The recent history of the United States’ foreign policy exposes an order that is not a sole case or a first. The increasing coercive pressure with Venezuela, the increasingly disciplinary posture with Colombia, and the further solidification of policy with Cuba all point to a strategic recalibration. Such moves are heralded by historical examples. Empires are not destroyed by sudden swings, but they decay at uneven levels.
Robert Gilpin outlines in ‘War and Change in World Politics’ that hegemonic systems destabilize when the costs to uphold such order surpass the benefits of such order. At this level, diminishing powers are no longer concerned with expansion and norm-building, but rather with defensive retrenchment, which focuses on areas considered critical to survival.
In the crisis of the third century, in the Roman Empire, when universal integration was replaced by militarized defense on the frontiers, such a shift became conspicuous. Faced by the depletion after World War II, the British Empire found itself pouring the little resources it had into a few areas of strategic interest and quickly pulling out of all its international engagements. In both cases, retrenchment was preceded by increased coercion, loss of legitimacy, and an explosion of insecurity. It seems that the United States is approaching a similar phase.
The liberal international order that was at one time a force multiplier has turned into a strategic liability. With the dispersion of relative power and the weakening of normative authority beginning to sink in, the United States is giving up on its aspiration to universality in favor of a process of geographic agglomeration and developing coercive credibility.
Declining Normative Hegemony
One of the most significant phenomena of American hegemonic influence since 1945 was its capacity to transform military and economic strength into a legitimate force that had an international echo. The multilateral consensus, democratic governance, and the lack of universality in human rights were codified as unchanging ideals.
This de-escalated the sense that these two were US strategic interests instruments. In so doing, the United States could reduce the face costs of action, direct cost of enforcement, boarding troops, imposing sanctions, or fining, and, instead, develop a kind of leadership based on the general approval of its policy aspirations.
Nevertheless, such an aura of legitimacy has, over the course of decades, been demonstrated to have a visible slip. The extended regimes in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the discriminative application of international law, and the deliberate exercise of economic sanctions have all led to a growing lack of trust in the US, particularly among the states in the Global South.
As the post-war realist article After Victory purports, institutional structures rely on restraint, reciprocity, and mutual trust. Once these bricks crumble, then the very modalities of governance stand empty – there is only cosmetic power but no real power in them.
Read More: How Global Power Shifted from Slow Diplomacy to Instant Conflict
South America as a Keepsake for Prestige?
Mearsheimer outlines in ‘The Tragedy of Great Power Politics’ that regional hegemony is the safe bet for a proper foundation of survival for a nation’s imperial design. To project power on the global level, one must firmly establish a presence in a region. The western hemisphere has historically been a symbol of American influence, straight from the time when the US announced that no European colonial plans would be allowed to materialize there. The United States had taken it as a personal obligation to uproot any colonial activities by asserting itself in South America.
The Monroe Doctrine was the principal foundation upon which this was decided. The late-imperial coercion behavior is demonstrated in the Venezuelan case. Although its material means are minimal, Venezuela has a high level of symbolic resonance. Its participation in action with other opposing forces is a way of undermining imperial respectability, according to the American view. Empires in the past responded symbolically with aggression. The British reaction to the colonial uprisings was no exception. The French, too, conducted campaigns in Indochina and Algeria, guided by this logic.
This, in turn, was intended to prevent further discontent; however, as was often the case, these measures had the opposite of their intended effect, which was to drain resources and accelerate decline. Similarly, the US escalation against Venezuela also pivots upon the status of its international reputation. An offensive realist interpretation would propose that declining hegemonies must demonstrate that they have not been weakened by inaction to such an extent that they have been rendered ineffective in their punitive roles. However, history has shown that some exemplary coercion often has the opposite effect of weakening instead of strengthening.
Trumpism – A Mimicry of Realism?
Trump’s fake realism can be understood aptly through an analysis by Muhammad Nadeem Baig and Syed Sabir Muhammad, who argue that, despite Trump’s administration labelling him a realist, he is anything but. His ‘America first’ stance might appeal to the conservatives and pseudo-realists, but it is still littered with strategic incoherence. There is no realism in strengthening adversarial rhetoric about oneself.
The withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, the mishandling of Qatar’s vulnerability in collateral retaliation last year, isolating and humiliating Europe, coupled with the erratic signaling on Taiwan, is giving breadth to US challengers rather than keeping them in check.
Trump has been described as mercantilist rather than realist in economic terms, based on his protectionist and tariff-driven policies. In contrast to the focus on relative gains proposed by realism, the authors argue that blanket trade wars against ally states distort the zero-sum paradigm, entice concerted action, and may repeat the failures of history, such as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Instead of increasing American leverage, these actions encourage alternative economic orientations that undermine American power.
Ultimately, today the United States occupies the same stage that many empires did previously. The order it had fought to uphold no longer allows itself to be reigned in; it cannot term universal liberalism as cost-effective anymore.
Acting in accordance with the empires of old, it is now cutting its losses and focusing on asserting dominance through coercion where-ever it can, appealing to the level of prestige it once had, in keeping itself relevant as a global leader. The world should brace itself, for insecurity between regions will rise if the informal empire that is the US continues on this path.
*The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Diplomatic Insight.
Anas Yamin
Anas Yamin is an International Relations Student (at Air University). He is interested in foreign policy analysis, arms control, conflict transformation, and power politics.
