Multilateralism
vs.Unilateralism
Cooperation
vs. Hegemony
in Transatlantic
Relations
Policy Paper 16
Franz Nuscheler
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
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I.
Contra the put-up-or-shut-up argument
of anti-Americanism
A German political scientist (Harald Müller, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt), in the Friedensgutachten 2000
[Peace Report 2000], opens his recent criticism of US
unilateralism with a provocative claim: “The world has a
problem: the problem is the USA.” He then seeks to
counter any suspicion of anti-Americanism with the
rhetorical question whether the country under fire was not
the “most benevolent hegemon of the modern age”. He
himself, though, is not guilty of what seems typical of the
squeamish attitude of European, and particularly German, politicians and intellectuals toward the American
superpower, to the extent that they are not adherents of the
left or the nationalist right, with their tendency to render
hegemony brusquely as imperialism. The term hegemony
means superiority or supremacy; imperialism, in everydayparlance, an aggressive and interventionist political
stance.
This cautiousness encountered in Germany is wholly
different from the frank and self-assured attitude of
American intellectuals toward the role of the US in world
politics, including intellectuals who cannot be numbered
among the camp of notorious critics of imperialism. Thus
was that, in an article in the renowned journal Foreign
Affairs (March/April 1999), Harvard political scientist
Samuel P. Huntington, much in demand in Washington as
an advisor on security-policy issues, had no qualms at
questioning the assessment of the United States, both at
home and abroad, as a “benevolent hegemon”. He also
shows understanding for the criticism, widespread in the
rest of the world, of the claim to world-political hegemony raised by the “unipolar superpower”, as the matter
had previously been summed up by former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997). As evidence of
his doubt as to the “benevolent hegemon”, he points to
a number of manifestations of a hegemonic policy that
occasionally resorts to brash power politics in having its
way with the rest of the world; in doing so he uses hard
words that here in Germany would come in for criticism
as anti-Americanism.
Reasons for the dissonance
in the transatlantic relations
in the view of a member of
the American Enterprise Institute
“The US has experienced an unparalleled gain of
strength, influence, and dynamics in a crucial moment
of its history—and at the same time so unskillfully
handled its power and authority in the world that it has
lost some of its credibility with its closest allies, with
whom it intended to build a new world order. We
unabashedly vaunt the excellence of the American
economy (heedless of the failed G7 summit in Denver
of the summer of 1997). We preach that Turkey must
become a member of the EU—an organization to
which we do not belong. We berate protectionism (and
practice it ourselves). And we again and again seek to
keep our European friends in line—be it in the election
of the IMF chief or the NATO intervention in Kosovo.
The price that our hubris costs us is a high one.”
Policy Paper 16 “Multilateralism vs. Unilateralism”: Contents
I. Contra the put-up-or-shut-up argument
of anti-Americanism
II. From the "assertive multilateralism"
to hegemonic unilateralism
III. America’s fist:
manifestations of hegemony
IV. From the “only”to the “lonely”superpower
V. Risks and counterproductive effects
of unilateralism
VI. Is the reason why America is so strong
that Europe is so weak?
VII. Plea for a culture of multilateral cooperation
Literature
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
Even critics from institutions usually associated with
the Republican right concede that even toward its allies
the US acts out its unilateralism in a manner marked
less by partnership than the arrogance of power. Jeffrey
Gedmin of the American Enterprise Institute, for instance, cited, in an article published in the Süddeutsche
Zeitung (Oct. 16, 2000), a number of reasons why the US
has become the main source of the growing dissonance in
the transatlantic relationship (see box on p. 2). He too
speaks of hubris and unabashed self-adulation.
This is only one of many self-critical reflections of
American intellectuals on their own country's foreign policy, for others one need only think of the harsh criticism
voiced by the well-known Japan expert Chalmers Johnson (2000), who berates the United States for its imperial
policies and its use of practically any means in attempting
to preserve its empire. He does not even shrink from using
the vogue polemical term “rogue state”. Still, pointing,
among other things, to this short-sighted and imprudent
power politics, with its inevitable tendency to set counterforces in motion, he predicts that the “American century”
will soon be at an end.
II.
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And what does the domestic American discourse
teach us? Why should not Europeans, without foregone
compliance, without fear of being thought anti-American,
criticize what American intellectuals point a critical finger at without the least fear of fouling their own nest? Are
the Germans in particular obliged, out of thankfulness for
the protection granted in the Cold War, to suppress any
criticism of their “big brother”?
Recommendation:
The accusation of anti-Americanism is a put-up-orshut-up argument designed to obstruct open dialogue.
