save each vessel three to four weeks in transit time and would require
keeping one-third fewer ships in U.S. inventories. That alone would save billions of dollars in acquisition, operations, and maintenance costs.
Similarly, the strategic
forward stationing of U.S. forces, combined with periodic rotations by U.S. forces
to train with allies, makes the best use of American resources, enhances cooperation and burden
sharing, and ensures that the military is positioned and ready to respond to emerging threats and
crises.
Latin America Key
Engaging Latin America is key to US hegemony- reinforces democratic international
order and crowds-out China
Fontaine/Kliman, 13 (Richard Fontaine and Daniel M. Kliman, Center for Strategic International Studies,
Winter 2013, “International Order and Global Swing States”, The Washington Quarterly,
<https://dev.csis.org/files/publication/TWQ_13Winter_FontaineKliman.pdf>)ZBris
To secure its interests and ideals across the major axes of uncertainty that obscure the future, the
United States must forge closer partnerships with the global swing states. One axis of uncertainty is
how China’s growing power will affect the international order. Whether an authoritarian China will
accept the entirety of the current order, which enshrines rule of law and democratic values, remains
unknown.29 China’s political system may predispose it to oppose the global order as its power
expands. Alternatively, China may find that it has an interest in accepting many of the prevailing institutions and arrangements. Either
way, it is critical that Washington work with the global swing states to reinforce the international
order .30 In the best case scenario, a strong global order will channel China’s growing strength in a constructive direction to the benefit of all
countries. In the worst case, a renewed international order will withstand Chinese pressure and continue to underpin a stable world. The other
axis of uncertainty is the future path of American power. If the United States retains its overwhelming predominance, forming closer
connections with the global swing states will reinforce the international order at a time of mounting challenges. If,
as some observers
argue, America’s preeminent position is eroding, this strategy will reinforce the web of security
alliances and partnerships , global institutions, and robust world trade and financial architecture
through which the United States can pursue collaboration or organize opposition.
Navy Key
Naval power key internal link to US power projection capabilities
England et al, Former Secretary of Navy, ’11 (Gordon England, James Jones- Former Commandant
Marine Corps, and Vern Clark- Former Chief of Navy Operations, July 11, “The Necessity of U.S. Naval
Power” http://gcaptain.com/necessity-u-s-naval-power?27784)
The future security environment underscores two broad security trends. First, international political realities and the internationally
agreed-to sovereign rights of nations will increasingly limit the sustained involvement of American
permanent land-based, heavy forces to the more extreme crises. This will make offshore options for deterrence
and power projection ever more paramount in support of our national interests. Second, the naval
dimensions of American power will re-emerge as the primary means for assuring our allies and
partners, ensuring prosperity in times of peace, and countering anti-access, area-denial efforts in
times of crisis. We do not believe these trends will require the dismantling of land-based forces, as these forces will remain essential reservoirs of power. As the United States has
learned time and again, once a crisis becomes a conflict, it is impossible to predict with certainty its depth, duration and cost. That said, the U.S. has been shrinking
its overseas land-based installations, so the ability to project power globally will make the forward
presence of naval forces an even more essential dimension of American influence. What we do believe is that
uniquely responsive Navy-Marine Corps capabilities provide the basis on which our most vital
overseas interests are safeguarded. Forward presence and engagement is what allows the U.S. to
maintain awareness, to deter aggression, and to quickly respond to threats as they arise. Though we clearly must
be prepared for the high-end threats, such preparation should be made in balance with the means necessary to avoid escalation to the high end in the first place. The versatility
of maritime forces provides a truly unmatched advantage. The sea remains a vast space that provides
nearly unlimited freedom of maneuver. Command of the sea allows for the presence of our naval
forces, supported from a network of shore facilities, to be adjusted and scaled with little external
restraint. It permits reliance on proven capabilities such as prepositioned ships. Maritime capabilities
encourage and enable cooperation with other nations to solve common sea-based problems such as
piracy, illegal trafficking, proliferation of W.M.D., and a host of other ills, which if unchecked can harm
our friends and interests abroad, and our own citizenry at home. The flexibility and responsiveness of
naval forces provide our country with a general strategic deterrent in a potentially violent and
unstable world. Most importantly, our naval forces project and sustain power at sea and ashore at the time,
place, duration, and intensity of our choosing. Given these enduring qualities, tough choices must clearly be made, especially in light of expected tight
defense budgets. The administration and the Congress need to balance the resources allocated to missions such as strategic deterrence, ballistic missile defense, and cyber warfare with the
The maritime capability and capacity vital to the flexible projection of
U.S. power and influence around the globe must surely be preserved, especially in light of available
technology. Capabilities such as the Joint Strike Fighter will provide strategic deterrence, in addition to tactical long-range strike, especially when operating from forward-deployed
naval vessels. Postured to respond quickly, the Navy-Marine Corps team integrates sea, air, and land power
into adaptive force packages spanning the entire spectrum of operations, from everyday cooperative
security activities to unwelcome — but not impossible — wars between major powers. This is exactly what we
will need to meet the challenges of the future.
more traditional ones of sea control and power projection.
Rapidly declining naval power causes Chinese aggression and triggers wars in every
major hotspot***
Eaglen, Research Fellow National Security at Heritage, ’11 (Mackenzie, May 16, “Thinking About a Day
Without Sea Power: Implications for U.S. Defense Policy”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/05/thinking-about-a-day-without-sea-powerimplications-for-us-defense-policy)
Global Implications. Under a scenario of dramatically reduced naval power, the United States would cease
to be active in any international alliances. While it is reasonable to assume that land and air forces would be similarly reduced
in this scenario, the
lack of credible maritime capability to move their bulk and establish forward bases
would render these forces irrelevant, even if the Army and Air Force were retained at today’s levels . In
Iraq and Afghanistan today, 90 percent of material arrives by sea, although material bound for Afghanistan must then make a laborious journey
by land into theater. China’s
claims on the South China Sea, previously disputed by virtually all nations in the region and
routinely contested by U.S. and partner naval forces, are accepted as a fait accompli, effectively turning the region
into a “Chinese lake.” China establishes expansive oil and gas exploration with new deepwater drilling
technology and secures its local sea lanes from intervention. Korea, unified in 2017 after the implosion of the North,
signs a mutual defense treaty with China and solidifies their relationship. Japan is increasingly isolated and in 2020–2025
executes long-rumored plans to create an indigenous nuclear weapons capability.[11] By 2025, Japan
has 25 mobile nuclear-armed missiles ostensibly targeting China, toward which Japan’s historical animus remains
strong. China’s entente with Russia leaves the Eurasian landmass dominated by Russia looking west and
China looking east and south. Each cedes a sphere of dominance to the other and remains largely unconcerned with the events in
the other’s sphere. Worldwide, trade in foodstuffs collapses. Expanding populations in the Middle East
increase pressure on their governments, which are already stressed as the breakdown in world trade
disproportionately affects food importers. Piracy increases worldwide, driving food transportation costs even
higher. In the Arctic, Russia aggressively asserts its dominance and effectively shoulders out other
nations with legitimate claims to seabed resources. No naval power exists to counter Russia’s claims.
India, recognizing that its previous role as a balancer to China has lost relevance with the retrenchment of the Americans, agrees to
supplement Chinese naval power in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to protect the flow of oil to
Southeast Asia. In exchange, China agrees to exercise increased influence on its client state Pakistan. The great typhoon of 2023 strikes
Bangladesh, killing 23,000 people initially, and 200,000 more die in the subsequent weeks and months as the international community provides
little humanitarian relief. Cholera and malaria are epidemic. Iran
dominates the Persian Gulf and is a nuclear power. Its
navy aggressively patrols the Gulf while the Revolutionary Guard Navy harasses shipping and oil
infrastructure to force Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries into Tehran’s orbit. Russia supplies Iran with
a steady flow of military technology and nuclear industry expertise. Lacking a regional threat, the Iranians happily
control the flow of oil from the Gulf and benefit economically from the “protection” provided to other GCC nations. In Egypt, the decade-long
experiment in participatory democracy ends with the ascendance of the Muslim Brotherhood in a violent seizure of power. The United States is
identified closely with the previous coalition government, and riots break out at the U.S. embassy. Americans in Egypt are left to their own
devices because the U.S. has no forces in the Mediterranean capable of performing a noncombatant evacuation when the government closes
major airports. Led
by Iran, a coalition of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq attacks Israel. Over 300,000 die in
six months of fighting that includes a limited nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel. Israel is
defeated, and the State of Palestine is declared in its place. Massive “refugee” camps are created to house the
internally displaced Israelis, but a humanitarian nightmare ensues from the inability of conquering forces to support them. The NATO
alliance is shattered. The security of European nations depends increasingly on the lack of external
threats and the nuclear capability of France, Britain, and Germany, which overcame its reticence to military
capability in light of America’s retrenchment. Europe depends for its energy security on Russia and Iran, which control the main supply lines and
sources of oil and gas to Europe. Major European nations stand down their militaries and instead make limited contributions to a new EU
military constabulary force. No European nation maintains the ability to conduct significant out-of-area operations, and Europe as a whole
maintains little airlift capacity. Implications for America’s Economy. If
the United States slashed its Navy and ended its
mission as a guarantor of the free flow of transoceanic goods and trade, globalized world trade would
decrease substantially. As early as 1890, noted U.S. naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan described the world’s oceans as a
“great highway…a wide common,” underscoring the long-running importance of the seas to trade.[12] Geographically organized
trading blocs develop as the maritime highways suffer from insecurity and rising fuel prices . Asia prospers
thanks to internal trade and Middle Eastern oil, Europe muddles along on the largesse of Russia and Iran, and the Western Hemisphere declines
to a “new normal” with the exception of energy-independent Brazil. For America, Venezuelan oil grows in importance as other supplies decline.
Mexico runs out of oil—as predicted—when it fails to take advantage of Western oil technology and investment. Nigerian output, which for five
years had been secured through a partnership of the U.S. Navy and Nigerian maritime forces, is decimated by the bloody civil war of 2021.
Canadian exports, which a decade earlier had been strong as a result of the oil shale industry, decline as a result of environmental concerns in
Canada and elsewhere about the “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) process used to free oil from shale. State
and non-state actors
increase the hazards to seaborne shipping, which are compounded by the necessity of traversing key
chokepoints that are easily targeted by those who wish to restrict trade. These chokepoints include the Strait of
Hormuz, which Iran could quickly close to trade if it wishes. More than half of the world’s oil is transported by sea. “From 1970 to 2006, the
amount of goods transported via the oceans of the world…increased from 2.6 billion tons to 7.4 billion tons, an increase of over 284%.”[13] In
2010, “$40 billion dollars [sic] worth of oil passes through the world’s geographic ‘chokepoints’ on a daily basis…not to mention $3.2
trillion…annually in commerce that moves underwater on transoceanic cables.”[14] These quantities of goods simply cannot be moved by any
other means. Thus, a reduction of sea trade reduces overall international trade. U.S.
consumers face a greatly diminished
selection of goods because domestic production largely disappeared in the decades before the global
depression. As countries increasingly focus on regional rather than global trade, costs rise and
Americans are forced to accept a much lower standard of living. Some domestic manufacturing improves, but at
significant cost. In addition, shippers avoid U.S. ports due to the onerous container inspection regime implemented after investigators discover
that the second dirty bomb was smuggled into the U.S. in a shipping container on an innocuous Panamanian-flagged freighter. As a result,
American consumers bear higher shipping costs. The market also constrains the variety of goods available to the U.S. consumer and increases
their cost. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report makes this abundantly clear. A one-week shutdown of the Los Angeles and Long Beach
ports would lead to production losses of $65 million to $150 million (in 2006 dollars) per day. A three-year closure would cost $45 billion to $70
billion per year ($125 million to $200 million per day). Perhaps even more shocking, the simulation estimated that employment would shrink by
approximately 1 million jobs.[15] These estimates demonstrate the effects of closing only the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. On a national
scale, such a shutdown would be catastrophic. The Government Accountability Office notes that: [O]ver
95 percent of U.S.
international trade is transported by water[;] thus, the safety and economic security of the United
States depends in large part on the secure use of the world’s seaports and waterways. A successful attack on
a major seaport could potentially result in a dramatic slowdown in the international supply chain with impacts in the billions of dollars.[16] As
of 2008, “U.S. ports move 99 percent of the nation’s overseas cargo, handle more than 2.5 billion tons of trade annually, and move $5.5 billion
worth of goods in and out every day.” Further, “approximately 95 percent of U.S. military forces and supplies that are sent overseas, including
those for Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, pass through U.S. ports.”[17] General Conclusions. This simple thought
experiment is designed to highlight the impact of the loss of preponderant American sea power. Because
this is a scenario-based excursion, it is important to retain perspective. In order to create this absence of sea power, a Hobbesian nightmare
had to be imposed, although a
slow erosion of naval power in the next decade could leave the country
dramatically unprepared for something less than Hobbes might conjure. Certainly, America would have many
important needs if such a scenario became reality. Yet the scenario’s description shows the extent to which America’s
power as a maritime nation depends on its ability to field and operate a global fleet that aggressively
protects its interests even as it provides a benign security environment for other nations to enjoy . Put
another way, the cost of maintaining a fleet that can project power and presence around the globe—even if
it encourages others to underinvest in their naval forces—produces substantial national security and economic
benefits for the American people, and these benefits far outweigh the costs of maintaining it.
Impacts
Barnett
Hegemony solves nuke war and extinction
Barnett, Professor Warfare Analysis at Center for Naval Warfare Studies, ’11 (Thomas, March 7, “The
New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts US, and Globalization, at Crossroads” World Politics Review,
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadership-fatigue-puts-u-s-andglobalization-at-crossroads
It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of arguably the greatest structural change in the global order yet endured, with this historical moment's most amazing feature
when Americans contemplate military intervention
being its relative and absolute lack of mass violence. That is something to consider
in Libya,
because if we do take the step to prevent larger-scale killing by engaging in some killing of our own, we will not be adding to some fantastically imagined global death count stemming from the
We'll be engaging in the same sort of system-administering activity
that has marked our stunningly successful stewardship of global order since World War II. Let me be more blunt:
As the guardian of globalization, the U.S. military has been the greatest force for peace the world has ever known.
