Hi Folks,

I'm relaying a contribution to this forum from Dr Roger Townshend.

Here it is:

"USA Grand Strategy Options in a Multi-Polar World

The 1992-2023 World Order

So where are we now, in the current world order? In the 1990s it appeared to Liberal Internationalists that a uni-polar NWO based on liberal values, such as enlightened humanity, peaceful democracy, global economic interdependence (neo-liberalism), and international institutions was possible. Their only rival ideology, Communist Determinism, had failed with the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and China had converted to a ‘two systems, one country’ policy after 1978. Some even talked of the ‘end of history’. It was deemed merely a matter of expanding this NWO into the empty space of the non-West. It didn’t happen.

We now call this the ‘unipolar moment’. From the perspective of 2023, the USA-Liberal NWO ‘unipolar moment’, if it existed at all, was a brief interlude between the collapse of the USSR-Communism and bi-polarity and the emergence of a new multi-polar world order, led by the BRICs, especially China. The USA-West is still the single most powerful and Liberal Internationalism is the only global ideology. But the 1992-2023 power trends are against it. The USA-West’s shares of global GNP, population, and even military spending, are all in long-term decline. A declining trend in value projection, and political and diplomatic influence is already following.

Power polarity is the basis that underpins any world order. When power polarity changes, as it is doing now, and the diplomatic, institutional, and value arrangements – the ‘rules’ or ‘architecture’ of world order – do not, we have an unstable, potentially dangerous situation. An intensified or hegemonic struggle for power, with the architecture of the next world order at stake follows. It’s happened before with the unstable Revolutionary-Napoleonic era of 1789-1815 and World Wars, including the failed Versailles era of 1914-1945, and we are in such an era now, since 1991. The issue is, can it be managed by peaceful diplomacy and not hegemonic war?

It’s not all gloom, but most of the concessions need to come from the established, but declining, powers and order. That means from the USA-West and their Liberal Internationalist values. Two big issues are:

1) To constrain, not attempt to expand, Liberal Internationalism. The non-Wests see it as a threat, ‘human rights imperialism’, interference in their sovereignty, and a cloak for neo-economic control, all backed by USA-Western military intervention.

2) How to accommodate rising non-Western powers, the BRICs, especially China, into a new system, not merely as an extension to the West.

It’s going to be difficult, especially for Western Liberals, but there are historical analogies. During the Cold War 1946-1991, there were two uncompromising global ideologies, rather than the one remaining one we have today. However, the bipolar balance of power, including the threat and fear of nuclear war, forced them to accommodate, if grudgingly, and accept a situation of ‘peaceful coexistence’. There were sub-wars in the third world, but escalation to a nuclear WW3 was avoided. The two blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact were inviolable and spheres of influence were accepted. It’s called a Balance of Power.

Today (2023) that means the USA-West needs to accept and genuinely accommodate the emerging multi-polar world. It doesn’t mean Western Liberalism needs to abandon its values inside its own territory, but it does mean pulling back from them as a global ideology. Human rights and economic imperialism, and especially military intervention in the non-West, need to be abandoned. NATO expansion up to the borders of security-phobic and nuclear-armed Russia and containment of China’s rise by alliances such as Aukus and the Quad (India, Japan, S. Korea, Australia) are major errors.

Spheres of influence for Russia, China, and later India and others, need to be accepted. The ‘unipolar moment’ is already gone and the USA-West is moving, due to power trends, from predominance to equilibrium with the various non-Wests. The West needs to get real. Moreover, a multi-polar world is nothing to fear. The non-ideological Concert of Europe provided a century of relative stability and peace from 1815 to 1914. Apart from Islamism, the non-Wests are mostly non-ideological, sharing the defensive concept of national sovereignty, which should be acceptable to the West as well. A global version of ‘peaceful accommodation’ or live and let live, not global ideology is what’s needed now. What are the prospects?

Conditions for USA-West Strategic-Policy Change

Changes in power polarity, meaning the balance or distribution of power, is thus the fundamental macro process for change. It is inexorable and difficult if not impossible for policymakers to control. However, there is typically a delay for this process to manifest in the policy and institutional arrangements of the international system. Economic and demographic changes, and relative decline, happen first, and then lead to military, political, and diplomatic overstretch. Finally policy and strategy adapts, but often only after being forced to do so by major events.

It’s going to take major shocks in the existing international system for the USA-West to fundamentally change its strategic and policy paradigm. The institutional entropy to continue with the generic status quo of liberal internationalism and neo-liberal globalization is huge and entrenched. Fundamental change hinges mostly, almost only on the USA. The rest of the core West – NATO Europe, Japan, S. Korea, Australia-NZ, Canada, Israel – has an economy equal to the USA, but only half of USA defense expenditure and at best 10% of out-of-area intervention capability. Their economies are also in relative global decline and except for Canada-Australia, less self-sufficient and more vulnerable to geo-political disruption of globalized economics, energy for example. Moreover, there is little political will to increase defense and even less for a global security role. In short, without the USA, their preferred existing, post-1992 Western world order cannot be maintained. If the USA goes towards isolationism, the rest of the West must adapt to multi-polarity. The Western power elite hates the prospect.