It is not only among free-floating intellectuals that
such dialogue must be possible, it is also a sine qua non
for the political elites on this side and the other side of
the Atlantic. There is no other way to constructively
work through existing and impending dissonances in
transatlantic relations, which are already being viewed
by some as an explosive conflict scenario shadowing
forth at the beginning of the 21st century.
From the “assertive multilateralism”
to hegemonic unilateralism
After the Second World War United States world politics
aimed at building a world-embracing multilateral institutional structure and placing international relations on a
juridified footing—knowing full well that integration in
international institutions and rule systems would restrict
its own freedom to act, but also reckoning that a multilateralism based on international cooperation would
better serve its own interests than a hegemonic unilateralism. The US was one of the architects of the UN system
and, under the world-political conditions of the Cold War,
it put its trust for decades in multilateral approaches to
problem-solving based on international treaties. The
“new world order” proclaimed by former president
George Bush was also envisaged as building on a culture
of multilateral cooperation.
US allies in both the “OECD world” and NATO accepted and even called for an American leadership which
held out the promise of security and would not be exercised in an imperialistic manner. It was in this way that the
US also attained its good reputation as the “first non-imperialist superpower,” albeit not everywhere in the world.
While the US indulged in a gentle hegemony toward its
partners in G7 and NATO, the style of the politics it
engaged in toward Latin America wholly deserves to be
referred to as imperial. Here the imperialist ‘big stick’ is
not only a historic reminiscence of a long record of interventionism.
The shifts in world politics following the collapse of
the Soviet Union led the United States to fundamentally
alter the course of its foreign policy. The US had emerged
from the Cold War as the only remaining superpower—in
Zbigniew Brzezinski's opinion, the “first and only” and
probably last superpower in the history of the world. For
this kind of hypertrophied power the historian Ben J.
Wattenberg (1991) coined the term “hyperpower”. This is
the pinnacle of the superlatives of power.
President Clinton, who had taken office avowing adherence to an “assertive multilateralism”, in 1993/94—
also under pressure from the Republican majority in Congress and an “America-first”-chauvinism staged by conservative groups and bearing the stamp of a religious
sense of missionary zeal—performed a strategic aboutface, presenting, in terms even blunter than usual, a new
hegemonic unipolarity. While running for president he
had spoken of a different priority: the unfolding of the inward strength of a great democracy. The message of Presidential Decision Directive 25, which, responding to demands made by then UN Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali in his 1992 Agenda for Peace, ruled out
any deployment of US troops under UN command, can be
freely rendered as follows: As much unilateralism as possible, as much multilateralism as absolutely essential to
protect American interests. The idea of a multilateral
“new world order” became an idee fixe.
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Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
Although polls have repeatedly indicated that the
great majority of the American population, in any case
little interested in foreign affairs, is for a division of
power and cooperation with other countries, there have
always been conservative groups that see in multilateralism a drag on the primacy of the national interest, at the
same time claiming for the US a quasi-religious ‘manifest
destiny’ to lead the world. Influential senators like Jesse
Helms, congressmen like Tom DeLay (Republican floor
leader), populist fringe rightists like Pat Buchanan, and
weighty think tanks like the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute
propagate positions branding any relinquishment of sovereignty to the United Nations and other international
organizations as betrayal of the national interest and seeking to prevent any further integration of the United States
in international rule systems. The tactic is to bash the UN
system, using justified calls for reform as weapons.
At a conference organized by the American Enterprise Institute in April 2000, the concept of Global Governance, which envisions “divided sovereignties” in a culture of international cooperation, was denounced as an
assault on American independence. Just on time for the
elections set for November 7, 2000, Stanford Professor
Condoleezza Rice (2000) member of the National Security
Council under President George Bush and designated National Security Advisor under George W. Bush, formu-
lated a resolute No to the interests of an “illusory international community”.
This speech in defense of the primacy of the national
interest was seen as the foreign-policy plank of the Republican election platform; it called on the one hand for
increased defense spending, demanding on the other a
withdrawal from multilateral peace missions: in other
words, a Yes to a military-based policy of strength and a
No to any peace policy based on the proposals of the
Agenda for Peace. As long as the superpower refuses,
there can be no functioning cooperative world order of
peace (see Debiel 2000). The United Nations is to be prevented from fulfilling the purpose for which it was
founded.
It is highly doubtful whether the new president,
George W. Bush, weakened by a contested election decision, will deal any more benignly with the world organization. Indeed, he might instead be tempted to use a
rhetoric of outward strength to mask this domestic weakness. American foreign policy tends to react more sharply
to domestic moods and developments than to events and
discussions in the world at large, which are not even of
much interest to members of the US Congress. The “first
universal nation” (Ben Wattenberg) is decidedly introverted, more parochial than truly universalistic in outlook.