Had America been removed from the global dynamics that governed the 20th century, the mass
murder never would have ended. Indeed, it's entirely conceivable there would now be no identifiable human
civilization left, once nuclear weapons entered the killing equation. But the world did not keep sliding
down that path of perpetual war. Instead, America stepped up and changed everything by ushering
inour now-perpetual great-power peace. We introduced the international liberal trade order known
as globalization and played loyal Leviathan over its spread. What resulted was the collapse of
empires, an explosion of democracy, the persistent spread of human rights, the liberation of women,
the doubling of life expectancy, a roughly 10-fold increase in adjusted global GDP and a profound and
persistent reduction in battle deaths from state-based conflicts. That is what American "hubris" actually delivered. Please remember
ongoing "megalomania" and "evil" of American "empire."
that the next time some TV pundit sells you the image of "unbridled" American military power as the cause of global disorder instead of its cure. With self-deprecation bordering on self-
While we
might imagine ourselves the status quo power, we remain the world's most vigorously revisionist
force. As for the sheer "evil" that is our military-industrial complex, again, let's examine what the world looked like before that establishment reared its ugly head. The last
great period of global structural change was the first half of the 20th century, a period that saw a
death toll of about 100 million across two world wars. That comes to an average of 2 million deaths a year in a world of approximately 2 billion
souls. Today, with far more comprehensive worldwide reporting, researchers report an average of less than 100,000 battle deaths
annually in a world fast approaching 7 billion people. Though admittedly crude, these calculations suggest a 90
percent absolute drop and a 99 percent relative drop in deaths due to war. We are clearly headed for a world order
loathing, we now imagine a post-American world that is anything but. Just watch who scatters and who steps up as the Facebook revolutions erupt across the Arab world.
characterized by multipolarity, something the American-birthed system was designed to both encourage and accommodate. But given how things turned out the last time we collectively faced
we would do well to keep U.S. power, in all of its forms, deeply embedded in the
geometry to come. To continue the historical survey, after salvaging Western Europe from its half-century of civil war, the U.S.
emerged as theprogenitor of a new, far more just form of globalization -- one based on actual free trade rather than colonialism.
such a fluid structure,
America then successfully replicated globalization further in East Asia over the second half of the 20th century, setting the stage for the Pacific Century now unfolding.
Brzezinski
Solves global conflict
Brzezinski, Former National Security Adviser to Carter, 2-1-’12 (Zbigniew, “Global stability depends on
America not collapsing” Washington Post, http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/global-stabilitydepends-on-america-not-collapsing-1.974027)
Not so long ago, a high-ranking Chinese official, who obviously had concluded that America's decline and China's rise were both inevitable, noted in a burst of candour to a senior US official:
"But, please, let America not decline too quickly." Although the inevitability of the Chinese leader's expectation is still far from certain, he was right to be cautious when looking forward to
if America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor
— not even China. International uncertainty, increased tension among global competitors, and even outright
chaos would be far more likely outcomes. While a sudden, massive crisis of the American system — for instance,
another financial crisis — would produce a fast-moving chain reaction leading to global political and economic
disorder, a steady drift by America into increasingly pervasive decay or endlessly widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by 2025, an effective global successor.
No single power will be ready by then to exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, expected the
America's demise. For
US to play: the leader of a new, globally cooperative world order. The leaders of the world's second-rank powers, among them India, Japan, Russia, and some European countries, are already
assessing the potential impact of a US decline on their respective national interests. The Japanese, fearful of an assertive China dominating the Asian mainland, may be thinking of closer links
Russia, while perhaps engaging in
will almost certainly have its eye on the independent states
of the former Soviet Union. Europe, not yet cohesive, would likely be pulled in several directions:
Germany and Italy toward Russia because of commercial interests, France and insecure Central
Europe in favour of a politically tighter European Union, and Britain toward manipulating a balance
within the EU while preserving its special relationship with a declining US. Others may move more rapidly to carve out their
with Europe. Leaders in India and Japan may be considering closer political and even military cooperation in case America falters and China rises.
wishful thinking (even schadenfreude) about America's uncertain prospects,
own regional spheres: Turkey in the area of the old Ottoman Empire, Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and so forth. None of these countries, however, will have the requisite combination of
economic, financial, technological, and military power even to consider inheriting America's leading role. China, invariably mentioned as America's prospective successor, has an impressive
imperial lineage and a strategic tradition of carefully calibrated patience. China prudently accepts the existing international system, even if it does not view the prevailing hierarchy as
permanent. It recognises that success depends not on the system's dramatic collapse but on its evolution toward a gradual redistribution of power. Moreover, the basic reality is that
China is not yet ready to assume in full America's role in the world. At the same time, the security of a number
of weaker states located geographically next to major regional powers also depends on the
international status quo reinforced by America's global pre-eminence — and would be made
significantly more vulnerable in proportion to America's decline. A faltering US could also find its
strategic partnership with Mexico in jeopardy. America's economic resilience and political stability
have so far mitigated many of the challenges posed by such sensitive neighbourhood issues as
economic dependence, immigration, and the narcotics trade. A waning US would likely be more
nationalistic. The worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled
Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue
in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents. Another
consequence of American decline could be a corrosion of the generally cooperative management of
the global commons — shared interests such as sea lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment,
whose protection is imperative to the long-term growth of the global economy and the continuation
of basic geopolitical stability. In almost every case, the potential absence of a constructive and influential US role
would fatally undermine the essential communality of the global commons because the superiority
and ubiquity of American power creates order where there would normally be conflict. Nor is the concern that
America's decline would generate global insecurity, endanger some vulnerable states, and produce a more troubled North American neighbourhood an argument for US global supremacy. In
those dreaming today of America's collapse
would probably come to regret it. And as the world after America would be increasingly complicated
and chaotic, it is imperative that the US pursue a new, timely strategic vision for its foreign policy — or
fact, the strategic complexities of the world in the 21st century make such supremacy unattainable. But
start bracing itself for a dangerous slide into global turmoil.
Kagan
Hegemony stops great power wars and creates global stability
Kagan, Senior Fellow at Brookings, 3-14-’12 (Robert, “America has made the world freer, safer and
wealthier” CNN, http://us.cnn.com/2012/03/14/opinion/kagan-world-americamade/index.html?hpt=hp_c1)
We take a lot for granted about the way the world looks today -- the widespread freedom, the unprecedented global prosperity (even
despite the current economic crisis), and the absence of war among great powers. In 1941 there were only a dozen democracies in the world. Today
there are more than 100. For four centuries prior to 1950, global GDP rose by less than 1 percent a year. Since 1950 it has risen by an average of 4 percent a year, and billions of people have
been lifted out of poverty. The first half of the 20th century saw the two most destructive wars in the history of mankind, and in prior centuries war among great powers was almost constant.
for the past 60 years no great powers have gone to war. This is the world America made when it
assumed global leadership after World War II. Would this world order survive if America declined as a
great power? Some American intellectuals insist that a "Post-American" world need not look very different from
the American world and that all we need to do is "manage" American decline. But that is wishful
thinking. If the balance of power shifts in the direction of other powers, the world order will inevitably
change to suit their interests and preferences. Take the issue of democracy. For several decades, the balance of power in the world has favored
democratic governments. In a genuinely post-American world, the balance would shift toward the great power
autocracies. Both China and Russia already protect dictators like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. If they gain greater relative influence in the
future, we will see fewer democratic transitions and more autocrats hanging on to power. What about the free
But
market, free trade economic order? People assume China and other rising powers that have benefited so much from the present system would have a stake in preserving it. They wouldn't kill
Although the
Chinese have been beneficiaries of an open international economic order, they could end up
undermining it simply because, as an autocratic society, their priority is to preserve the state's control of wealth
and the power it brings. They might kill the goose because they can't figure out how to keep both it and themselves alive. Finally, what about the long peace that has held
among the great powers for the better part of six decades? Many people imagine that American predominance will be replaced
by some kind of multipolar harmony. But multipolar systems have historically been neither stable nor
peaceful. War among the great powers was a common, if not constant, occurrence in the long periods
of multipolarity in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The 19th century was notable for two stretches of great-power peace of roughly four
decades each, punctuated, however, by major wars among great powers and culminating in World War I, the most destructive and deadly war mankind had known up to that point. The
era of American predominance has shown that there is no better recipe for great-power peace than
certainty about who holds the upper hand. Many people view the present international order as the
inevitable result of human progress, a combination of advancing science and technology, an increasingly global economy, strengthening international
the goose that lays the golden eggs. But China's form of capitalism is heavily dominated by the state, with the ultimate goal being preservation of the ruling party.
institutions, evolving "norms" of international behavior, and the gradual but inevitable triumph of liberal democracy over other forms of government -- forces of change that transcend the
there was nothing inevitable about the world that was created after World War II .
International order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over
others -- in America's case, the domination of liberal free market principles of economics, democratic
principles of politics, and a peaceful international system that supports these, over other visions that
other nations and peoples may have. The present order will last only as long as those who favor it and benefit from it retain the will and capacity to defend it.
If and when American power declines, the institutions and norms American power has supported will
decline, too. Or they may collapse altogether as we transition into another kind of world order, or into
disorder. We may discover then that the United States was essential to keeping the present world
order together and that the alternative to American power was not peace and harmony but chaos and
catastrophe -- which was what the world looked like right before the American order came into being.
actions of men and nations. But
Owen
Empirics go aff – hegemony has made war obsolete**
Owen, Professor Politics U of Virginia, ’11 (John, February 11, “Don’t Discount Hegemony” Cato,
www.cato-unbound.org/2011/02/11/john-owen/dont-discount-hegemony/)
Andrew Mack and his colleagues at the Human Security Report Project are to be congratulated. Not only do they present a study with a
striking conclusion, driven by data, free of theoretical or ideological bias, but they also do something quite unfashionable: they
bear good news. Social scientists really are not supposed to do that. Our job is, if not to be Malthusians, then at least to point out disturbing trends, looming catastrophes, and the imbecility
and mendacity of policy makers. And then it is to say why, if people listen to us, things will get better. We do this as if our careers depended upon it, and perhaps they do; for if all is going to be
well, what need then for us? Our colleagues at Simon Fraser University are brave indeed. That may sound like a setup, but it is not. I shall challenge neither the data nor the general conclusion
violent conflict around the world has been decreasing in fits and starts since the Second World War.
When it comes to violent conflict among and within countries, things have been getting better. (The trends have not been linear—Figure 1.1 actually shows that the
that
frequency of interstate wars peaked in the 1980s—but the 65-year movement is clear.) Instead I shall accept that Mack et al. are correct on the macro-trends, and focus on their explanations
they advance for these remarkable trends. With apologies to any readers of this forum who recoil from academic debates, this might get mildly theoretical and even more mildly
methodological. Concerning international wars, one version of the “nuclear-peace” theory is not in fact laid to rest by the data. It is certainly true that nuclear-armed states have been involved
in many wars. They have even been attacked (think of Israel), which falsifies the simple claim of “assured destruction”—that any nuclear country A will deter any kind of attack by any country
the most important “nuclear-peace” claim has been about mutually
assured destruction, which obtains between two robustly nuclear-armed states. The claim is that (1) rational states having second-strike capabilities—enough deliverable
B because B fears a retaliatory nuclear strike from A. But
nuclear weaponry to survive a nuclear first strike by an enemy—will have an overwhelming incentive not to attack one another; and (2) we can safely assume that nuclear-armed states are
rational. It follows that states with a second-strike capability will not fight one another. Their
colossal atomic arsenals neither kept the United States at peace with North
did help keep the United States
Vietnam during the Cold War nor the Soviet Union at peace with Afghanistan. But the argument remains strong that those arsenals
and Soviet Union at peace with each other. Why non-nuclear states are not deterred from fighting nuclear states is an important and open question. But in
a time when calls to ban the Bomb are being heard from more and more quarters, we must be clear about precisely what the broad trends toward peace can and cannot tell us. They may tell
Mack is
friendlier to more palatable theories such as the “democratic peace” (democracies do not fight one another, and the proportion of
democracies has increased, hence less war);the interdependence or “commercial peace” (states with extensive economic ties find it irrational to fight one another, and
interdependence has increased, hence less war); and the notion that people around the world are more anti-war than their
forebears were. Concerning the downward trend in civil wars, he favors theories of economic growth (where commerce is enriching enough people, violence is less appealing—a
us nothing about why we have had no World War III, and little about the wisdom of banning the Bomb now. Regarding the downward trend in international war, Professor
logic similar to that of the “commercial peace” thesis that applies among nations) and the end of the Cold War (which end reduced superpower support for rival rebel factions in so many
These are all plausible mechanisms for peace. What is more, none of them excludes any
other; all could be working toward the same end. That would be somewhat puzzling, however. Is the world just lucky these days? How is it that an array of
peace-inducing factors happens to be working coincidentally in our time, when such a magical array
was absent in the past? The answer may be that one or more of these mechanisms reinforces some of the others,
Third-World countries).
or perhaps some of them are mutually reinforcing. Some scholars, for example, have been focusing on whether economic growth might support democracy and vice versa, and whether both
might support international cooperation, including to end civil wars. We would still need to explain how this charmed circle of causes got started, however. And here let me raise another
factor, perhaps even less appealing than the “nuclear peace” thesis, at least outside of the United States. That factor is what international relations scholars call hegemony—specifically
A theory that many regard as discredited, but that refuses to go away, is called hegemonic stability theory.
The theory emerged in the 1970s in the realm of international political economy. It asserts that for the global economy to remain open—for countries to
keep barriers to trade and investment low—one powerful country must take the lead. Depending on the theorist we consult, “taking the lead” entails
American hegemony.
paying for global public goods (keeping the sea lanes open, providing liquidity to the international economy), coercion (threatening to raise trade barriers or withdraw military protection from
The theory is skeptical that international cooperation in economic matters can
emerge or endure absent a hegemon. The distastefulness of such claims is self-evident: they imply that it is good for everyone the world over if one country has
more wealth and power than others. More precisely, they imply that it has been good for the world that the United States has been so predominant. There is no obvious
reason why hegemonic stability theory could not apply to other areas of international cooperation,
including in security affairs, human rights, international law, peacekeeping (UN or otherwise), and so on. What I want to
suggest here—suggest, not test—is that American hegemony might just be a deep cause of the steady decline of
countries that cheat on the rules), or both.
political deaths in the world.
How could that be? After all, the report states that United States is the third most war-prone country since 1945. Many of the deaths
depicted in Figure 10.4 were in wars that involved the United States (the Vietnam War being the leading one). Notwithstanding politicians’ claims to the contrary, a candid look at U.S. foreign
U.S. hegemony might just be a deeper
cause of the proximate causes outlined by Professor Mack. Consider economic growth and openness to
foreign trade and investment, which (so say some theories) render violence irrational. American power and
policies may be responsible for these in two related ways. First, at least since the 1940s Washington has
prodded other countries to embrace the market capitalism that entails economic openness and
policy reveals that the country is as ruthlessly self-interested as any other great power in history. The answer is that
produces sustainable economic growth. The United States promotes capitalism for selfish reasons , of
course: its own domestic system depends upon growth, which in turn depends upon the efficiency gains from economic interaction with foreign countries, and the more the better. During the
the U.S.-led western victory in the Cold War damaged
the credibility of alternative paths to development—communism and import-substituting
industrialization being the two leading ones—and left market capitalism the best model. The end of
the Cold War also involved an end to the billions of rubles in Soviet material support for regimes that
tried to make these alternative models work. (It also, as Professor Mack notes, eliminated the
superpowers’ incentives to feed civil violence in the Third World.) What we
call globalization is caused in part by the emergence of the United States as the global hegemon.
Cold War most of its allies accepted some degree of market-driven growth. Second,
Zhang and Shi
Heg solves great power war
Zhang and Shi ’11 Yuhan Zhang, Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Lin Shi, Professor at Columbia,
“America’s decline: A harbinger of conflict and rivalry,” East Asia Forum, 1/22/2011, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americasdecline-a-harbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry
Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously challenge the US military.
