There has been a heated debate in the United States for the past
few years about the most successful way for the United States to maintain the American
global leadership in the 21st century, the debate is between two main groups:
The first is the proponents of retrenchment who call for a
substantial reduction of US military-security commitments in the world, and
instead focuses on nation-building within the US, economic development,
infrastructure, education and health, and bridging the widening gap between the
rich and the poor in the United States.
The second wants to maintain the current grand strategy of deep
engagement since the end of the Second World War in order to maintain the
current international liberal order and warns that abandoning this strategy
will mean the end of the dollar as a global reserve currency along with the
American economic prosperity.
The proponents of retrenchment see that the strategy of liberal hegemony
over the world is uncontrolled, expensive, and bloody, creating enemies as much
as killing them. It also discourages the Allies' will to shoulder the costs of
defending themselves, and motivates other nation states to unite in one front
against America. Although the economic power of the
United States has declined considerably over the past decade, the Pentagon is
still receiving enormous funds, yet it subjects the United States of the danger
of excessive strategic expansion. It is time to abandon the strategy of
American hegemony and replace it with a strategy of restraint. This means
abandoning the pursuit of global reform and merely protecting the national
interests of the United States, also reducing the size of the US military, and closing
some military bases around the world.
The United States' economic potential is no longer in line with its
strategic ambitions, which is now competing by other emerging great powers like
China. According to Global Trends 2030 “With the rapid rise of other countries,
the “unipolar moment” is over and Pax Americana—the era of American ascendancy
in international politics that began in 1945—is fast winding down.”
Those in favor of U.S. strategic retrenchment overseas also believe
that the world power is now divided between the new rising powers, along with
American power. These powers are not only in the BRICS countries, but also in
the MINT countries, and therefore the United States will now have to retreat to
new, more modest and realistic positions.
It’s also worth mentioning that democracy promotion or supporting democracy abroad is no longer the case because after more
than a decade, and after the US spent nearly $5 trillion to finance the two wars
and lost more than 7,000 US troops. Most Americans now feel that building
democratic governments in Iraq and Afghanistan is almost impossible, despite
all the financial and human sacrifices they made.
Thus, there should be an alternative strategy, which does not
necessarily mean the return of the United States to normalcy.
On the other hand, the authors of the article who belong to the
second group that opposing retrenchment and support
the Grand Strategy of deep engagement believe that the strategy has been in
United States’ interest for the last six decades, and there is no reason for retrenchment.
They wrote “The United States’ globe-girdling strategy is the devil
we know, and a world with a disengaged United States is the devil we don’t
know. Retrenchment would in essence entail a massive experiment: How would the
world work without an engaged, liberal leading power?”
Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has
adopted a grand strategy of deep engagement, which has allowed it to protect
its security, maximize its domestic prosperity, to promote the principles of
the liberal economy and to establish strong defense alliances in Europe, East
Asia and the Middle East.
But now, Washington may feel tempted to give up the grand strategy as
a result of China’s rise, huge budget deficits and exhaustion from the two
costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this would be a huge mistake: cutting
defense spending over 10 years would only save the Treasury $900
billion. Moreover, the significant capabilities of the American military
power prevented the emergence of any great power aspiring to its budget, and that
costs the U.S. only 4.5 percent of its GDP.
According to the authors “without a continuation of the U.S. global
leadership, many countries, including South Korea, Taiwan and Japan in Asia,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the Middle East, will become nuclear powers.
The EU will be unable to defend itself against Russia.”
In addition to that “The United States will have to play a key role
in countering China. It will need to maintain key alliance relationships in
Asia as well as the formidably expensive military capacity to intervene there.
The implication is to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, reduce the presence in
Europe, and pivot to Asia— just what the United States is doing.”
However, the most important of all, in the view of those opposing
retrenchment, is the close link between America's military domination and its
economic dominance. The current US strategy preserves the global economic
system set up by Washington after World War II, which largely serves its
national economic interests. Thus, military control is the main reason of the
U.S. world economic leadership. And if America withdraws its military presence
from most regions, it will be very difficult for them to convince other great
powers to take care of the American economic interests. The global role allows
the United States to create the world economy as it wishes, and helps it defend
the U.S. dollar as the world's main reserve currency, giving the country huge
advantages, primarily its ability to borrow money easily.
All this does not mean that they cannot or should not, amend the
grand strategy whenever circumstances require it. When President Nixon pulled
all American troops out of Vietnam and replaced it by China to be with him in
his fight against the Soviet Union. This example shows that the amendment is possible without touching the core of the
grand strategy of U.S. leadership of the world.
This is in brief the general conclusions of the supporters of the
American Grand Strategy that the American commitment to the world should not be
reduced, and to continue the strategy of what they call it "liberal
hegemony". As it can be seen from the abovementioned, their logic revolves
around one main idea: that the continued economic prosperity of the U.S. is no
longer possible without the continuation of American military hegemony over the
world, or in other words, Withdraw the forces and security commitments of
America's allies, the foundations of the economy will collapse. And although,
the US foreign policy oscillates between the left demanding the U.S. to reduce
its role in world affairs, and the right that supports keeping the US role
active, but shifting focus from Europe and the Middle East to West Asia and the
Near East, which means that there is a near consensus among members of the
American elite on the need to emerge completely militarily and politically
specifically from the Middle East.
In conclusion, it seems that we are already standing before a new
stage in the U.S. foreign policy based on strengthening its domestic economic
reforms, and reduce U.S. commitments (and
wars) abroad, And the re-establishment of the system of globalization, in order
to serve two purposes at the same time: contain the rise of China, and continue
to consolidate U.S. global leadership. But regardless of the outcome of the
US-China competition and its reflection on the global balance of power, it can
be argued that the US military role in the next few decades will be much
smaller than in the past four decades, at least as a result of what America did
after its major wars, the two world wars, the wars of Korea, Vietnam and the
Cold War. It reduced its war effort in the post-war period and devoted itself
entirely to its domestic situation, especially the economic one.