III. America’s fist: manifestations of hegemony
It is in the recommendations of the 1996 Commission on
America's National Interests, with its call for decisionmakers to prevent the rise of any rival hegemonic power
in Europe and Asia, that Egon Bahr (1998), a close confidant of Willy Brandt’s, sees the first signs of a “return of
power politics”. But these signs were already taking on
shape in the first years of the Clinton Administration and
found expression in the whole of its foreign and security
policy:
❚ The American superpower defines itself above all in
terms of its military superiority and worldwide intervention capacity. It has initiated huge new arms programs, at the same time evading its obligations on arms
control and disarmament by terminating or reinterpreting international agreements. It has risked violating the
ABM Treaty and ignored all international protests over
the development of a National Missile Defense system
which threatens to bring on a new arms race. It has delayed implementation of the agreement on chemical
weapons. The US Congress refused to ratify the ban on
nuclear testing (CTBT), while at the same time US
diplomacy was pressuring other countries to join the
treaty. This is no way to prevent the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and discipline the “new
weapons states”.
❚ The Clinton Administration has promoted arms exports, while at the same time reducing the funds available for foreign aid to the lowest levels ever recorded,
even though budget surpluses have continued to grow.
All evidence indicating that weapons are powerless
against the causes of crisis and conflict was unable to
prevent this dismantling of development policy. The
military definition of power led to a situation in Washington in which the priority of crisis prevention proposed by the Agenda for Peace has come in for more
scorn than approval. For a policy of strength, Johan
Galtung's maxim of “creating peace with peaceful
means” is no option. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright justified the use of cruise missiles against Iraq
with the following arguments: “If we have to use force,
then because we are America. We are the indispensable
nation. We are great. We look further into the future.”
This link between greatness and military force is contrary to the ban on force set out in the UN Charter as
well as the hope that democratic countries will be less
prone to use force. Again and again the US puts one of
Immanuel Kant's well-known doctrines to the test.
❚ Government and Congress of the United States have
constantly criticized the UN system's inability to act,
while at the same time weakening it by refusing or de-
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
laying payment of its dues. As in the cases of Iraq
(1998) and Kosovo, the US government has ignored the
UN Security Council's monopoly on the authorization
of the use of military force, in this way damaging one of
the pillars of the international law. It prevented the reelection of a UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros
Ghali, who was the desired candidate of a majority of
UN members, and dictated who was to be his successor
(Kofi Annan). The United Nations cannot be better than
the US permits it to be. The incessant attacks on the UN
system have been instrumental in the success of the
foolish call for “the UN out of the US, the US out of the
UN”, paving its way to a defiant albeit irrational popularity. Without the United States the United Nations
would be doomed even more to failure than the League
of Nations was without the United States.
❚ The Clinton Administration has sought to prevent the
adoption of important international rules: for instance,
the convention banning antipersonnel mines or, for fear
that US servicemen somewhere in the world might be
affected, the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is set to punish crimes against
humanity throughout the world. Late in 2000, President
Clinton signed the ICC Charter, it is true, but prominent
Republicans in the new Congress lost no time announcing that it would not be ratified. The world power that
sees itself as a champion of human rights has failed to
ratify a number of human rights conventions, exposing
itself to the reproach of untrustworthiness and
hypocrisy.
❚ While the US worked for the establishment of the
World Trade Organization (WTO), assuming that the
organization would serve the interest of its world economic leadership, it bowed to the pressure of powerful
interest groups, blocking the progress in global environmental policy that Vice-President Al Gore had been
calling for. The world's biggest energy waster, the
United States, is impervious to all evidence on both the
causes of the impending climate catastrophe and the insight that the American way of life is simply ecologically unsustainable. And so it is that again and again the
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maxim “America first” must come into conflict with
global imperatives.
❚ The US has attempted to instrumentalize international
organizations, in particular the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, to achieve its economic-policy and other interests. Nor has it gone out of
the way of a test of strength with its allies, as in the case
of the appointment of a new general director for the
IMF. The US could afford to risk this test of strength
because it could be relatively sure of disunity within the
EU, especially as regards its own “special relationship”
with the United Kingdom. Summa summarum: “The
big brother” has not always proved to be a “benevolent
hegemon”.
“From the law of the seas to the Kyoto Protocol, from
the biodiversity convention, from the extraterritorial
application of the trade embargo against Cuba or Iran,
from the brusk calls for reform of the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund to the International
Criminal Court: American unilateralism appears as an
omnipresent syndrome pervading world politics.”