Under these circumstances, motivated by both opportunity and fear, many actors have bandwagoned
with US hegemony and accepted a subordinate role. Canada, most of Western Europe, India, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, Singapore and the Philippines have all joined the US, creating a status quo that has tended to mute great
power conflicts. However, as the hegemony that drew these powers together withers, so will the pulling
power behind the US alliance. The result will be an international order where power is more diffuse,
American interests and influence can be more readily challenged, and conflicts or wars may be harder
to avoid. As history attests, power decline and redistribution result in military confrontation. For example,
in the late 19th century America’s emergence as a regional power saw it launch its first overseas war
of conquest towards Spain. By the turn of the 20th century, accompanying the increase in US power
and waning of British power, the American Navy had begun to challenge the notion that Britain ‘rules
the waves.’ Such a notion would eventually see the US attain the status of sole guardians of the
Western Hemisphere’s security to become the order-creating Leviathan shaping the international
system with democracy and rule of law. Defining this US-centred system are three key characteristics: enforcement of property
rights, constraints on the actions of powerful individuals and groups and some degree of equal opportunities for broad segments of society. As
a result of such political stability, free markets, liberal trade and flexible financial mechanisms have
appeared. And, with this, many countries have sought opportunities to enter this system, proliferating
stable and cooperative relations. However, what will happen to these advances as America’s influence declines? Given that
America’s authority, although sullied at times, has benefited people across much of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, as
well as parts of Africa and, quite extensively, Asia, the answer to this question could affect global society in a profoundly detrimental way.
Public imagination and academia have anticipated that a
post-hegemonic world would return to the problems of the
1930s: regional blocs, trade conflicts and strategic rivalry. Furthermore, multilateral institutions such as the
IMF, the World Bank or the WTO might give way to regional organisations. For example, Europe and East Asia would each step
forward to fill the vacuum left by Washington’s withering leadership to pursue their own visions of regional political and economic orders.
Free markets would become more politicised — and, well, less free — and major powers would
compete for supremacy. Additionally, such power plays have historically possessed a zero-sum element. In
the late 1960s and 1970s, US economic power declined relative to the rise of the Japanese and Western
European economies, with the US dollar also becoming less attractive. And, as American power eroded,
so did international regimes (such as the Bretton Woods System in 1973). A world without American
hegemony is one where great power wars re-emerge, [and] the liberal international system is
supplanted by an authoritarian one, and trade protectionism devolves into restrictive, antiglobalisation barriers. This, at least, is one possibility we can forecast in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled US primacy.
Global Economy
US economic leadership key to leading the world out of the current economic slump
Suominen, Fellow at German Marshall Fund, 7-6-’12 (Kati, “America the Absent: Why is the U.S. afraid
to lead the global economic recovery?” Foreign Policy,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/06/america_the_absent)
The release of another weak U.S. jobs report this Friday, July 6 -- which showed the economy adding only 80,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate holding
steady at 8.2 percent -- raises some serious red flags. It's just one of many signs these days that the world economy is once again on the brink of an abyss. Nearly
four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, U.S. growth is flailing, central banks are racing to cut interest rates, and several European nations have plunged
back into recession. Instead of powering the 21st-century world economy, export-dependent emerging markets remain hostage to the transatlantic economic
morass. We should be out of this by now. The missing ingredient? U.S. leadership. In
the 20th century, beginning with the creation of the
Bretton Woods system in 1944, America's great contribution was to champion an economic paradigm and
set of institutions that promoted open markets and economic stability around the world. The
successive Groups of Five, Seven, and Eight, first formed in the early 1970s, helped coordinate
macroeconomic policies among the world's leading economies and combat global financial imbalances
that burdened U.S. trade politics. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) spread the Washington Consensus
across Asia and Latin America, and shepherded economies in transition toward capitalism. Eight
multilateral trade rounds brought down barriers to global commerce, culminating in the establishment of the
World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. Meanwhile, a wave of bank deregulation and financial liberalization began in the United States and proliferated around
the world, making credit more available and affordable while propelling consumption and entrepreneurship the world over. The U.S. dollar, the world's venerable
reserve currency, economized global transactions and fueled international trade. Central bank independence spread from Washington to the world and helped
usher in the Great Moderation, which has produced a quarter-century of low and steady inflation around the world. Globalization was not wished into
being: It was
the U.S.-led order that generated prosperity unimaginable only a few decades ago. Since
1980, global GDP has quadrupled, world trade has grown more than sixfold, the stock of foreign direct
investment has shot up by 20 times, and portfolio capital flows have surged to almost $200 trillion
annually, roughly four times the size of the global economy. Economic reforms and global economic integration helped vibrant emerging markets emerge: The
"Asian Tigers" (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) that boomed in the 1980s were joined in the 1990s by the awakening giants of Brazil, China, and
India. It was the United States that quarterbacked the play, brokering differences among nations and providing the right mix of global public goods: a universal
reserve currency, an open-trade regime, deep financial markets, and vigorous economic growth. Trade liberalization alone paid off handsomely, adding $1 trillion
annually to the postwar U.S. economy. Talk about American decline notwithstanding, the
economic order created by the United States
persists. In fact, at first blush, it appears to have only been reinforced in the past few years. New institutions such as the G-20, a forum
for the world's leading economies, and the Financial Stability Board, a watchdog for the international financial system, are but sequels
to U.S.-created entities: the Group of Five and the Financial Stability Forum. Investors still view America as a financial safe haven, and the dollar
remains the world's lead currency. Open markets have survived, and 1930s-style protectionism has not materialized. The WTO continues to resolve trade disputes
and recently welcomed Russia as its 154th member, while the mission and resources of the Bretton Woods twins -- the World Bank and IMF -- have only expanded.
No country has pulled out of these institutions; instead, emerging nations such as China and India are demanding greater power at the table. Countries have opted
in, not out, of the American-led order, reflecting a reality of global governance: There are no rival orders that can yet match this one's promise of mutual economic
gains. Still, while the American order is peerless, it is also imperiled. The deepening European debt crisis, discord over national policies to restore growth, and the
all-but-dead Doha Development Round of WTO negotiations speak to the failures of the global economy's existing instruments to manage 21st-century challenges.
Instead of coordinating policies, leading countries are trapped in a prisoner's dilemma, elbowing for
an edge in world trade and jockeying for power on the world stage. Tensions simmer over issues such
as exchange-rate manipulation, capital controls, creeping protectionism, and financial nationalism.
Right at the moment when we most need to shore up the troubled global economic order, America -- the architect of this very order -- is failing to lead. Even as the
United States remains pivotal to global growth, U.S. corporations -- the engines of the American economy -- are stifled by taxes, regulations, and policy uncertainty.
Gaping fiscal deficits in the United States are undermining the dollar, exacerbating trade deficits, and undercutting U.S. economic dynamism and credibility in world
affairs, but political posturing has obstructed the country's path to solvency. Earlier this week, the IMF warned that if political deadlock takes America to the socalled fiscal cliff of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts in January 2013, it could have a devastating impact on the U.S. and world economies. No wonder
America's image as the global economic superpower is receding around the world. Europe's travails, meanwhile, are reducing U.S. companies' exports and overseas
profits, threatening America's recovery. And yet Congress has balked at boosting the IMF's resources to fight the eurozone crisis while the Obama administration
has deflected responsibility, framing the crisis as Europe's to manage. It has fallen to countries such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Russia to instead build the
firewall that will shield the rest of the world from Europe. The welcome momentum in negotiations between the United States and Pacific Rim countries on the
Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement does not undo over three years of drift in U.S. trade policy that has jeopardized the very global trading system that
the United States built and powered in the postwar era. The only trade deals that the Obama administration has passed -- with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea
-- were launched and negotiated by the Bush administration. The world is now facing a triple threat of global economic instability, divisions among top powers, and
a global leadership vacuum. This perfect storm could produce a world disorder of mercurial financial markets, widening global imbalances, spreading state
capitalism, and beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism -- a scenario with a sorry past and few safe exits. In the late 1940s, a new world order arose because of American
strength, vision, and leadership, not because global governance was in vogue. Leadership was never easy: Resistance from allies, protectionist pressures at home,
and resource-draining wars all stood in the way. But capitalism spread, trade and financial markets were liberalized, and emerging-market crises were defeated.
Global economic integration forged ahead. Today, American
leadership is again essential. China prioritizes mercantilism
over multilateralism, and emerging nations have yet to fully step up to the plate when it comes to
global governance, while Europe and Japan are neither able nor willing to lead. In placing their faith in
multilateralism, liberal institutionalists often fail to realize that the world economic order is built on
American primacy and power, and Washington's willingness to project it. To lead abroad, the United States must
reform at home by imposing ironclad fiscal discipline, cutting taxes and red tape for businesses, and locking in long-term policies -- summoning the private sector to
reform schools and rebuild infrastructure, for instance -- that harness the productivity of America's future generations. Abroad, the United States needs to focus on
pre-empting instability and integrating the global economy. It should push the IMF to address financial risks before they mushroom into catastrophes, revise the
multilateral trade regime to allow for fast deals among a critical mass of members rather than agonizing, decade-long talks requiring the consent of the full
membership, and work toward unfettered global financial markets -- all the while deepening access to U.S. goods, services, and investment around the world. A
Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and a transatlantic free trade pact are low-hanging fruits that can jump-start global growth without any new stimulus dollars.
The quintessential challenge facing U.S. policymakers is to convince other nations to buy into a rulesbased order rather than respond to the siren calls of currency wars and capital controls. For example,
with most emerging economies uneasy about Beijing's trade and foreign policies, Washington must
incentivize others to take the high ground and strengthen investor protections, enforce intellectual
property rights, and adhere to trade rules. With others playing by the rules of the game, a
misbehaving China would be turned into a pariah. A stable, integrated, and growing world economy
serves our national interests. But such a world is America's to make.
Alternative Worse
Rapid collapse of hegemony causes micro-militarism – bigger link to their impacts
McCoy, Professor History at Wisconsin-Madison, ’10 (Alfred, December 6, “The Decline and Fall of the
American Empire Four Scenarios for the End of the American Century by 2025” TomDispatch,
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/06-1)
Military Misadventure: Present Situation Counterintuitively, as their power wanes, empires often plunge into ill-advised
military misadventures. This phenomenon is known among historians of empire as “micro-militarism” and seems to
involve psychologically compensatory efforts to salve the sting of retreat or defeat by occupying new
territories, however briefly and catastrophically. These operations, irrational even from an imperial point of view, often
yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the loss of power .
Embattled empires through the ages suffer an arrogance that drives them to plunge ever deeper into military
misadventures until defeat becomes debacle. In 413 BCE, a weakened Athens sent 200 ships to be
slaughtered in Sicily. In 1921, a dying imperial Spain dispatched 20,000 soldiers to be massacred by Berber guerrillas in Morocco. In 1956, a fading British Empire destroyed its
prestige by attacking Suez. And in 2001 and 2003, the U.S. occupied Afghanistan and invaded Iraq. With the hubris that marks empires
over the millennia, Washington has increased its troops in Afghanistan to 100,000, expanded the war into Pakistan, and extended its commitment to 2014 and beyond, courting disasters large
So irrational, so unpredictable is “micromilitarism” that seemingly fanciful scenarios are soon outdone by actual events. With the U.S. military
stretched thin from Somalia to the Philippines and tensions rising in Israel, Iran, and Korea, possible
combinations for a disastrous military crisis abroad are multifold. It’s mid-summer 2014 and a drawndown U.S. garrison in embattled Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is suddenly, unexpectedly overrun by Taliban guerrillas,
while U.S. aircraft are grounded by a blinding sandstorm. Heavy loses are taken and in retaliation, an embarrassed American war commander
looses B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters to demolish whole neighborhoods of the city that are believed
to be under Taliban control, while AC-130U “Spooky” gunships rake the rubble with devastating cannon fire. Soon, mullahs are preaching
jihad from mosques throughout the region, and Afghan Army units, long trained by American forces to turn the tide of the war,
begin to desert en masse. Taliban fighters then launch a series of remarkably sophisticated strikes
aimed at U.S. garrisons across the country, sending American casualties soaring. In scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975, U.S. helicopters rescue American
soldiers and civilians from rooftops in Kabul and Kandahar. Meanwhile, angry at the endless, decades-long stalemate over Palestine, OPEC’s leaders impose a new
oil embargo on the U.S. to protest its backing of Israel as well as the killing of untold numbers of
Muslim civilians in its ongoing wars across the Greater Middle East. With gas prices soaring and refineries running dry,
Washington makes its move, sending in Special Operations forces to seize oil ports in the Persian Gulf. This, in
turn, sparks a rash of suicide attacks and the sabotage of pipelines and oil wells. As black clouds billow skyward and
and small in this guerilla-infested, nuclear-armed graveyard of empires. Military Misadventure: Scenario 2014
diplomats rise at the U.N. to bitterly denounce American actions, commentators worldwide reach back into history to brand this “America's Suez,” a telling reference to the 1956 debacle that
marked the end of the British Empire.
Hegemony better than any historical alternative
Milke, Calgary Herald, 12-23-’11 (Mark, “America isn't perfect, but it's a force for good”
http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/theeditorialpage/story.html?id=64295f20-9114-478983a5-7331f45d6b53)
As American troops were in the process of their final withdrawal from Iraq recently, protesters busily burned an American flag in Fallujah. "Now we are free," was one slogan shouted during
the demonstration. Fallujah was a hotbed of sympathy for al-Qaeda and for anyone who could arrange an attack on American troops. After a few fierce battles in the middle of the past
decade, the city, about 65 kilometres west of Baghdad, was finally subdued. It's understandable that some in Fallujah would be happy to see Americans leave Iraq. After all, the city is Sunni
and was closely aligned with the regime of Saddam Hussein. Thus, the first tribal impulse after the U.S. invasion in 2003 was to oppose Americans and the new Iraqi government (with majority
Shiite representation) that resulted from the American presence. But beyond the expected response in Fallujah, the greater narrative in the region, and also in more than a few political
capitals around the world (and in western universities), is that if only the United States would disappear, the world would arrive at utopian bliss. To such dreamers: be careful what you wish
To compare the United
States or any country to flawlessness is a useless exercise. Instead, one has to compare it to realworld alternatives over the past 70 years. Remember that before Americans emerged from their inter-war
isolationist shell because of Pearl Harbor, German Nazis, fascist Italians and the empire of Japan were
on the ascendancy. It was hardly an idyllic world. Since then, America, along with other NATO countries such as the United Kingdom
for. The United States is imperfect, but imperfection is part of human nature. It is interwoven into the hearts, minds and governments of men.
have been positive bulwarks against tyrannies
and Canada,
all
. Without such troops, West Berlin and perhaps other parts of Western Europe would
have been absorbed into the repressive Soviet orbit after the Second World War. In Asia, South Korea wouldn't exist today had it not been for the United Nations response to the 1950 North
Korean invasion. Moreover, it was mostly American and Canadian forces that fought and pushed North Korea back and held the line. American troops are still there, on the border between
Taiwan. It would have long ago been conquered by main-land China had it not
been for American support and a military presence in the region. More recently, whether one thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea or
South and North Korea. Cast a glance at
not, one effect has been to create room for Middle Eastern dissidents in a manner unthinkable 10 years ago. Lately, there was U.S. President Barack Obama's more limited and more successful
intervention in Libya, along with help from NATO countries. The fact Moammar Gadhafi and his twisted family are no longer stealing from Libyans and raping and torturing them had much to
the United States has played the role the British performed in part of the 19th and 20th centuries:
a worldwide power - empire, if you will - that provided free-rider benefits for the rest of us. That includes acting, in most decades, as a general proponent of
free trade, which has been spectacularly successful in helping reduce poverty around the world. It includes manning a few critical international borders where troops from repressive
do with western military help. Over the past seven de-cades,
countries would otherwise have crossed long ago. None of this means every war and intervention has been wise or advisable. The point is, even just the presence of American and NATO
troops in some places has helped preserve status quo stability in some regions, kept a cold peace, and in some cases, allowed room for freedom to flourish (think South Korea since the 1980s).