There has only been one fundamental change in the US global grand strategy in all of its history. Before Pearl Harbour, it was Isolationist with only brief blips in 1898 and 1917-19. After December 7th, 1941 it’s been and remains Liberal International Globalism. WW2 is the measure and scale of event required to shift the USA’s global paradigm and grand strategy. Today, for a shift back to even partial isolationism, is going to require a combination of three or four massive event factors:

1) A comprehensive anti-system domestic political victory for an ‘America first’ platform – possibly a Popularist Republican party and President Trump in 2024. One term might not be enough. At least one of the two main political parties needs to become permanently anti-system. Though less likely, an anti-system leftist-wokeist Democratic party would also challenge the existing order.

2) A military disaster that can’t be redeemed simply by ‘doubling down’ on existing interventionist policy. Vietnam after 1975 is the closest, but insufficient, analogy. A Ukraine defeat or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan with nuclear crises might suffice. Might? The current strategic doctrine is the two-X half-war concept. The US could intervene simultaneously in both Ukraine and Taiwan. But would it want to? Are the nuclear risks to US national interests, not Ukraine’s or Taiwan’s, worth it?

3) A global and USA financial and economic collapse that is larger than 2008 and 1929-1939 – the entire global, if not domestic, financial debt system, over half the production economy, two-thirds or more of US and global trade. It would need to be of a size to disable the superpower defense spending capability.

4) USA Civil War and possibly session: the real thing, not just political. This is the only factor that would be sufficient on its own, putting us into obviously drastic, and on balance still unlikely, territory.

The hurdles for a fundamental change in US grand strategy, foreign, defense and external economic policy are therefore very high and probably multiple. They are of course linked. A geo-political crisis could trigger an economic one. An economic-debt implosion on the above scale would impact domestic politics, then via reduced defense spending, the USA security role. If change happens, what might a new ‘semi-isolationist’ but Realist strategy look like?

A Realist Isolationist Strategy

The first thing is it’s about a grand strategy compatible with the emerging multi-polar balance of power world order. The aim is to protect vital US security and economic national interests. It’s not about surrender. However, it’s inherent in a multi-polar and accommodationist world to compromise on marginal interests. A Realist ‘America first’ strategy would prioritize security first, then economic security, and everything else last.

The new geo-security sphere would pull back from the existing globalist position to cover just the core West or even to the North American quarter sphere. In the Pacific, the line would be Alaska-Guam-Australia. Conceding a Chinese sphere of influence in vacated East Asia would be the basis of a peaceful accommodation with them. Japan might fill the gap, or more likely adapt.

In Europe following a Ukraine defeat, the maximum line would be the current NATO border, including the Baltics, with no expansion into the ex-USSR. That would accommodate Russia. Russia doesn’t have the power to cross the 2023 NATO-EU line. Withdrawal from NATO would be a full isolationist variant, pulling back to the line: Greenland-Puerto Rico-Panama: the North America quarter sphere. Expect Brazil and South America to go their own way, which they will anyway, so anticipate it. An EU-only version of NATO would attempt to fill the gap and become a new great power.

Africa, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia would not be US security interests in the emerging multi-polar world. This would free it of being a diplomatic arbiter and getting the blame, for the most unstable parts of the world with intractable conflicts. If there is conflict spillover, migration for example, then you protect your own national interest, such as a military border with Mexico in this case. The US isn’t responsible for all the world’s problems. India is emerging as an independent, unaligned great power, not an extension of the West.

The core-West or North America strategy would still leave the US as a multi-polar great power, but not a globally dominant one. It’s more defensible, less overstretched, and cheaper than 3.5% GNP on defense.

Economically North America is or could easily become self-sufficient in energy, agriculture, raw materials, and a protected and rebuilt industrial base. In short everything it needs to maintain or rebuild its existing standard of living. It wouldn’t be dependent on the rest of the world and less vulnerable to its problems. Realist Autarky would replace Neo-liberal globalization. Of course, if Europe and Japan-East Asia remain within even a contracted security sphere this becomes less true. All the ongoing problems of defense burden sharing, economic protectionism, and the US subsidizing the global order can only intensify under this variant.

The principle and psychologically difficult hit would be, in the end non-vital, area of value projection or ‘American exceptionalism’. American exceptionalism is a combination of value projection, and less noticed, the power to project the values, to transform the international system into something resembling US domestic society. If the exceptional superpower is gone, which in a multipolar world it will be, then value projection falls with it anyway. It wouldn’t mean any change in US domestic values. We would return to the pre-1917 or 1941 policy position. Value projection, if any, would be, for example, the ‘city on a hill’ strategy.

Internationally there would be a wide range of government, political, and economic types compatible with national sovereignty and multi-polarity. The multi-polar superpowers would be the USA, China, Russia, India, probably the EU, and possibly Brazil. Each would manage its sphere of influence. A larger number of regional medium powers are also emerging. Global order would require peaceful coexistence and accommodations along the lines of the 19th-century concert of Europe. A looser international architecture than now, not a world government, and not dominated by the West.

However, don’t hold your breath. The tectonic plates of power distribution move slowly, but inexorably. Empires tend to decline grudgingly, kicking and screaming, not gracefully. But decline they do, there’s no exception to that. The rational, and Realist, strategy is to anticipate and adapt. If we don’t, it’s a new Cold War which the West might not win and a rough ride."

Dr. Roger Townshend, Nov. 2023.