(Source: Harald Müller in: Friedensgutachten 2000, p.47)
When the political scientists Karl Kaiser and HansPeter Schwarz termed the new century the “century of international organizations and regimes”, they did so in the
expectation of a world-political boom in multilateralism.
In fact, however, what we are experiencing is a crisis of
multilateralism, a phenomenon due above all to US unilateralism. The bad example has found imitators: after all,
why should the declining great power Russia and the rising great powers China and India do things differently? In
many places we are experiencing a renationalization of
foreign policy. The result is manifest in the weakening of
the UN system, which was in fact supposed to constitute
the backbone of a multilateral “new world order”.
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Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
IV. From the “only”to the “lonely”superpower
Zbigniew Brzezinski explained the position of the “first
and only real” superpower with reference to “four crucial
domains of global power”: worldwide military presence,
economic and technological leadership (which makes
military superiority possible), and cultural hegemony,
manifest in the attractiveness of the image of the “American way of life” propagated by US media corporations.
It is true that the United States is the only military
power capable of operating on a really global scale; that
globally there is not much doing without it; that it—to cite
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright once again—
has become the “indispensable nation” without which not
a single world problem can be resolved. The hegemon is
the architect-in-chief of the world political order. The US
is at the same time the leading world economic power,
and experienced an unparalleled economic boom in the
1990s. The US dollar remained the key international currency, the New York Stock Exchange the world's leading
stock market. IMF and World Bank have not only their
headquarters but also their main shareholder in Washington. So there seem to be good reasons to assume that the
international system has made a quantitative leap from
bipolarity to unipolarity, taking on the structure of a hege-
Horizontal Self-Coordination
Hegemonic World Order
monic world order, as the diagram below illustrates. Multilateralism, on the other hand, would rest on a horizontal
self-coordination of the international system.
It is an important question whether the dominance of a
single superpower is conducive to the maintenance of
stability in world politics, as the theory of hegemonic stability suggests. In the foreword to Brzezinski’s book,
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former German Foreign
Minister, with diplomatic nonchalance, sets a counterpoint: A future world order could, he writes, meet the
criteria of durability and justice only if it is based on “a
community of peoples living together on equal terms as
well as on the equal and global cooperation of the regions
of the world”.
This plea for equality and global cooperation is
wholly alien to Brzezinski's thought, which can be seen as
representative of a so-called “realistic” school in political
science and politics. Brzezinski instead proposes that
American political leadership groups should pursue the
aim, “without reservation”, of preserving “America’s
dominant position for at least a generation, if not longer”
and only then to accede to a “functioning structure of
worldwide cooperation”. In other words: the US should
sustain, and enjoy, its hegemony as long as it possibly can.
Power games of this sort cannot claim to be politically
prudent because they are not future-oriented and plainly
and simply provoke the formation of a power operating in
an opposite direction. The contrast program in foreign
policy that Huntington, in a sober risk assessment of unilateral superpower ambitions, has opposed to the Rambo
programs of a Brzezinski, Jesse Helms, or Pat Buchanan
was more unambiguous than Genscher’s modest admonition.
Huntington starts out by casting doubt on the power
constellation of unipolarity: “There is now only one superpower. But that does not mean that the world is unipolar. A unipolar system would have one superpower, no
significant major powers, and many minor powers.” But
there are a number of such “significant major powers”,
which, apart from the members of the G8 group, include,
more and more audibly, China, India, and Brazil. He
terms the present stage of transition from a bipolar to a
multipolar system following a brief “unipolar moment” in
the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union as “uni-multipolar”. This assessment, one with which all great powers could identify more or less uncomplainingly, was later
even adopted by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The conclusions that Huntington draws from his
analysis of the current constellation of world power are
instructive. He sees the present push of political decisionmakers and their staffs of (academic) advisors for a
“global unilateralism” as counterproductive to their own
interests. The superpower inimical to cooperation, he
notes, runs the risk of becoming a “lonely superpower”,
which would as such have more to lose than to gain. He, in
other words, sees through the trick of world history, ana-
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
lyzed by Paul Kennedy in sweeping strokes, that sees arrogant imperial posturing as invariably entailing the mobilization of counterforces. His central thesis and antithesis on unilateralism à la Condoleezza Rice or Zbigniew
Brzezinski is: the “only superpower” now—and not only
decades hence—needs international cooperation if it is
not to grow lonely and isolated. The present policy paper
subscribes to his recommendations for action:
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for a “assertive multilateralism” which constituted the
strategic guideline prior to the turning point experienced
by foreign policy in 1993/94. This is borne out by a 1995
basic policy article by Warren Christopher, the Clinton
Administration's first secretary of state; its central propositions are documented in the box below. Similar calls for
international cooperation and renunciation of superpower
posturing can be found in many editorials and academic
publications.