It is especially worth thinking
about given the available alternatives of influential countries that will make a play for more power in
a world with less American influence: an anti-democratic, anti-liberal Kremlin in Russia; a nucleararmed and troubled Pakistan; a non-liberal, non-democratic Chinese regime with repressive
tendencies; an Iranian regime that could make Pakistan look like a 1960s flower child in comparison;
and an Arab Spring Middle East and North Africa where it's not clear if the newly emerging regimes
will be a force for stability, or something else. American influence is declining around the world, even if only relatively. We should all hope the result is
That's something to ponder given that massive annual deficits in the United States will soon lead to some weakening of U.S. influence.
not a repeat of the 1930s.
Hegemony Bad
Uniqueness
Hegemony Low – Military Tech
Military dominance is declining-sequestration cut defense spending which hurts our
ability to project hard power
Bozik and Galo 13 (Matej is a graduate from UKF, Ladislav Galo also graduated from UKF in Slovakia, “The Decline of the USA: Why
America will not be able to protect its position as global hegemon”,http://www.ces.upol.cz/pic/item/pdffile/84.pdf)
Another key attribute to maintain the hegemonic position of a state is military ¶ power. Since the end of the Cold War, the position of world
leadership in this ¶ sphere has been occupied by the United States. Th e whole period of the latter half of ¶ the 20th century was marked by the
arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, which also testifi ed to expenditures on defence and the modernization of ¶
arsenals. During this period, no other states could compete with these two military ¶ powers. After
the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the bipolar system, the United ¶ States embarked on a journey as a single global hegemon.
For the United States ¶ a new challenge emerged, which it needed to face. Th e challenge was to
maintain and ¶ strengthen the position of the United States through its world economic and military ¶
dominance, but as we can see, the United States based its dominance, and still bases, ¶ primarily on its
military superiority.¶ After the end of the Cold War and the arms race, defence spending of the United States fell, but it still possesses
the most powerful military force in the world. ¶ According to the statistics from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 1989
U.S. defence spending reached $ 534,906,000, and gradually declined ¶ until 1998, when it reached the lowest amount of this period at $
366,918,000 ¶ (Th e SIPRI Military Expenditure Database). Given the relatively stable international ¶ situation from the view of the United
States, these costs did not extremely increase ¶ over the next three years. For every hegemon, such a position means a constant ¶ struggle to
maintain their position and prevent the creation of a competitive power. ¶ One of the most serious threats to stability and the powerful
position of the United ¶ States were the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on the 11th of September, ¶ 2001. Th e global superpower
was directly attacked on its own territory, and thus, in ¶ the meantime, its invincibility as a world hegemon has been questioned. Th e United ¶
States responded to the attacks by launching military operations in Afghanistan and ¶ Iraq. Following the terrorist attacks and the subsequent
start of Operation Enduring ¶ Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001, the defence budget increased to $ 432,452,000 ¶ (Th e SIPRI Military Expenditure
Database). However, in 2003 the United States ¶ launched a military operation in Iraq, which led to further increases in defence spending. Th e
position of hegemony not only brings benefi ts but also entails enormous costs and expenses. According to the Stockholm International Peace
Research ¶ Institute Yearbook 2009, in 2008 defence spending of the United States was 41.5 % ¶ of total world expenditures (Th e SIPRI Military
Expenditure Database: 182). Th e ¶ increase in U.S. defence spending in the period from 2001 to 2010 was 70 % ¶ ( McShane 2011). Keeping up
two wars at the same time, and the fact that the largest ¶ and fastest modernization of weapons systems and technology is during wars and ¶
confl icts, led to the result that these confl icts have become unbearable for the world ¶ hegemon.¶ Th e fi rst important step towards reducing
expenditures was the eff ort of the newly ¶ elected president of United States Barack Obama, to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end and
focus on operations in Afghanistan as soon as possible.
Th e war ¶ in Iraq was offi cially ended in December 2011, but
the defence costs were still high. ¶ In order to maintain a position of hegemony sustained economic
growth is necessary, which provides funding for military spending. However, the United States are ¶ more
and more fi nancially leveraged, resulting in signifi cant cuts and a reduction in ¶ defence budged.
According to the Green Paper, the Ministry of Defense — National ¶ Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013, 2011 defence spending reached $
730.8 billion, and in the year 2012, fell to $ 727.6 billion (National Defense Budget Estimates ¶ for FY 2013: 6). On the 6th of February, 2013,
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ¶ and Army General Martin Dempsey met to discuss how the budget will look for the ¶ United States in 2014.
According to a preliminary draft, the budget should include ¶ cuts of the amount of $ 487 billion. It “really does set a framework for what the
force ¶ of the 21st century should look like,” Panetta said (Garamone 2013). Th e cuts will be ¶ refl ected in the number of soldiers on active
duty, wherin the number of soldiers in ¶ the U.S. Army drops to 490,000 and the Marine Corps to 182,000 soldiers (Garamone 2013). Th e
retrenchment will be also be refl ected in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air ¶ Force, and also in the dismissal of civil servants. As Leon Panetta outlines, the
United ¶ States want to focus on the creation of the Armed Forces for the 21st century. On ¶ the modern battlefi eld of the 21st century
numerical superiority does not dominate, ¶ but qualitative and technological superiority does. In the coming years, the United ¶ States will
focus to create highly mobile and effi cient units, which will be composed ¶ of fewer members. Great attention will be paid to new technologies,
such as stealth ¶ technology and precision guided weapons systems, which will determine the dominance on the battlefi eld of 21st century. As
John Mearsheimer said, the armed forces ¶ of the United States shall be formed in the spirit of
Muhammad’s Ali creed, “fl oat ¶ like a butterfl y and sting like a bee (Mearsheimer 2005: 2).”
US no longer has dominant lead in military technology
Krepinevich, President of Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, ’11 (Andrew,
September/October, “Get Ready for the Democratization of Destruction” Foreign Policy,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/15/get_ready_for_the_democratization_of_destructio
n)
As Niels Bohr famously observed, "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." But we
need not be caught entirely unaware by future events. The rapid pace of technological progression, as
well as its ongoing diffusion, offer clues as to some of the likely next big things in warfare. Indeed,
important military shifts have already been set in motion that will be difficult if not impossible to
reverse. Sadly, these developments, combined with others in the economic, geopolitical, and
demographic realms, seem likely to make the world a less stable and more dangerous place.
Consider, to start, the U.S. military's loss of its near monopoly in precision-guided munitions warfare,
which it has enjoyed since the Gulf War two decades ago. Today China is fielding precision-guided ballistic and cruise
missiles, as well as other "smart" munitions, in ever greater numbers. They can be used to threaten the few major U.S. bases
remaining in the Western Pacific and, increasingly, to target American warships. Like Beijing, Iran is buying into the precisionguided weapons revolution, but at the low end, producing a poor man's version of China's capabilities, to include anti-ship
cruise missiles and smart anti-ship mines. As these trends play out we could find that by the beginning of the next
decade, major parts of the Western Pacific, as well as the Persian Gulf, become no-go zones for the
U.S. military: areas where the risks of operating are prohibitively high.
Even nonstate groups are getting into the game. During its war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah fired more
than 4,000 relatively inaccurate RAMM projectiles -- rockets, artillery, mortars, and missiles -- into
Israel, leading to the evacuation of at least 300,000 Israelis from their homes and causing significant
disruption to that country's economy. Out of these thousands of munitions, only a few drones and antiship cruise missiles were guided. But as the proliferation of guided munitions -- G-RAMM weapons -continues, irregular warfare will be transformed to the point that the roadside bomb threats that the
United States has spent tens of billions of dollars defending against in Iraq and Afghanistan may seem
trivial by comparison.
The spread of nuclear weapons to the developing world is equally alarming. If Iran becomes a nuclear
power, the pressure on the leading Arab states as well as Turkey to follow suit is likely to prove
irresistible. With ballistic-missile flight times between states in the region measured in single-digit minutes,
the stability of the global economy's energy core would be exceedingly fragile.
But the greatest danger of a catastrophic attack on the U.S. homeland will likely come not from nucleararmed missiles, but from cyberattacks conducted at the speed of light. The United States, which has an
advanced civilian cyberinfrastructure but prohibits its military from defending it, will prove a highly
attractive target, particularly given that the processes for attributing attacks to their perpetrators are
neither swift nor foolproof. Foreign powers may already have prepositioned "logic bombs" -- computer
code inserted surreptitiously to trigger a future malicious effect -- in the U.S. power grid, potentially
enabling them to trigger a prolonged and massive future blackout.
As in the cyber realm, the very advances in biotechnology that appear to offer such promise for
improving the human condition have the potential to inflict incalculable suffering. For example,
"designer" pathogens targeting specific human subgroups or designed to overcome conventional
antibiotics and antiviral countermeasures now appear increasingly plausible, giving scientists a power
once thought to be the province of science fiction. As in the cyber realm, such advances will rapidly
increase the potential destructive power of small groups, a phenomenon that might be characterized as
the "democratization of destruction."
International stability is also increasingly at risk owing to structural weaknesses in the global
economic system. Commercial man-made satellites, for instance, offer little, if any, protection against
the growing threat of anti-satellite systems, whether ground-based lasers or direct-ascent kinetic-kill
vehicles. The Internet was similarly constructed with a benign environment in mind, and the progression
toward potential sources of single-point system failure, in the forms of both common software and data
repositories like the "cloud," cannot be discounted.
Then there is the undersea economic infrastructure, primarily located on the world's continental
shelves. It provides a substantial portion of the world's oil and natural gas, while also hosting a web of
cables connecting the global fiber-optic grid. The value of the capital assets on the U.S. continental
shelves alone runs into the trillions of dollars. These assets -- wellheads, pumping stations, cables,
floating platforms -- are effectively undefended.
As challenges to the global order increase in scale and shift in form, the means for addressing them
are actually declining. The age of austerity is upon us, and it seems likely if not certain that the U.S. military will
confront these growing challenges with relatively diminished resources. The Pentagon's budget is
scheduled for $400 billion or more in cuts over the next decade. Europe certainly cannot be counted on to pick up the
slack. Nor is it clear whether rising great powers such as Brazil and India will try to fill the void.
With technology advancing so rapidly, might the United States attempt to preserve its military
dominance, and international stability, by developing new sources of military advantage? Recently,
there have been dramatic innovations in directed energy -- lasers and particle beams -- that could
enable major advances in key mission areas. But there are indications that competitors, China in
particular, are keeping pace and may even enjoy an advantage.
The United States has the lead in robotics -- for now. While many are aware of the Predator drones
used in the war against radical Islamist groups, robots are also appearing in the form of undersea craft
and terrestrial mechanical "mules" used to move equipment. But the Pentagon will need to prove
better than its rivals at exploiting advances in artificial intelligence to enhance the performance of its
unmanned systems. The U.S. military will also need to make its robot crafts stealthier, reduce their
vulnerability to more sophisticated rivals than the Taliban, and make their data links more robust in
order to fend off efforts to disable them.
The bottom line is that the United States and its allies risk losing their military edge, and new threats to global
security are arising faster than they can counter them. Think the current world order is fragile? In the words of the great
Al Jolson, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
Hegemony Unsustainable
General
US hegemony unsustainable- the rise of the EU and China make a shift to multipolarity
inevitable
Cuyckens, 13 (Hanne, PhD Candidate at the Institute f or International Law at the University of Leuven and a
Junior Member of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, February 21, 2013, “The international arena is
increasingly heading towards a multipolar model in which US hegemony is challenged by the EU and China.”
<http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49149/1/__Libfile_repository_Content_LSE%20EUROPP_2013_February%202013_TO_DO
_blogs.lse.ac.ukThe_international_arena_is_increasingly_heading_towards_a_multipolar_model_in_which_US_hegemony_is_ch.p
df>)ZBris
We are reminded every day of the extent to which the post-Cold War world is increasingly interconnected and interdependent. In
such a
globalised world it is only logical that a certain number of problems can only be effectively addressed
if done collectively. As the European Security Strategy (ESS) stated so rightfully “No single country is able to tackle today’s complex
problems on its own”. In this respect, a certain number of rising actors are trying to find their place in an
international order dominated by the United States. Over recent decades, the emergence of the EU as an
external actor and the rise of the People’s Republic of China, have greatly influenced world politics.
These actors have the potential, by virtue of their size, economic weight and strategic importance, to become important actors on the
international scene. They share the view that a more balanced multipolar system would provide f or a more secure and stable world, even if
their exact understanding of this multilateralism is not the same. Both
the EU and China recognise the need for global
problems to be addressed by all global actors. At the same time, they are also both trying to find their place in a globalised
world dominated by the US. One of the main priorities for the EU in its relationship with China is to integrate it into the international scene and
encourage it to become a responsible global actor, contributing to the ‘effective multilateralism’ that is so important f or the EU. When the EU
policy Paper produced by China in 2003 is analysed, it seems that the promotion of multilateralism is also an important element f or China.
However while they might both agree on the importance of a balanced international system with multiple poles of power, they do not share
exactly the same view on how this multilateralism should be realised. EU
multilateralism can best be summarised as
placing importance on effective international (and regional) organisations, and international law. China, in
contrast, believes more in multiplying the number of poles of power capable of containing the most
powerful states, than it does in the development of an effective international governance framework.
