Another post on America, Amercianisation is affecting
the blogs now... So to start with we have to define what a hegemony is exactly.
Most of us would agree that there is a range of great powers currently
operating in the international system, from the UK to Russia, China, etc.
Yet a hegemon implies more than simply possessing great military and
economic power- in fact it is possible to be a hegemon without being the
leading state in these two areas. Hegemony implies domination of a system. It
was first used by the neo-marxist Gramsci to describe the bourgeoisie
ideological dominance over the subordinate classes, but in terms of
international politics it refers to a leading state that possesses structural
power within a collection of states, allowing it to shape the actions of said
states.
The end of the Cold
War saw the decline of the Soviet Union and, therefore, the end to bi-polarity-
which was replaced by a unipolar system. i.e. America was able to take
advantage and assert it's position as a global hegemon. However, following the
9/11 attacks and the 'war on terror' that followed arguments that the US is declining as a hegemon began to surface. I don't know what Bush thought would
happen when he attempted to wage war on an abstract noun but there you
go.
The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq did see early success, e.g. the overthrow of the Taliban
and Saddam's Ba'athist regime- however the US soon found itself fighting
asymmetrical wars. The change in the nature of warfare to guerrilla warfare
exposed the limits of the US military power in that it wasn't prepared to fight
the tactics of terrorism and suicide bombing. Additionally, the 'war on terror'
exposed a range of tactical and strategic flaws rooted in the US approach, for
example failing to deploy a sufficient number of troops in Iraq.
Perhaps the biggest
blow the 'war on terror' inflicted on US hegemony is to it's 'soft power'. In a
world where military power is
becoming increasingly redundant due to unwinnable wars 'soft power', i.e
diplomacy and influence, is fast becoming an important requirement for a global
hegemon.
America's
moral authority has certainly been damaged since the problematic reasoning behind invading Iraq has come to light. This damage was then further reinforced by the torture
of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the Guantanamo detention camp. In turn US diplomatic influence has been weakened, the pressure it is able to exert on
countries is limited for example countries such as China and Russia seem immune
to US diplomacy- you only have to look the recent bombing campaign in
Syria.
Some
economists such Joseph E. Stiglitz would argue that the failings of the
Iraq war highlight the fact that the US can't solve any problem, even with all
its economic power. Furthermore, the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan under the 'war on terror' showed how the US's
military power has become in many ways redundant. While the US can certainly
achieve destruction, it doesn't always achieve its political gains. It was the
difficulties in fighting these wars that forced the Bush administration to
adopt a more multilateral approach to the 'war of terror'.
If America continues
this path of multilateralism and 'smart-power' (Joseph Nye) as opposed to 'hard
power' then perhaps it will maintain its position on the international
stage. Following Bush, President Obama has certainly adopted a more cooperative
tone, for example acknowledging in 2009 that "no system of government can
or should be imposed upon one nation by another". Personally I would argue
this shift in approach is merely style rather than substance, after all Obama
has recently put troops on the ground in Syria, breaking his earlier
promise.
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