Recommendations:
■ The US should stop talking and acting as if it were a
unipolar superpower: “It is not.” It should take leave
of the illusion of being a “benevolent hegemon”
whose interests and values are in accord with those
of the rest of the world: “It is not.” It should instead
use its position as the only superpower to win the
cooperation of other countries in solving global
problems.
■ Cooperation with Europe and in particular with
Germany is of strategic importance: “Healthy cooperation with Europe is the prime antidote to the
loneliness of American superpowerdom.”
This plea for a self-imposed moderation on the part of
the superpower as well as for its integration in international cooperation structures is largely in line with pleas
“Lately it has become fashionable to argue that we
should simply go it alone. That view is naive: It limits
our flexibility, weakens our influence, and harms our
interests. That would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament against some of the world’s most pressing
threats. Many of our most important objectives cannot
be achieved without the cooperation of others. We did
not win the Cold War by facing down the Soviet Union
alone. We will not win the global fight against proliferation, terrorism, crime, or threats to the environment
without cooperation from friends and allies. At this
time of great opportunity, we cannot build a more secure and prosperous world by ourselves. The debate
between proponents of unilateral and multilateral action assumes a false choice.”
(Warren Christopher in: Foreign Policy, vol.98/1995, p.9)
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V.
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
Risks and counterproductive
effects of unilateralism
A Brzezinski-style plea for a ‘superpower politics’ ignores or overlooks some counterproductive effects that
are mitigated only by the fact that the international community is closer to a tolerably “functioning structure of
worldwide cooperation” than Brzezinski was willing to
perceive, the US being, if need be, prepared to accept
multilateralism—though only if need be, and then at
terms defined by the US.
First, the “Pax Americana” is a shaky peace order,
more wish and claim than actual potential. The superpower is incapable of keeping or making peace throughout the world. Many global conflicts cannot be solved by
military action. Peacekeeping too must be organized on a
multilateral basis, because the militarily overpowerful
hegemon is neither able nor—the debacle of Somalia still
in mind—willing to intervene wherever anarchy threatens
to prevail. On the contrary: the hegemon is less and less
willing to play the role of the world policeman whenever
the interests at stake are not its own vital interests. Such
world regions of lesser interest include, above all, Subsaharan Africa.
Second, the talk of the “unipolar superpower” fuels
anti-Americanism throughout the better part of the world
and cannot fail to provoke resistance. An imprudent display of superiority just about inevitably leads to the formation of antihegemonic alliances. The NATO allies are
also reluctant to accept a hegemon that calls for obedience. Russia and China are resisting its claim to world
leadership, and are already forging an alliance. Nor were
threats of sanctions enough to prevent India and Pakistan
from conducting their nuclear weapons tests. “Asianism”,
which is not without its prophets in Japan as well, bears
anti-Western and in particular anti-American undertones.
Third, hegemony runs counter to cooperation, above
all when the hegemon seeks to use the existing power differentials to achieve its interests and increase its own advantages at the expense of the “mutual benefit”. While it
can afford not to give in and not to have to learn, since it is
less vulnerable than its outpowered negotiating partners,
this inability to learn harbors the seeds of the end of its superiority, as the history of the “rise and fall of empires”
(Paul Kennedy) teaches us.
Fourth, the US’s claim to world leadership means that
it must go on with high arms spending, and the funds
needed can be mobilized only at the expense of urgently
required social reforms and infrastructure investment.
Paul Kennedy's warning that the costs of securing power
overburden empires has not at all been rendered obsolete
by world history. Many observers already regard the
mighty USA as a “weakened giant” that will be unable to
use a policy of sheer power to hold its own in the long run.
Fifth, huge stockpiles of arms for use in securing
hegemonic power not only conjure up the possibility of an
arms race, this striving for global hegemony by means of
military omnipotence and omnipresence is also heading
back into a world-historical atavism. Ernst-Otto Czempiel (1966) situates thinking of this kind in a predemocratic epoch in that it is in no way compatible with the “outward self-projection of a developed democracy”. Even
worse: the thinking and the deeds of a world power that
sees itself as the “realm of light” inevitably influence the
thought and action patterns of rising great powers: This is
the master summoning spirits that he is unable to rein in
with the powers at his disposal.