From China’s perspective, international institutions can constitute one of these poles, but they should not constitute the pivotal point of the
more balanced international order. Big powers, such as itself, should also play an important role in the balancing process and, unsurprisingly,
the How does the US f it into this picture? Even though both China and the US are crucial trade partners for the EU, when prompted to choose
between putting its relationship with China or the US at risk, the EU is ultimately more inclined to prioritise the transatlantic one. This was
clearly illustrated by the debate surrounding the lifting of the EU’s arms embargo against China (2003-2005), where in the end the EU gave in to
US pressure and decided to maintain the embargo. If the debate were to take place again, however, it is not certain that the outcome would
still be the same. Indeed, some more recent events have shown that China’s role on the international scene is growing. The first element that
would provide support for this idea is the role China has played in the financial crisis which broke out in September 2008. While the US was
struggling, China confirmed its status as a crucial economic partner as it was able to help the rest of the world cope by lending money, including
to the US. This has without any doubt affected the balance of power between both countries and after having successfully passed through the
financial crisis, China became more assertive on the international scene. This was f or example demonstrated by the role it played in
subsequent climate change negotiations. Whereas China affirmed its international player status during the Copenhagen Climate change
conference, the EU, on the other hand, f ailed to play any role at all, which is particularly surprising since climate policy is a field where the EU
has traditionally played an important role on the international scene. Accordingly, whilst China has been rising on the international stage, the
EU has been losing ground. The EU’s recent internal problems with regard to the Eurozone certainly did not help in asserting its place on the
international scene. The way in which China is increasingly affirming itself in the global arena should serve as a wake-up call to both the US and
the EU. It is unlikely that the US will lose its place as the most important global power; however it will have to monitor the rise of China (and
possibly also that of the other BRIC countries). The EU on the other hand has to become a more coherent external actor if it wants to continue
playing a real role in world politics. With the entry into f orce of the Lisbon treaty, the rules of the game are clearer, however this is not enough:
there needs to be a real political will within the member states to ef f ectively establish a more coherent external policy and let the EU play a
major role in external relations. The
world order seems to be shifting towards more multipolarity, characterised
by the existence of different poles of power. These poles nevertheless do not all have the same
power. For now, the US remains the most important pole. But it is unsure whether this will remain the
case. Different potential future scenarios have been advanced. Some have suggested the emergence
of a new type of bipolar world composed of the US and China, while others visualise a ‘triumvirate’
composed of the previous two actors and the EU, or a wider model incorporating a major role f or China and the other BRIC
Countries. It is in any case clear that the EU has to continue proving itself as a stable and serious actor if it wants to stay in the game.
Decline now—rising challengers and erosion in political, military and economic cred
Layne ’12 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted neorealist, “This Time It’s
Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 203-213
Some twenty years after the Cold War’s end, it now is evident that both the 1980s declinists and the unipolar pessimists were right after all.
The Unipolar Era has ended and the Unipolar Exit has begun. The Great Recession has underscored the
reality of US decline, and only ‘‘denialists’’ can now bury their heads in the sand and maintain
otherwise. To be sure, the Great Recession itself is not the cause either of American decline or the shift in global power, both of which are
the culmination of decades-long processes driven by the big, impersonal forces of history. However, it is fair to say the Great Recession
has both accelerated the causal forces driving these trends and magnified their impact. There are two
drivers of American decline, one external and one domestic. The external driver of US decline is the emergence of new
great powers in world politics and the unprecedented shift in the center of global economic power
from the EuroAtlantic area to Asia. In this respect, the relative decline of the United States and the end of
unipolarity are linked inextricably: the rise of new great powers—especially China—is in itself the
most tangible evidence of the erosion of the United States’ power. China’s rise signals unipolarity’s
end. Domestically, the driver of change is the relative—and in some ways absolute—decline in
America’s economic power, the looming fiscal crisis confronting the United States, and increasing
doubts about the dollar’s long-term hold on reserve currency status. Unipolarity’s demise marks the end of era of
the post-World War II Pax Americana. When World War II ended, the United States, by virtue of its overwhelming military and economic
supremacy, was incontestably the most powerful actor in the international system. Indeed, 1945 was the United States’ first unipolar moment.
The United States used its commanding, hegemonic position to construct the postwar international order—the Pax Americana— which
endured for more than six decades. During the Cold War, the Pax Americana reflected the fact that outside the Soviet sphere, the United States
was the preponderant power in the three regions of the world it cared most about: Western Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf. The Pax
Americana rested on the foundational pillars of US military dominance and economic leadership and was buttressed by two supporting pillars:
America’s ideological appeal (‘‘soft power’’) and the framework of international institutions that the United States built after 1945. Following
the Cold War’s end, the United States used its second unipolar moment to consolidate the Pax Americana by expanding both its geopolitical
and ideological ambitions. In
the Great Recession’s aftermath, however, the economic foundation of the Pax
Americana has crumbled, and its ideational and institutional pillars have been weakened. Although
the United States remains preeminent militarily, the rise of new great powers like China, coupled with
US fiscal and economic constraints, means that over the next decade or two the United States’
military dominance will be challenged. The decline of American power means the end of US
dominance in world politics and a transition to a new constellation of world power. Without the ‘‘hard’’
power (military and economic) upon which it was built, the Pax Americana is doomed to wither in the
early twenty-first century. Indeed, because of China’s great-power emergence, and the United States’
own domestic economic weaknesses, it already is withering.
Shift to multipolarity inevitable
Porter, 13 (Dr. Patrick, Reader in Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, April 2013, “SHARING POWER?
PROSPECTS FOR A U.S. CONCERT-BALANCE STRATEGY”,
<http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/32352/1/Sharing%20Power%2C%20Prospects%20for%20a%20US%20Concert%20Ba
lance%20Strategy.pdf>)ZBris
As this monograph has argued, given
the possible future insolvency of America’s current grand strategy, a
program of retrenchment and a new strategy based on an acceptance of multipolarity and the limits
of power is prudent. There is scope for such a shift. The convergence of several trends—transnational
problems needing collaborative efforts, reluctance to engage in unbridled competition, the militarystrategic advantages (for the moment) enjoyed by defenders, and “hegemony fatigue” among the
American people—means that an opportunity exists internationally and at home for a shift to a new
strategy. The ultimate aim of a new, more modest, and more collaborative grand strategy should not
be to dismantle America’s power, but to make it last longer . It would attempt a historically difficult task, that of
forging a collaborative and mostly peaceful world order, while preparing for a more dangerous one, where the United States could deter and
respond to would-be aggressors.
China
China will overtake US dominance—economic indicators and historical evidence
Layne ’12 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted neorealist, “This Time It’s
Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 203-213
American decline is part of a broader trend in international politics: the shift of economic power away
from the Euro-Atlantic core to rising great and regional powers (what economists sometimes refer to as the
‘‘emerging market’’ nations). Among the former are China, India, and Russia. The latter category includes Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, Brazil,
and South Africa. In a May 2011 report, the
World Bank predicted that six countries—China, India, Brazil, Russia,
Indonesia, and South Korea—will account for one-half of the world’s economic growth between 2011
and 2025 (Politi 2011; Rich 2011). In some respects, of course, this emergence of new great powers is less about rise than restoration. As
Figure 1 indicates, in 1700 China and India were the world’s two largest economies. From their perspective—especially Beijing’s—they are
merely regaining what they view as their natural, or rightful, place in the hierarchy of great powers. The
ascent of new great
powers is the strongest evidence of unipolarity’s end. The two most important indicators of whether
new great powers are rising are relative growth rates and shares of world GDP (Gilpin 1981; Kennedy 1987).
The evidence that the international system is rapidly becoming multipolar—and that, consequently, America’s
relative power is declining—is now impossible to deny, and China is Exhibit A for the shift in the world’s center
of economic and geopolitical gravity. China illustrates how, since the Cold War’s end, potential great powers have been
positioning themselves to challenge the United States. To spur its economic growth, for some three decades (beginning
with Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms) China took a low profile in international politics and avoided
confrontation with the United States and its regional neighbors. To spur its modernization as well,
China integrated itself in the American-led world order. China’s self-described ‘‘peaceful rise’’
followed the script written by Deng Xiaoping: ‘‘Lie low. Hide your capabilities. Bide your time.’’ The fact
that China joined the international economic order did not mean its long-term intentions were benign. Beijing’s long-term goal was not simply
to get rich. It was also to become wealthy enough to acquire the military capabilities it needs to compete with the United States for regional
hegemony in East Asia.2 The Great
Recession caused a dramatic shift in Beijing’s perceptions of the
international balance of power. China now sees the United States in decline while simultaneously
viewing itself as having risen to great-power status. China’s newly gained self-confidence was evident
in its 2010 foreign policy muscle-flexing. Objective indicators confirm the reality of China’s rise, and the United States’
corresponding relative decline. In 2010, China displaced the United States as the world’s leading manufacturing
nation— a crown the United States had held for a century. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that
China’s share of world GDP (15%) will draw nearly even with the United States (18%) by 2014 (see Figure 2).
This is especially impressive given that China’s share of world GDP was only 2% in 1980 and as recently as 1995 was only 6%. Moreover, China
is on course to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy. While analysts disagree on the date
when this will happen, the most recent projections by leading economic forecasters have advanced the date
dramatically over what was being estimated just a few years ago. For example, in 2003 Goldman Sachs predicted that
China would surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in 2041, and in 2008, it advanced the date to 2028 (Wilson and
Purushothaman 2003; O’Neill 2008). However, the most recent forecasts are now that China will pass the United States much sooner than
2028. The Economist Intelligence Unit (2009) predicts China will become the world’s largest economy in 2021; PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010)
says 2020, and the Economist magazine says 2019 (World’s Biggest Economy 2010) (see Figure 3).3 More strikingly, according to a
2011 International Monetary Fund study, in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), China will overhaul the United States in 2016. In fact,
economist Arvin Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics has calculated, also using PPP, that China is already the
world’s largest economy (Subramanian 2011).4 What could be clearer proof of the United States’ relative decline
than the fact that
China will soon leapfrog the United States and become the world’s largest economy, if indeed it has
not already done so? That China is poised to displace the United States as the world’s largest economy
has more than economic significance. It is significant geopolitically. The pattern of great-power rise is
well established. First, China’s claims of ‘‘peaceful rise’’ notwithstanding, the emergence of new great powers in the international
system has invariably been destabilizing geopolitically. The near-simultaneous emergence of the United States, Germany, and Japan as great
powers in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries triggered two world wars (Layne 1993). Second, as
rising great powers
become wealthier, their political ambitions increase and they convert their newfound economic
muscle into the military clout (Zakaria 1998). Already, China is engaged in an impressive military
modernization and buildup. While China has not yet caught up to the United States’ sophisticated military technology, it clearly
is narrowing the US advantage. Third, rising powers invariably seek to dominate the regions in which
they are situated (Mearsheimer 2001). This means that China and the United States are on a collision course
in East Asia—the region where the United States has been the incumbent hegemon since 1945, and
which an increasingly powerful and assertive China sees as its own backyard. Fourth, as they rise, new
great powers acquire economic and political interests abroad, and they seek to acquire the power
projection capabilities to defend those interests (Zakaria 1998).
China will outsmart all of your sustainability tricks
Layne ’12 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted neorealist, “This Time It’s
Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 203-213
The third reason the post-World War II international order cannot be locked in is the rise of China (and other emerging great and regional
powers). The
lock-in argument is marred by a glaring weakness: if they perceive that the United States is
declining, the incentive for China and other emerging powers is to wait a decade or two and reshape
the international system themselves in a way that reflects their own interests, norms, and values
(Jacques 2009). China and the United States have fundamental differences on what the rules of international order should be on such key issues
as sovereignty, non-interference in states’ internal affairs, and the ‘‘responsibility to protect.’’ While
China has integrated itself in
the liberal order to propel its economic growth, it is converting wealth into hard power to challenge
American geopolitical dominance. And although China is working ‘‘within the system’’ to transform the
post-1945 international order, it also is laying the foundations—through embryonic institutions like the
BRICs and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—for constructing an alternative world order that, over
the next twenty years or so, could displace the Pax Americana. As Martin Jacques has observed, China is operating
‘‘both within and outside the existing international system while at the same time, in effect,
sponsoring a new China-centric international system which will exist alongside the present system
and probably slowly begin to usurp it’’ (Jacques 2009:362). Great power politics is about power. Rules and institutions
do not exist in vacuum. Rather, they reflect the distribution of power in the international system. In
international politics, who rules makes the rules. The post-World War II international order is an American order that
privileges the United States’ interests. Even the discourse of ‘‘liberal order’’ cannot conceal this fact. This is why the notion that China can be
constrained by integrating into the post-1945 international order lacks credulity. For US scholars and policymakers alike, China’s
successful integration hinges on Beijing’s willingness to accept the Pax Americana’s institutions, rules,
and norms. In other words, China must accept playing second fiddle to the United States. Revealingly, Ikenberry
makes clear this expectation when he says that the deal the United States should propose to China is for Washington ‘‘to accommodate a rising
China by offering it status and position within the regional order in return for Beijing’s acceptance and accommodation of Washington’s core
interests, which include remaining a dominant security provider within East Asia’’ (Ikenberry 2011:356). It is easy to see why the United States
would want to cut such a deal but it
is hard to see what’s in it for China. American hegemony is waning and
China is ascending, and there is zero reason for China to accept this bargain because it aims to be the
hegemon in its own region. The unfolding SinoAmerican rivalry in East Asia can be seen as an example of Dodge City syndrome (in
American Western movies, one gunslinger says to the other: ‘‘This town ain’t big enough for both of us’’) or as a geopolitical example of
Newtonian physics (two hegemons cannot occupy the same region at the same time). From either perspective, the dangers should be obvious:
unless the United States is willing to accept China’s ascendancy in East (and Southeast) Asia, Washington and Beijing are on a collision course.
Economics
Structural economics means decline is inevitable
Bozik and Galo 13 (Matej is a graduate from UKF, Ladislav Galo also graduated from UKF in Slovakia, “The Decline of the USA: Why
America will not be able to protect its position as global hegemon”,http://www.ces.upol.cz/pic/item/pdffile/84.pdf)
The main aspect of power has always been that of force, and in the case of ¶ the States, it was only
military force. At the beginning of the 21st century, however, ¶ this situation shows a change: since then the global political architecture is
becoming more and more dependent on economic architecture, not only on power of ¶ the armies. In the 20th century, the United States
became the most powerful country ¶ on the Earth. America dominated in every aspect of global matters: USA became first ¶ in economic,
military, technological and culture fields. After the fall of the bipolar system, the United States became the dominant power absolutely. But,
nowadays we ¶ can see very dynamic changes. The American economy, especially after the financial ¶
and economic crises, has massive problems: from a fiscal deficit and public debt to ¶ weak economic
growth. The United States is trying to solve its problems with loans, ¶ quantitative easing and low interest rate, but nobody knows how long
will it work. ¶ After all, it has a big impact on the military prestige of the country, which results the ¶ reduction of the American army all around
the world. ¶ On the other hand, many
new economic powers are threatening the position ¶ of the USA,
especially in their economic power and by investments in their armies ¶ and technologies. These methods are
giving them a great opportunity for further ¶ development. The problems of the United States also have a huge effect on global ¶ international
aff airs, which can radically change the structure of the world order in ¶ the future. The
“new world order” — declared by former
American president George ¶ Bush sr. in 1991 — is beginning to work no longer according to only the “world’s ¶
policeman.” The global economic architecture will not function in accordance to ¶ the scheme created
by the United States and a few years later it will show up in the ¶ political and military spheres as
well.