Sixth, international law, the foundation of civilized international relations comes about not on the basis of hegemonic dictates but through consensus and persuasion.
The hegemon loses its claim to moral authority by refusing to abide by important international treaties. Only by
accepting the norms of a global rule of law can it demand
the same of “rogue states”. Claims to world political leadership rest not only on power but on authority and legitimacy as well.
Recommendation:
Unilateralism is blocking the development of a multilateral architecture of global governance. It is not only
detrimental to a culture of cooperation, it is also costly.
Cooperation and burden-sharing save political and
financial expenses. And global problems can no longer
be solved by a powerful hegemon. United States refusal to cooperate provokes other countries to refuse
their cooperation in dealing with problems that affect
the hegemon itself. Yet the willingness to cooperate is
given only when all negotiating partners can expect a
fair reconciliation of interests. It would therefore be in
the enlightened self-interest of the US to put more of
its trust in partnerly cooperation, in this way reducing
the resistance that any hegemonic claim to leadership
inevitably entails.
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
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VI. Is the reason why America is so strong
that Europe is so weak?
The US is a great Atlantic and Pacific power. Its trade with
the East Asian-Pacific APEC region is growing faster than
its trade with the EU. It is there, in the Pacific rim, that the
world-economic center of gravity and the “Pacific century” of the future are thought to lie, and the US is looking
for a piece of the action. But Europe will, for the time
being, remain a strategic focus of America’s foreign and
security policy and NATO, enlarged to the east on its insistence, will remain a mainstay of its geostrategy. Still,
the end of the Cold War, which saw western Europe—
with the exception of France—seeking shelter under an
American-dominated NATO, has altered transatlantic relations. They have become more complex and tensionladen now that the threat scenario of the Cold War has
evaporated.
Europe, organized in the EU, will no longer be satisfied with the lowly status of a protectorate that Brzezinski
has always seen for it, will no longer play the bit part assigned to it even recently in the Kosovo conflict, will no
longer be humiliated, as the world experienced in the
question of coming up with a successor for the director
general of the IMF. Now it is not only in Paris, the longtime home of a Gaullist aversion to the political and linguistic hegemony of the US, but in other capitals as well
that criticisms of America's occasional superpower affectations are growing louder, even if they are expressed discretely so as not in any case to risk being blamed for antiAmericanism and ingratitude for US protection during
the Cold War. This squeamishness alone points to a weakness in a transatlantic partnership based not on gratitude
but on common interests.
But the question is whether the reason why America is
to all-powerful is that Europe is so weak—and neither capable nor willing to enter the stage of world politics as a
global player. True, the EU has developed into a worldeconomic community with a common commercial policy
and a common currency, but the Euro is showing signs of
weakness while the dollar has gained strength against the
background of the booming economy. Because the project of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
was slow to develop, the EU was once again forced to
rely on the political leadership of the US and NATO’s
(i.e. America's) military potential in internal European
conflicts, viz. in the Balkans.
Henry Kissinger saw a role for the EU as a world
power only if it succeeded in deepening integration and
forging a functioning CFSP. A hegemon has no respect for
would-be big powers at loggerheads with each other. This
is the implacable logic of power politics, and it has little
time for historical claims to great-power status. The
strategists of America's foreign and security policy are
presently taking the challenge of the “Pacific century”
more seriously than competition with Europe because
they are as certain of America's leading role in NATO as
they are about the shuffling pace of the integration
process within the EU, encumbered as it is by its project
eastward enlargement.
But the wars in the Balkans did entail catalytic impacts in that they spelled out to the European combatants
the reality of their inability to make peace themselves on
their own periphery. Alternative peace concepts aimed at
strengthening Europe as a power for peace without any
military backbone have sustained some sensitive setbacks
in the Balkans. The European policy-makers responsible
for foreign and security policy have to realize that they are
also going to have to advance defense integration as well
if the EU is to become a partner in NATO and overcome
its role of a free rider given to constantly bewailing its
powerlessness. Only now have plans to create a “defense
identity” begun to mature; they aim at integrating EU and
WEU and, as resolved at the 1999 EU summit in Helsinki,
setting up a joint rapid-reaction force as a step toward
gaining greater autonomy in security matters.
“In the coming years the EU must thus bring about a
quantum leap that presupposes unified political will,
conceptual strength, and the ability to reform: the
Union must deal with the issue of enlargement, get on
with the projects of deepening integration and international reform in the direction of political union, without losing sight of the need to build its capacity to act
as a global player. If these three hurdles are not successfully taken, the EU will become an object of world
politics without influence on the dynamics of globalization that are set to decisively shape the 21st century.”
(Dirk Messner in: Friedensgutachten 2000, p.88)
Recommendation:
Europe must mobilize the will to become a “cooperative world power”, i.e. it must want what it was the
Commission on America’s National Interests intent to
prevent. Only by focusing its forces will it prove able
to become a serious factor in international affairs and
gain the ability to negotiate with the transatlantic superpower (nearly) eye to eye, deterring the latter from
attempting to go it alone in problems of global import.
The aim is not to built up a strategic rivalry, or indeed
to set in motion an arms race within NATO that its European members do not and cannot want for domestic
reasons, but to contain a hegemony that constitutes a
stress factor for NATO as well and places stumbling
blocks in the way of the development of cooperative
security structures.
u10
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
An EU expanded to the east has potential as a negotiating partner whose power does not rest primarily on military strength:
❚ The EU is already by far the greater trade power, and as
international relations are increasingly economized,
this power will prove weightier than entire armories.
Within a decade the EU will mature into the worlds
fastest-growing economic region, closing the gap on
America’s technological lead. The “American challenge” is again mobilizing—as it did in the case of the
successful development of a European aircraft industry—the forces of a Europe decried by some as decadent.
❚ The EU has built a worldwide policy based on cooperation and treaties which elevates it beyond the rank of
a regional power. It provides far more development aid
than the US—and does not do so for purely humanitarian reasons. Its policy towards Eastern Europe seeks
to export stability and to tie the Community of Independent States into a European security structure. The EU
is a center of stability in an unstable world and has a
record of considerable success in peace-keeping,
stabilization, and democratization in a central world region.
❚ One other reason why the EU is well equipped for cooperative multilateralism is that it can harness the experience gathered in four decades of intensifying cooperation among its member states. Despite a weak Euro
and halting progress in integration, the EU is a model
for other regional integration projects, a prototype for a
regulative pattern based on cooperation.
❚ The greater willingness of European countries to work
together with the United Nations in dealing with global
problems not only builds up their credit among the majority states from the developing world, it also paves the
way for them to launch promising initiatives in the face
of resistance from the US. This was the case with both
the establishment of the International Criminal Court
(ICC) and the disputes surrounding the proposed ban
on antipersonnel mines. In both cases the US government was faced with campaigns by human rights organizations at home. The “NGO International”, with its
transnational organization and internationalist orientation, is increasingly placing the superpower under pressure to justify its actions.
❚ So-called “Rhenish capitalism”, with its welfare-state
elements, may unfold less dynamism over the short
term than Anglo-Saxon “turbo-capitalism”, though in
the long term it is more attractive and holds more
promise of stability for other regions of the world.
❚ And, last but not least, Europe is in a position to profit
from the worldwide aversion generated by a hegemonic
style of politics. The arrogance of power creates respect
but no friends. Samuel Huntington is surely right: the
imprudent posturing of the superpower provokes antiAmericanism throughout the world. In its obsession
with power the Commission on America’s National Interests was blind to such counterproductive effects
❚ The EU is not only a large economic, social, and legal
space, it is also the historical and cultural space that
gave rise to Western civilization, and it is able to oppose
something of its own to the “cultural hegemony” of the
American way of life pushed throughout the world by
American media corporations. The “Americanization”
of consumption and day-to-day culture is advancing in
pace with globalization, though the term has lost none
of its pejorative smack.
It must be repeated: Europe will be able to translate
these potentials into a balanced and equal partnership
with the US only if it succeeds—and not in some distant
future—in making a quantum leap in the direction of political union. The compromises reached at the landmark
EU summit in Nice (December 2000) were not more than
a tottering step, the quantum leap is yet to come. Europe
united is an evolutionary project—which is to say that its
end is still open.
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
11o
VII. Plea for a culture of multilateral cooperation
Though the thinkers and doers of American foreign and
security policy are deaf to unsolicited advice from Europe, they would be well advised to listen to advice from
their own ranks, e.g. to Samuel Huntington’s warning that
by embracing the illusion of being a “unipolar superpower” the US is in danger of becoming a “lonely superpower” with few friends and many foes; or to the warning
of Richard Haass (1999), the director of the Brookings Institution, against America’s penchant for going it alone:
“The proper goal for American foreign policy, then, is to
encourage a multipolarity characterized by cooperation
and concert rather than competition and conflict.”