Structural economic weaknesses make heg collapse inevitable
Layne ’12 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted neorealist, “This Time It’s
Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 203-213
Contrary to the way their argument was portrayed by many of their critics, the 1980s declinists did not claim either that the United States
already had declined steeply, or that it soon would undergo a rapid, catastrophic decline. Rather, they pointed to domestic and
economic drivers that were in play and which, over time, would cause American economic power to
decline relatively and produce a shift in global distribution of power. The declinists contended that the United
States was afflicted by a slow—’’termite’’—decline caused by fundamental structural weaknesses in the
American economy.7 Kennedy himself was explicitly looking ahead to the effects this termite decline would have on United States’
world role in the early twenty-first century. As he wrote, ‘‘The task facing American statesman over the next decades. .. is to recognize that
broad trends are under way, and that there is a need to ‘manage’ affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States’ position takes place
slowly and smoothly, and is not accelerated by policies which bring merely short-term advantage but longer-term disadvantage’’ (Kennedy
1987:534; my emphasis). When one goes back and re-reads what the 1980s declinists pinpointed as the drivers of American decline, their
analyses look farsighted because the
same drivers of economic decline are at the center of debate today: too
much consumption and not enough savings; persistent trade and current account deficits; chronic
federal budget deficits and a mounting national debt; and de-industrialization. Over time, 1980s declinists
said, the United States’ goals of geopolitical dominance and economic prosperity would collide. Today,
their warnings seem eerily prescient. Robert Gilpin’s 1987 description of America’s economic and grand strategic plight could
just as easily describe the United States after the Great Recession: With a decreased rate of economic growth and a low
rate of national savings, the United States was living and defending commitments far beyond its
means. In order to bring its commitments and power back into balance once again, the United States
would one day have to cut back further on its overseas commitments, reduce the American standard
of living, or decrease domestic productive investment even more than it already had. In the meantime,
American hegemony was threatened by a potentially devastating fiscal crisis . (Gilpin 1987:347–348) In the Great
Recession’s wake—doubly so since it is far from clear that either the United States or global economies are out of the woods—the United
States now is facing the dilemmas that Gilpin and the other declinists warned about.
Public debt is unprecedentedly out of control—destroys our credit rating and ability to
finance defense
Layne ’12 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted neorealist, “This Time It’s
Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 203-213
China’s rise is one powerful indicator of America’s relative decline. The United States’ mounting economic and fiscal problems—evidenced in
summer 2011 by the debt ceiling debacle and Standard & Poors’ downgrading of US Treasury bonds—are another. There
are two
closely interconnected aspects of the United States’ domestic difficulties that merit special attention:
the spiraling US national debt and deepening doubts about the dollar’s future role as the international
economy’s reserve currency. Between now and 2025, the looming debt and dollar crises almost
certainly will compel the United States to retrench strategically, and to begin scaling back its overseas
military commitments. The causes of the looming US fiscal crisis are complex. For understanding, a good starting point is the late
political scientist Arnold Wolfers’ observation that modern great powers must be both national security states and
welfare states (Wolfers 1952). States must provide both guns—the military capabilities needed to defend and advance their external
interests—and butter, ensuring prosperity and supplying needed public goods (education, health care, pensions). Since World War II,
the United States has pretty much been able to avoid making difficult ‘‘guns or butter’’ decisions
precisely because of its hegemonic role in the international economy. The dollar’s role as the
international system’s reserve currency allows the United States to live beyond its means in ways that
other nations cannot. As long as others believe that the United States will repay its debts, and that
uncontrollable inflation will not dilute the dollar’s value, the United States can finance its external ambitions
(‘‘guns’’) and domestic social and economic programs (‘‘butter’’) by borrowing money from foreigners. As Figure 4 shows,
this is what the United States has had to do since the early 1980s when it started running a chronic current account deficit. As Figure 5
illustrates, the majority of US government debt is owed to foreign, not domestic, investors, and China is the United States government’s largest
creditor. Following
the Great Recession, it has become increasingly apparent that unless dramatic
measures to reign-in federal spending are implemented, by the end of this decade there will be
serious questions about the United States’ ability to repay its debts and control inflation.8 The causes of
mounting US indebtedness are many. One is the Great Recession, which caused the Obama administration
and the Federal Reserve to inject a massive amount of dollars into the economy, in the form of stimulus
spending, bail-outs, and ‘‘quantitative easing,’’ to avert a replay of the Great Depression of the 1930s. A longer-term cause is the
mounting costs of entitlement programs like Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid—costs which will escalate
because of the aging of the ‘‘Baby Boomer’’ generation. Another factor is the cost of wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, which have been financed by borrowing from abroad rather than raising taxes to pay for
them. These wars have been expensive. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate in economics, and his coauthor Linda Bilmess have calculated that
the ultimate direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war will amount to $3 trillion (Stiglitz and Bilmiss 2008). No similar study
has as yet been done of the Afghanistan war’s costs. However, the United States currently is expending about $110–120 billion annually to fight
there, and fiscal considerations played a major role in the Obama administration’s decision to begin drawing down US forces in Afghanistan
(Woodward 2010; Cooper 2011). Because of the combined costs of federal government expenditures—on stimulus, defense, Iraq and
Afghanistan, and entitlements—in
2009 the Congressional Budget Office forecast that the United States will run
unsustainable annual budget deficits of $1 trillion or more until at least the end of this decade, and
observed that, ‘‘Even if the recovery occurs as projected and the stimulus bill is allowed to expire, the country will face the
highest debt ⁄GDP ratio in 50 years and an increasingly urgent and unsustainable fiscal problem’’ (CBO
2009:13). In a subsequent 2010 report, the CBO noted that if the United States stays on its current fiscal trajectory, the ratio of
US government debt to GDP will be 100% by 2020 (CBO 2010). Economists regard a 100% debt-to-GDP ratio as
critical indicator that a state will default on its financial obligations. In an even less sanguine 2011 analysis, the
International Monetary Fund forecast that the United States will hit the 100% debt-to-GDP ratio in 2016 (IMF 2011). If these estimates are
correct, over the next decade the
growing US national debt—and the budget deficits that fuel it—could imperil the dollar by
undermining foreign investors’ confidence in the United States’ ability to repay its debts and keep
inflation in check. This is important because, for the foreseeable future, the United States will depend
on capital inflows from abroad both to finance its deficit spending and private consumption and to
maintain the dollar’s position as the international economic system’s reserve currency.
US primacy unsustainable- unbalanced military spending.
Metz, 12(Steven, chairman of the Regional Strategy Department and a research professor of national
security affairs at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, “To Maintain U.S. Primacy,
Standoff Power is not Enough,” http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/11312/to-maintain-u-sprimacy-standoff-power-is-not-enough)
The idea that standoff military methods now outweigh a balanced capability in strategic importance
grows from a misreading of recent history. It is based on the belief that Libya rather than Iraq or
Afghanistan should be the model for future U.S. military operations. Americans certainly prefer a
Libya-style use of force with few or no American casualties. But if that is the limit of the nation’s
capabilities, it will have no ability to deter or defeat opponents more clever and capable than Moammar
Gadhafi's security services; to shape regional security systems; to stabilize countries or regions; and to
influence the outcome of conflicts that do not look like Libya. Global trends point toward an enduring
need for land power. States will fragment, with accompanying conflict. There is a possibility of
renewed proxy wars between regional and global powers. In the absence of effective American land
power, aggressors would simply avoid large-scale conventional military operations and devolve to the
use of proxies, whether insurgents, terrorists or militias. The United States would be ill-prepared to
help its friends resist this form of aggression, thus making it more likely. Fragile states, including those
emerging from a conflict or from democratic revolutions, would have trouble finding the assistance they
needed to establish stability. The United States would be hard-pressed to lead international efforts to
stop humanitarian disasters or genocide, particularly in the wake of a devastating conflict such as a
nuclear exchange. Without a balanced military capability, America would lose its ability to shape the
world in pursuit of its national interests. While budget and force cuts are necessary, they should be
structured so that the U.S. military retains both its dominance at defeating enemy armed forces
through standoff strikes and its ability to deter other types of opponents and shape strategic
outcomes through the application of land power.
A2: Latin America Key
Power projection in Latin America is unsustainable- uncooperative governments and
civilian enforcement fails
Pierri, 12 (Raul, Inter Press Service News Agency, October 11, 2012, “New Threats, Same Old U.S. Hegemony”,
<http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/10/new-threats-same-old-u-s-hegemony/>)ZBris
PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay , Oct 11 2012 (IPS) - Although
it admits that it cannot be a long-term solution,
Washington insists on strengthening the armed forces in Latin America, to confront “new threats,”
including citizen insecurity. But activists argue that it is only another means of maintaining control over the region. The new U.S.
military strategy is all too familiar to many activists. “What the government of that country is seeking is to use the armed
forces of Latin America as it always has: for its own interests, and not for the security of the people,” human rights defender Adolfo Pérez
Esquivel told IPS by telephone from Buenos Aires. In
the past, Washington evoked the phantom of communism. But
now, in a region where many of the governments are left-wing, it uses as a pretext common problems
like drug trafficking to strengthen its predominance, said the Argentine activist and 1980 Nobel Literature Prize-winner.
U.S. Defence Minister Leon Panetta, the envoy of the government of Barack Obama to the 10th Conference of Ministers of Defence of the
Americas, which ended Wednesday Oct. 10 in the Uruguayan beach resort town of Punta del Este, outlined the new U.S. military policy for the
region, based on strengthening bilateral and multilateral ties. “Over the last two decades, our people, our economies, our cultures, and our
values have become even more connected, not just because we are neighbours but because we are one family in this hemisphere,” Panetta
said at the start of the three-day conference. “And as one family, we confront many of the same threats that face our nations across borders
and across oceans, from terrorism, to drug trafficking, to nuclear proliferation, to humanitarian disasters,” he said. “We cannot deal with these
threats alone or in isolation; we can only deal with them if we work together.” The new Western Hemisphere Defence Policy Statement,
published Oct. 3, outlines the U.S. government’s approach to defence cooperation across the region in fighting drug trafficking, terrorism,
international organised crime, cyber crime, and natural disasters. Pérez Esquivel is leading the campaign “Latin America and the Caribbean, a
Region of Peace: Foreign Military Bases Out!” which opposed the summit in Punta del Este and the U.S. policy of involving the armed forces in
law enforcement. Questions of internal security are the sole jurisdiction of the police, and must remain under their orbit, with strict control of
and respect for human rights, the campaign states in an on-line declaration. Panetta
himself admitted at the ministers’
conference in Uruguay that “the use of the military to perform civil law enforcement cannot be a
long-term solution .” However, the U.S. Department of Defence promised to continue to support the
military in different countries in the region to combat the “new threats” until civilian security forces are trained to
assume that role.
Power projection in Latin America is unsustainable- growing influence of Brazil and
China check US power
Brand et al, 12 (Alexander Brand, Lecturer and Post-Doc Researcher at the Department of Political Science at
the University of Mainz, Susan McEwen-Fial, Lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of
Mainz, Wolfgang Muno, Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Erfurt, Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann,
Lecturer at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt, 2012, “BRICs and U.S. Hegemony:
Theoretical Reflections on Shifting Power Patterns and Empirical Evidence from Latin America”,
<https://international.politics.uni-mainz.de/files/2012/10/mpiep04.pdf>)ZBris
In conclusion, China’s
military footprint has been relatively light, although increased exchanges of
personnel and increased military sales create opportunity for the Chinese military and the
corresponding defense industry to broaden their reach. It is an area in which relations will undoubtedly
continue to expand in the near future. The Chinese continue to balance their interests in establishing deeper military
relationships with the region with their interest in a stable relationship with the U.S. Brazilian foreign policy can be defined as
quite stable over time in terms of its central principles, namely, a preference for diplomatic
settlement of disputes, the respect of international law, sovereignty, non-intervention and
multilateralism. Especially since the process of redemocratization in the mid-1980s, Brazil has not prioritized the military sector in its
foreign policy, or the increase of military capabilities in its attempts to project power in Latin America. That said, a change towards a more
assertive security policy has evolved since the second mandate of former President Lula da Silva10 (Villa/Viana 2010). A
Strategic Plan of
National Defense was announced in 2008 with the aims of reviewing defense strategies, reactivating
the domestic arms industry and assuring the 11 autonomy of defense policy, motivated by the search
for adequacy with the country´s status of emerging global and multidimensional actor (ibid.: 98).
Answers To
A2: Hard Power key I/L
Hegemony impacts are overstated-unipolarity specifically will undercut benefits to
being the hegemon
Drezner 13 (Daniel Drezner is Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University,
“Military Primacy doesn’t pay (Nearly as much as you think)”,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/international_security/v038/38.1.drezner.html#back)
The empirical record suggests that many of the hypothesized benefits have been overstated. The private
sector responds positively to a country’s military capability, but only up to a point; military primacy is hardly a prerequisite for
attracting trade and investment. Geopolitical favoritism does occur, but only during periods of
bipolarity. Economic exchange is actually less correlated with security ties under conditions of
unipolarity. Finally, military primacy does appear to be an important adjunct to the creation of an open global economy and the reduction
of militarized disputes and security rivalries, but military supremacy is only one component of unipolarity. A decline in the
hegemon’s economic power undercuts many of unipolarity’s posited benefits. Both the public goods
and geopolitical favoritism arguments have some validity, but both rely on the hegemon’s economic
might as much as its military might for the causal pathways to function. To be clear, nothing here should suggest
that military predominance does not confer significant political and diplomatic benefits on the hegemon. Military preeminence can translate
into a force multiplier for other forms of statecraft, including the use of economic sanctions. As Barry Posen notes, command of the global
commons “allows the United States to exploit more fully other sources of power, including its own economic and military might as well as the
economic and military might of its allies.”119 It also seems clear that full-spectrum unipolarity does yield significant benefits. Still, the
argument that military preeminence alone produces significant economic gain appears to be
exaggerated.
A2: Kagan
Kagan’s analysis is wrong – US collapse won’t cause instability, other countries fill in**
Preble, VP of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at Cato, 6-28-’12 (Christopher, “Book Review: The
Critique of Pure Kagan” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/book-review-critique-purekagan)
The most important of these is his rejection of calls for the United States to reduce military spending, recalibrate its global commitments and
restrain its interventionist impulses. Kagan
scorns the suggestion that we are entering a post—American world
hand, dismissing claims that America is in
decline, he points to past periods of soul—searching and self—doubt where public sentiment was far
more pessimistic and from which America emerged stronger than ever. On the other hand, he challenges
those who look upon American decline with equanimity and questions their “expectation, if not
assumption,... that the good qualities of [the present world] order—the democracy, the prosperity, the peace among great
powers—can transcend the decline of American power and influence.” He advises the United States to continue on its
with multiple power centers as opposed to the single U.S. hegemon. On one
present course, maintain its global posture, and retain or expand alliance relationships negotiated during the Cold War. But here is a key point:
Kagan concedes that Americans could opt for a different course. We could shed our global burdens,
focus on rebuilding the country’s strength at home and expect—or merely hope—that others will
uphold the liberal order as American power retreats. That we are afforded such a choice today is itself
a historical anomaly—and something of a luxury. “Someday,” Kagan suggests, “we may have no choice but to watch it drift
away.” In the meantime, we don’t have to—and he hopes that we do not. It is a familiar refrain. But, as with Kagan’s earlier works, The World
America Made combines questionable international—relations theory, questionable economics and questionable politics. To
the extent
that Kagan has had a hand in building today’s world, he has constructed it around too much military
capacity in the hands of a single power and too little capacity in the hands of nearly everyone else.
The result is a wide and growing gap between the promises Washington has made to protect others
from harm and America’s political will to honor those promises if they ever come due. The world is
both more complicated and more durable than Kagan imagines. The United States does not need to
police the globe in order to maintain a level of security that prior generations would envy. Neither
does the survival of liberal democracy, market capitalism and basic human rights hinge on U.S. power ,
contrary to Kagan’s assertions. Americans need not shelter wealthy, stable allies against threats they are
capable of handling on their own. Americans should not fear power in the hands of others,
particularly those countries and peoples that share common interests and values. Finally, precisely
because the United States is so secure, it is difficult to sustain public support for global engagement
without resorting to fearmongering and threat inflation. Indeed, when Americans are presented with an accurate
assessment of the nation’s power relative to others and shown how U.S. foreign policy has contributed to a vast and growing disparity between
what we spend and what others spend on national security—the very state of affairs that Kagan celebrates—they grow even less supportive.
Current heg collapse will be stable – Kagan confuses correlation with causation***
Preble, VP of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at Cato, 6-28-’12 (Christopher, “Book Review: The
Critique of Pure Kagan” http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/book-review-critique-purekagan)
Kagan’s too—casual rejection of any reasonable alternative to American hegemony reveals the crucial
flaw in his reasoning, however, given that he predicts we might not be afforded a choice in the future. If
the United States can’t sustain its current posture indefinitely, a wiser long—term grand strategy
would set about—preferably now—easing the difficult and sometimes dangerous transitions that
often characterize major power shifts. Rather than continuing to discourage other countries from
tending to their security affairs, the United States should welcome such behavior. Kagan’s reassuring
tone—about China’s unique vulnerabilities, for example—actually buttresses that competing point of
view. After all, if a distant, distracted hegemon like the United States can manage the challenge posed
by China, and if it can do so while preventing wars and unrest in several other regions simultaneously,
then Asian nations would be at least equally capable of accomplishing the same task given that they
will be focused solely on their own security primarily in just that one region.
KAGAN REFUSES to consider this possibility. He writes that the “most important features of today’s
world—the great spread of democracy, the prosperity, the prolonged great—power peace—have
depended directly and indirectly on power and influence exercised by the United States.” It follows,
therefore, that the world would become considerably less democratic, less prosperous and less peaceful
if the United States were to withdraw militarily from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Of course, he can’t actually prove either claim to be true, and he concedes as much. Instead, he bases
his case on a particular set of beliefs about how the world works and about the United States’ unique
characteristics within that system. Kagan asserts that the world requires a single, order—inducing
hegemon to enforce the rules of the game and that America must perform this role because its global
economic interests demand it. He also believes that the United States has a special obligation, deriving
from its heritage as a “dangerous nation,” to spread democracy and human rights. What’s more,
America’s military might is the essential ingredient that leads to its international influence. The spread
of democracy and market capitalism, Kagan claims, is made possible by U.S. power but would retreat
before autocracy and mercantilism if that power were seen to be waning. The attractiveness of
America’s culture, economics and political system—the vaunted “soft power” in Joseph Nye’s telling—is
fleeting and would dissipate if Americans were to commit what Kagan calls “preemptive superpower
suicide.”
How other nations respond to U.S. power also follows a familiar pattern. In Kagan’s telling, allies will
bandwagon with us if we are committed to defending them but bolt like frightened racehorses at the
first sign of trouble. Would—be challengers will back down in the face of U.S. power but rush to exploit
opportunities for conquest if Uncle Sam exhibits any hesitation or self—doubt. And Kagan simply
dismisses any suggestion that other countries might chafe at American dominance or fear American
power.
His ideas represent something close to the reigning orthodoxy in Washington today and for the past
two decades. Inside the Beltway, there is broad, bipartisan agreement on the basic parameters of U.S.
foreign policy that Kagan spells out. This consensus contends that the burden of proof is on those who
argue against the status quo. The United States and the world have enjoyed an unprecedented stretch
of security and prosperity; it would be the height of folly, the foreign—policy establishment asserts, to
upend the current structure on the assumption that an alternative approach would represent any
improvement.
But such arguments combine the most elementary of post hoc fallacies with unwarranted
assumptions and idle speculation. Correlation does not prove causation. There are many factors that
could explain the relative peace of the past half century. Kagan surveys them all—including economic
interdependence, evolving norms governing the use of force and the existence of nuclear weapons—
and concludes that U.S. power is the only decisive one. But, once again, he concedes that he cannot
prove it.
Kagan is incorrect – multilateral institution temper the impact of US decline
Keohane, Professor International Affairs at Princeton, ’12 (Robert, July/August, “Hegemony and After”
Foreign Affairs, Vol 91 Issue 4, EbscoHost)
Unfortunately, Kagan's method of disagreement is unconvincing. When he raises an opposing claim,
he almost never provides data or even systematic evidence; instead, he relies on a counter- assertion
with a few carefully selected examples. More annoying, he typically overstates the argument in
question, stripping it of its original nuance, before claiming to refute it.
One of his favorite rhetorical tactics is to assert that his opponents think some trend is "inevitable" or
"irreversible"-- the dominance of the American-led liberal order, the rise of democracy, the end of
major war. Another is to suggest that his targets believe in "multipolar harmony." But two of the most
basic propositions of contemporary international relations, certainly accepted by all the writers he
dismisses, are that world politics is a realm of inherent uncertainty and that it is characterized by a
natural absence of harmony. Since practically everybody knows that nothing in world politics is
inevitable and harmony is virtually nonexistent, attributing the opposite beliefs to one's opponents
assures one of victory in a mock combat.
It is precisely because international discord is the norm, in fact, that theorists and practitioners spend
so much time and effort trying to figure out how to generate and sustain cooperation. Many wellinformed commentators view the multilateral institutions that have emerged from all this work as
providing important supports for the contemporary world order. They point to the roles of UN
peacekeeping operations in fostering security, the World Bank in promoting development, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in enhancing financial stability, the World Trade Organization in
fostering commerce, and NATO and the European Union in helping achieve unprecedented peace and
unity across an entire continent.
Kagan scoffs, arguing that other states accept U.S. dominance not because it has been embedded in
such frameworks but because they approve of American values and goals and believe they may need
American power down the road. He disparages the United Nations; ignores UN peacekeeping, the World
Bank, and the IMF; and is dismissive of the European Union. But his rejection of the value of institutions
is based largely on one sentence, worth quoting in full as an example of his style of argumentation:
"All efforts to hand off the maintenance of order and security to an international body with greater
authority than the nations within it, or to rely on nations to abide by international rules, regardless of
their power to flout them, have failed." Yet Kagan does not mention the fact that the UN Security
Council has always operated with the possibility of vetoes by any of the five permanent members-showing that there was never any effort to endow it with authority above those states--nor does he
note the extensive literature that explores how states use the UN and other multilateral institutions
to pursue their interests, rather than "hand[ing] off" power to them. This is less serious debate than
the tossing of cherry bombs at straw men.
The World America Made thus combines a conventional and often sensible analysis of world politics and
modern U.S. foreign policy with tendentious criticism of supposedly competing arguments that few, if
any, authors actually make. Kagan does not engage in serious analysis of how much military power the
United States needs to maintain its central leadership role, in alliance with other democracies, in a
stable world order, or of how what Nye has called "soft power" can contribute, in conjunction with
"hard" material power, to U.S. influence.
A2: Lieber
Lieber overestimates the impact of decline – multilateral institutions solve
Keohane, Professor International Affairs at Princeton, ’12 (Robert, July/August, “Hegemony and After”
Foreign Affairs, Vol 91 Issue 4, EbscoHost)
Lieber's book largely agrees with Kagan's, arguing that "the maintenance of [the United States'] leading
[international] role matters greatly. The alternative would … be a more disorderly and dangerous
world." Power and Willpower in the American Future documents the many erroneous statements about
American decline by commentators such as the historian Paul Kennedy (who argued in 1987 that the
United States suffered from "imperial overstretch") and even Henry Kissinger (who wrote in 1961 that
"the United States cannot afford another decline like that which has characterized the past decade and
a half"). Lieber provides useful data on the relative economic production of major countries and gives
both his predecessors and his intellectual opponents due credit for their contributions.
In the end, however, the flaws in Lieber's arguments are similar to those in Kagan's. He, too, dismisses
multilateralism as generally ineffective, emphasizing its failures while paying less attention to its
successes, whether in peacekeeping, trade, or nonproliferation. He slights NATO'S operations in
Kosovo in 1999 and Libya in 2011, for example, arguing that the former exhibited "military and tactical
limitations" and pointing out that "stronger and more decisive initial attacks" might have brought
quicker success in the latter. Even if valid, surely these critiques are relatively minor compared to the
results achieved, with high international legitimacy, in both cases. But Lieber has difficulty admitting
that such episodes should be counted as evidence for multilateralism rather than against it.
In a previous book, Lieber offered a robust defense of and rationale for the foreign policy approach of
the George W. Bush administration, including making a case for preventive war. One might have hoped
that in this successor volume he would have revisited such issues and subjected the practical track
record of unbridled unilateralism to the same sort of withering scrutiny he gives to multilateralism, but
such self-reflection is not to be found here. (Nor is it present in Kagan's book, for that matter, where it
would have been equally welcome.)
Impacts
Liberal Internationalism Solves
US decline is irrelevant – liberal internationalism sows the seeds for cooperation to
solve global problems
Ikenberry, International Affairs Prof at Princeton, ’11 (John, May/June, “The Future of the Liberal
World Order” Foreign Affairs, Vol 90 Issue 3, EbscoHost)
PRONOUNCEMENTS OF American decline miss the real transformation under way today. What is
occurring is not American decline but a dynamic process in which other states are catching up and
growing more connected. In an open and rule-based international order, this is what happens. If the
architects of the postwar liberal order were alive to see today's system, they would think that their
vision had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Markets and democracy have spread. Societies outside the West are
trading and growing. The United States has more alliance partners today than it did during the Cold War. Rival hegemonic states
with revisionist and illiberal agendas have been pushed off the global stage. It is difficult to read these
world-historical developments as a story of American decline and liberal unraveling.
In a way, however, the liberal international order has sown the seeds of its own discontent, since,
paradoxically, the challenges facing it now--the rise of non-Western states and new transnational
threats--are artifacts of its success. But the solutions to these problems--integrating rising powers and
tackling problems cooperatively--will lead the order's old guardians and new stakeholders to an
agenda of renewal. The coming divide in world politics will not be between the United States (and the
West) and the non-Western rising states. Rather, the struggle will be between those who want to
renew and expand today's system of multilateral governance arrangements and those who want to
move to a less cooperative order built on spheres of influence. These fault lines do not map onto
geography, nor do they split the West and the non-West. There are passionate champions of the UN,
the WTO, and a rule-based international order in Asia, and there are isolationist, protectionist, and antiinternationalist factions in the West.
The liberal international order has succeeded over the decades because its rules and institutions have
not just enshrined open trade and free markets but also provided tools for governments to manage
economic and security interdependence. The agenda for the renewal of the liberal international order should be driven by this
same imperative: to reinforce the capacities of national governments to govern and achieve their economic and security goals.
As the hegemonic organization of the liberal international order slowly gives way, more states will
have authority and status. But this will still be a world that the United States wants to inhabit. A wider
array of states will share the burdens of global economic and political governance, and with its
worldwide system of alliances, the United States will remain at the center of the global system. Rising
states do not just grow more powerful on the global stage; they grow more powerful within their regions, and this creates its own set of worries and insecurities-which is why states
will continue to look to Washington for security and partnership. In this new age of
international order, the United States will not be able to rule. But it can still lead.
A2: Heg Good – Economy
No uniqueness—US can’t save the economy anymore—rising powers solve better
Layne ’12 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted neorealist, “This Time It’s
Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 203-213
The United States still wields preponderant military power. However, as discussed above, in the next ten to fifteen years the looming fiscal
crisis will compel Washington to retrench strategically. As the United States’ military power diminishes, its ability to command the commons
and act as a hegemonic stabilizer will be compromised. The end of the United States’ role as a military hegemon is still over horizon. However,
the Great Recession has made it evident that the United States no longer is an economic hegemon. An
economic hegemon is supposed to solve global economic crises, not cause them. However, it was the
freezing-up of the US financial system triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis that plunged the
world into economic crisis. The hegemon is supposed to be the lender of last resort in the international economy. The United
States, however, has become the borrower of first resort—the world’s largest debtor. When the global
economy falters, the economic hegemon is supposed to take responsibility for kick-starting recovery by purchasing other nations’ goods. From
World War II’s end until the Great Recession, the international economy looked to the United States as the locomotive of global economic
growth. As the world’s largest market since 1945, America’s willingness to consume foreign goods has been the firewall against global
economic downturns. This is not what happened during the Great Recession, however. The
US economy proved too infirm to
lead the global economy back to health. Others—notably a rising China—had to step up to the plate
to do so. The United States’ inability to galvanize global recovery demonstrates that in key respects it
no longer is capable of acting as an economic hegemon. Indeed, President Barak Obama conceded as much at the April
2009 G-20 meeting in London, where he acknowledged the United States is no longer able to be the world’s consumer of last resort, and that
the world needs to look to China (and India and other emerging market states) to be the motors of global recovery. Other
recent
examples of how relative decline and loss of economic hegemony have eroded Washington’s ‘‘agenda
setting’’ capacity in international economic management include the US failure to achieve global
economic re-balancing by compelling China to revalue the renminbi, and its defeat in the 2009–2010
‘‘austerity versus stimulus’’ debate with Europe.
A2: Heg Good – Economy (Defense Cuts)
Defense cuts won’t kill the economy – their evidence is military posturing
Korb, Senior Fellow Center for American Progress, 7-2-’12 (Lawrence, “Gunpoint Stimulus” Foreign
Policy, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/02/gunpoint_stimulus)
Since 1998, U.S. military spending has grown exponentially, reaching 20 percent of overall federal spending
and more than half of discretionary spending-levels not seen since the end of World War II. In particular,
the portion of the budget used to purchase equipment from private industry has doubled over the last 14 years, growing from about $100
billion in 1998 to nearly $200 billion today. Unsurprisingly,
the defense industry has enjoyed remarkable
prosperity during this time, with industry profits quadrupling between 2001 and 2010 . But with a
struggling economy and the conclusion of two wars, the United States can no longer afford to fund a
massive defense buildup in the absence of an existential threat. Every bipartisan group confronting
the deficit problem -- including the President's Debt Commission (Simpson-Bowles), the Domenici-Rivlin Task Force, and the Gang of Six
-- has recommended reducing defense spending by about $1 trillion over the next decade. And the Budget Control
Act (BCA), passed last summer, called for Congress to identify $1.2 trillion in cuts, revenue, or both to address this fiscal dilemma. If Congress
failed, the act stipulated that $500 billion be automatically "sequestered" from defense (an equivalent amount would also be "sequestered"
from non-defense programs) to meet the shortfall. Faced with the prospect of declining government spending, the defense industry has
stepped into the fray. Whereas for much of the last decade the defense industry relied on fears of terrorism and the ongoing conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan to secure lucrative contracts, the end of the wars and the economic downturn have forced it to dramatically change its
approach. Now, the defense industry is marketing itself as an essential job creator. Lockheed Martin, in particular,
garnered headlines last week by announcing it will issue layoff notices to the majority of its 123,000 employees the week before the November
elections unless sequestration is averted. It's certainly a tactic tailored to the times. The question is: will it work? The Lockheed announcement
was not the first shot in this new battle. In October 2011, the
Aerospace Industry Association (AIA) published an
economic impact analysis which concluded that cuts of $1 trillion over 10 years would cost the U.S. economy
more than 1 million jobs, increasing the rate of unemployment by 0.6 percent. More recently, the National Association of
Manufacturers (NAM) echoed this dire economic forecast, reporting that the BCA plus sequestration would result in the loss of over 1 million
jobs, increase unemployment by 0.7 percent, and decrease gross domestic product by almost 1 percent. Most
of these jobs,
however, would not come from the defense industry itself. To maximize their findings (and their political
impact), both studies assessed the effects of defense sequestration on every sector of the economy that
could be hit by "induced effects," including secondary and tertiary effects like reduced consumer
spending. As a result, the "1 million jobs" figure includes jobs in industries as distant from defense as "retail trade" and "leisure and
hospitality services." In addition to this methodological sleight of hand, the AIA and NAM studies are flawed for two fundamental reasons. First,
defense spending is not a jobs program; it is a collective effort to address the threats facing the
country, assure our national security, and secure our interests abroad. Therefore, the level of defense
spending should be dictated by our national strategy and fiscal capacity, both of which point towards a drawdown.
While it is in our interest to maintain essential industrial capacity, revenue growth and profit margins should not enter
the calculus. Furthermore, if implemented wisely, $1 trillion in cuts spread over 10 years would not
threaten our industrial base or national security. After more than a decade of real growth, such cuts would amount to a
reduction of only about 15 percent in real terms and return defense spending to 2007 levels. Second, defense spending is an
extremely inefficient way to stimulate the economy. Both studies ignore the fact that defense spending creates
far fewer jobs per billion dollars spent than other forms of government spending. For example, spending
on educational services creates three times as many jobs as military spending and health care twice as
many, according to research from the University of Massachusetts. Even tax cuts create almost 30
percent more jobs than money spent on weapons. So if Congress wants to spend taxpayer money to create jobs, it
shouldn't give it to defense contractors. Last week, the defense industry brought out the big guns, announcing that, since sequestration would
kick in on January 1, 2013, the WARN Act (which requires that employers give their employees 60 days' notice about layoffs) would require
defense contractors to issue layoff notices on November 2, 2012-4 days before the presidential elections. That's when Lockheed Martin said
that it therefore plans to notify the "vast majority" of its 123,000 employees that their jobs could be lost due to sequestration. Defense hawks
immediately seized on the warning as a political weapon; Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has even called on defense companies to start issuing
layoff notices sooner to force Congress into repealing sequestration. The defense industry's new line is a potent political offensive designed to
hit legislators where it hurts: their districts. It's a variation on the long-standing industry strategy of spreading the production of weapons
systems across numerous congressional districts in order to ensure political support for the programs. Taking the economic tack -- particularly
in an election year in which the political punditry has decreed that "it's the economy, stupid" -- is also a useful way to separate the defense
spending debate from its proper historical context. Many of the people now animated by the industry's jobs claims are unaware of the recent
history of the U.S. defense industry and its taxpayer-financed bonanza. The offensive has certainly spooked members of Congress with military
installations or defense industrial operations in their districts (basically, everyone). Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), the chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, has been particularly vocal, declaring that sequestration would "cripple our economy and defenses in a single blow."
Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has also taken up the call, along with Senator John McCain (R-AZ). While these tactics are designed to cause
legislators and their constituents to panic, the fact of the matter is that defense
companies are overstating the impact of
sequestration. First, sequestration would require the Pentagon to reduce its budget by about 10 percent
next year. While a 10 percent reduction in weapons procurement certainly would not be good news for defense contractors' bottom lines,
it would hardly require companies to lay off their entire work force. Lockheed Martin, for example, would still be
contracted to build new F-35s, if perhaps not as many as anticipated, and provide maintenance and spare parts for numerous aircraft already in
service. Additionally, defense
industry leaders have kept quiet about another trend bolstering their
businesses: foreign arms sales. The State Department announced in early June that it had approved over $44 billion in sales of
military parts or equipment by private U.S. companies abroad in 2011, up $10 billion from the previous year. This equipment was researched,
developed, and tested in large part with U.S. taxpayer funds, but the defense industry has been strangely silent regarding Uncle Sam's seed
capital. Moreover, sequestration
impacts budget authority -- that is, how much money Congress sets aside for programs each
year. Not all of this money, however, is spent in the year it is appropriated. Right now, for example, the
Department of Defense has an unobligated or unspent authorized balance of $88 billion. As a result, the Pentagon's outlays -- that is, how much
the Department spends in 2013 -- will almost certainly be considerably higher than what Congress appropriates, even under sequestration, so
there is some economic breathing room. Massive and immediate layoffs would be both premature and an overreaction. But the most
dangerous result of these strong arm tactics by the defense industry has been to prompt budget hawks on the Hill to attempt to divorce the
defense cuts from a comprehensive debt reduction plan. The sequester was, after all, the stick intended to force a grand bargain, and in that
way it is working. We should not allow the parochial concerns of defense company executives -- even dressed up as sudden concern for
economic stimulus -- to distract from this broader public policy debate.
A2: Heg Good – Asia
US heg not needed in Asia – countries will counterbalance China themselves
Friedman, Defense Fellow at Cato, and Logan, Director of Foreign Policy at Cato, ’12 (Benjamin- PhD
Candidate PolSci at MIT, and Justin; Spring, “Why the U.S. Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’”
Orbis)
Asia is tougher case. South Korea’s military superiority over its northern neighbor is sufficient to deter
it from an attempt at forcible reunification. By heightening North Korea’s security, nuclear weapons
may reinforce its capacity for trouble-making, but they do not aid offensive forays. U.S. forces long
ago became unnecessary to maintaining the peninsula’s territorial status quo.
Chinese efforts to engage in old-fashioned conquest are unlikely, at least beyond Taiwan. Its more
probable objective is a kind of Asian Monroe doctrine, meant to exclude the United States. 6 China
naturally prefers not to leave its maritime security at the whim of U.S. policymakers and, thus, has
sought to improve its anti-access and area-denial capabilities. In the longer term, China’s leaders will
likely pursue the ability to secure its trade routes by building up longer-range naval forces. They may
also try to leverage military power to extract various concessions from nearby states.
Washington’s defense analysts typically take those observations as sufficient to establish the
necessity that U.S. forces remain in Asia to balance Chinese military power. But to justify a U.S.
military presence there, one also needs to show both that Asian nations cannot or will not balance
Chinese power themselves and that their failure to do so would greatly harm U.S. security. Neither is
likely.
Geography and economics suggest that the states of the region will successfully balance Chinese
power—even if we assume that China’s economic growth allows it to continue to increase military
spending. 7 Bodies of water are natural defenses against offensive military operations. They allow
weaker states to achieve security at relatively low cost by investing in naval forces and coastal
defenses. That defensive advantage makes balances of power more stable. Not only are several of
China’s Asian rivals islands, but those states have the wealth to make Chinese landings on their coast
prohibitively expensive. India’s mountainous northern border creates similar dynamics.
The prospects of Asian states successfully deterring future Chinese aggression will get even better if,
as seems likely, threats of aggression provoke more formal security alliances. Some of that is already
occurring. Note for example, the recent joint statement issued by the Philippines and Japan marking a
new ‘‘strategic partnership’’ and expressing ‘‘common strategic interests’’ such as ‘‘ensuring the
safety of sea lines of communication.’’ 8 This sort of multilateral cooperation would likely deepen
with a more distant U.S. role. Alliances containing disproportionately large states historically produce
free-riding; weaker alliance partners lose incentive to shore up their own defenses. 9
Even if one assumes that other states in the region would fail to balance China, it is unclear exactly
how U.S. citizens would suffer. China’s territorial ambitions might grow but are unlikely to span the
Pacific. Nor would absorbing a few small export-oriented states slacken China’s hunger for the dollars
of American consumers.
A2: Heg Good – Free Trade
Hegemony not key to free trade – global system is resilient
Friedman, Defense Fellow at Cato, and Logan, Director of Foreign Policy at Cato, ’12 (Benjamin- PhD
Candidate PolSci at MIT, and Justin; Spring, “Why the U.S. Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’”
Orbis)
Threats to Trade are Overstated The second major strategic concept that ought to be discarded is the
idea that without American global military dominance, globalization or world trade would be in
jeopardy. The argumentsaysthat trade requires accessto the global commons, which is typically defined
as the areas of the sea, space, and air ‘‘that belong to no one state and that provide access to much of
the globe,’’ 13 and that access to the commons depends on U.S. military forces, especially naval patrols.
This argument is flawed because it sees global trade as brittle rather than robust. Three faulty
assumptions produce that mistake. 14 The first is that United States is the only country with the
interest and capability to ensure the flow of trade. Many states, however, are wealthy and dependent
enough on trade to defend their shipments if they were required to. If the skies or seas are
vulnerable, there are various parties besides the United States with an interest in securing them.
Another false assumption is that threats to peacetime commerce are plentiful. Beyond the localized
and economically small problem of piracy, security threats to global trade are few. Policing against
theft is essential to international commerce, but few shipments require military protection to reach
their destination. No state today regularly uses force to disrupt trade. Most states would do so while
at war, but that is an argument for a navy capable of keeping sea lanes open amid wars, not using it to
patrol the seas at all times.
A2: Heg Good – Prolif
Unipolarity undermines cooperation over issues like terrorism
Gvosdev 7-6-‘12 ( Nikolas Gvosdev, former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign
policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S.
Naval War College. “The Realist Prism: U.S. Power and Its Discontents”
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12133/the-realist-prism-u-s-power-and-its-discontents)
There are two simultaneous and contradictory trends occurring right now in the international system.
The first is the diffusion of power, as reflected by the displacement of the old Group of Seven, which at
its founding in the 1970s comprised the bulk of the world’s productive capacity, by the Group of 20, where
there is no longer one dominant power capable of driving the global agenda. The second is the reality
that the United States still far outstrips any other one state or group of states in terms of capabilities,
ranging from the power of its currency to its ability to project military force to any corner of the globe.
The result has been a growing “trust deficit” between the United States and several of the rising and
resurgent powers, such as Russia and China, which in turn has had an impact on the latter states’
willingness to work with Washington to address major international challenges, such as in Syria and
Iran. The recent jeremiads about American decline notwithstanding, the United States still holds the
bulk of the world’s political, economic and military power. As a result, other countries remain focused
on finding ways to limit how Washington deploys that power. In a recent monograph on arms control, Paul Saunders
of the Center for the National Interest notes how “the asymmetries between America’s global capabilities and
ambitions and Russia’s more limited options and aims” produce continued uneasiness in Moscow,
something that was quite evident to me during the recent sessions of the Dartmouth Dialogue on U.S.-Russia relations, held in Valdai, Russia.
These concerns are shared by other rising powers, including China, who seek reassurances and formal
treaty limitations that would constrain America’s ability to use its power in the international system.
Whether arguing against U.S. plans for theater ballistic missile defense, seeking a binding
international agreement on cyber-capabilities or pushing for a very limited and stringent definition of
the conditions under which the “right to protect” can be invoked, these governments, cognizant of
their own weaknesses and capabilities deficits, are expressing their concern over their vulnerability.
This sense of exposure is heightened by what appears to them to be the unpredictable way in which
the U.S. exercises its power. In other words, the question they all must consider is, what will “set
Washington off”? How and why the U.S. intervened in Libya when Washington routinely ignores humanitarian crises elsewhere raises
the unpleasant notion that the United States does not operate according to any fixed set of criteria. Governments in Moscow and
Beijing are left to wonder whether, given the right set of circumstances, the United States would push
for regime change in Russia or China, too. Hence the growing trend of these powers seeking to limit
the exercise of U.S. power whenever possible. These fears also limit their enthusiasm for wanting to
help Washington solve some of the current intractable issues it faces. None of the world’s great
powers want Iran, for instance, to pursue a nuclear “breakout” and become an atomic-weapons state. But,
as Russian interlocutors have sometimes privately indicated, they see no rush in solving this problem
either. Assuming that the United States might be inclined to turn its attentions to thwarting some of
Russia’s geopolitical objectives once the problem of Iran’s nuclear program is settled, what incentive
does Moscow have to help get the Iran portfolio quickly off America’s agenda?9 Considered in this
light, the course that Russia and China and other rising powers have adopted makes sense: some
sanctions on Tehran, notably for its sins of omission and nondisclosure, but otherwise not bringing
their full force to bear on Iran to help force a settlement. Washington, for its part, is unwilling to give the
types of commitments that the rising powers want to reassure them of U.S. intentions. In a dangerous
and unpredictable world, the United States does not want to foreclose on its options or voluntarily
sign away any tool that might become acutely necessary. Missile defense is a good example. With the
continuing spread of both missile and nuclear technology around the world, who can say with any
certainty whether the current status quo will endure? Within a few years, a whole host of unsavory regimes, not
to mention even less accountable nonstate actors, might have access to dangerous technologies that could
threaten the American homeland. America’s position is that it seeks limited but effective defenses
against such threats and that the established nuclear powers need to trust that whatever capabilities
Washington deploys are not designed to upset the pre-existing global strategic balances. At best, the
United States is willing to accept only unilateral and, if necessary, easily reversible limits on its
capabilities, rather than locking in such barriers in terms of longer-term and more-binding compacts.
The United States also sees no reason to voluntarily limit the exercise of its own power and to trust
that other countries will “do the right thing” to help protect America’s own security. The continuing
leakage of sensitive technologies from countries such as Russia -- sometimes in defiance of
government efforts to stop such export, sometimes with officials turning a blind eye to the trafficking
-- raises questions in Washington as to whether other powers would really exert themselves to take
action to stop threats aimed at America. As the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden showed,
Washington is perfectly willing to ignore international rules to “get the job done.” Whether it
concerns utilizing drones or deploying sophisticated cybertools to cripple an opponent’s infrastructure
or research programs, the United States is not going to forego any of the tools it has in its arsenal that
could neutralize emerging threats. Washington’s first preference will always be to work through international institutions, as
demonstrated by its approach to both Iran and Syria. In its efforts to bring pressure to bear on both Tehran and Damascus, the United States
has worked through the United Nations Security Council -- where both Moscow and Beijing have a veto and emerging powers such as India,
Brazil and South Africa often have a vote -- and taken part in international conferences, such as the P5+1 negotiations with Iran and the recent
conclave in Geneva that produced the agreement for a possible transition of power in Syria. But
if these efforts fail, the United
States will find a way to act, even over the objections of Moscow or Beijing. If that happens, however,
finding a way to assuage the insecurities of the rising powers will become an absolute necessity. Right
now, despite some opposition to U.S. policies, there is no sustained anti-American bloc in the world
interested in consistently and uniformly contesting Washington’s power around the world. U.S.
policymakers must therefore focus on finding the right mix of incentives to keep such a bloc from
emerging. Being more sensitive to how the U.S. exercises its power is an important first step.