Unilateralism is, as illustrated by the about-face made
in the Clinton Administration's foreign policy in 1993/94,
an option determined by domestic considerations, not by
the inherent necessities encumbent on a great power (as
“realists” suggest). Return to a “assertive multilateralism” would not only improve the chances of global governance, i.e. of a cooperative approach to dealing with
global problems, it would also tend more to strengthen
than weaken America's global leadership. Superpower
politics à la Zbigniew Brzezinski or Jesse Helms, on the
other hand, is counterproductive even to the enlightened
self-interest of the US, as former Secretary of State Warren Christopher noted (see box on p. 7)
Cooperation with Europe is not only the “best antidote
to the American superpower’s loneliness”, as Samuel
Huntington noted, it would be the most effective antidote
to the bane of anti-Americanism. But first Europe will
have to organize in such a way as to ensure that its voice is
clearly heard in world politics. Indeed: one of the reasons
why America is so overpowerful is that Europe is so weak
and the “Pacific century” is emerging only in vague contours.
Recommendations:
■ A world tending toward multipolarity there is no
room for hegemonic unilateralism. Hegemonic notions of world order have no future in a polycentric
world. This is why the “only superpower” is going
to have to accede to a culture of cooperation, submitting to a legal order it has been instrumental in
formulating. Otherwise not only will the world
have a problem with the US, the US will have a
good number of problems with the rest of the world.
■ In a multipolar world that must come to terms with
many problems bearing on our common survival,
there is no reasonable alternative to global governance. A future world order can be durable only if it
is based on global cooperation of the regions of the
world. True, there will be no global governance
against the will of the US, but the US will be able to
play the constructive role of an architect-in-chief
only if it is prepared to return to a “assertive multilateralism”, practicing global leadership in this way.
Literature
Bahr, Egon (1998): Deutsche Interessen, München.
Johnson, Chalmers (2000): Blowback:The Cost of the American
Empire, New York.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1997):The Grand Chessboard, New York.
Christopher,Warren (1995): America’s Leadership,
America’s Opportunity, in: Foreign Policy, vol.98, pp 6-27.
Czempiel, Ernst-Otto (1996): Rückkehr in die Hegemonie,
in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 43/96, pp 25-33.
Debiel,Tobias (2000):Vereinte Nationen und Weltfriedensordnung, in: Franz Nuscheler (Hrsg.), Entwicklung und Frieden
im 21.Jahrhundert, Bonn, pp 446-467.
Haass, Richard N. (1999):What to Do With American Primacy,
in: Foreign Affairs, vol.78, No.5, pp 37-50.
Huntington, Samuel P. (1999):The Lonely Superpower,
in: Foreign Affairs, vol.78(2), pp 35-49.
Kaiser, Karl/Hans-Peter Schwarz (Hrsg.) (2000):Weltpolitik
im neuen Jahrhundert, Bonn.
Kennedy, Paul (1987):The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,
New York.
Layne, Christopher (1993):The Unipolar Illusion,
in: International Security, vol.17 (4), pp 5-51.
Messner, Dirk (2000): Die Europäische Union muß kooperative
Weltmacht werden, in: Friedensgutachten 2000, pp 86-98.
Müller, Harald (2000): Amerikanischer Unilateralismus:
Ein Weltordnungsproblem, in: Friedensgutachten 2000, pp 43-52.
Rice, Condoleezza (2000): Promoting the National Interest,
in: Foreign Affairs, vol.79(1),pp 45-63.
Policy Paper 16 of the Development and Peace Foundation
Author:
Professor Franz Nuscheler, Director of the Institute for Development and Peace
at the Gerhard Mercator University, Duisburg, and Deputy Chairman of the Development and Peace Foundation’s Executive Committee
Co-signatories:
Professor Egon Bahr, Former Federal Government Minister and Member of the
Development and Peace Foundation’s Board of Trustees
Professor Klaus Hänsch MEP, Former President of the European Parliament
Professor Harald Müller, Executive Director of the Peace Research Institute
Frankfurt
Professor Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker MP, Chairman of the German Parliament’s Commission of Enquiry on “Globalisation of the World Economy”, Former
Director of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, and
Member of the Development and Peace Foundation’s Board of Trustees
The Development and Peace Foundation was founded in 1986 as a non-profitmaking, cross-party organization. Its founding chairman was Willy Brandt. The
work of the Foundation is based on three principles—global responsibility, an interdisciplinary perspective, and cross-party dialogue—as vouched for by the leading figures who chair the Foundation’s various forums: Wolfgang Clement, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, chairs the Foundation’s Board of
Trustees; the Deputy Chairmen are Professor Kurt H. Biedenkopf, Minister-President of the Free State of Saxony, Eberhard Diepgen, Governing Mayor of Berlin,
and Dr Manfred Stolpe, Minister-President of Brandenburg. The Foundation’s Executive Committee is headed by Secretary of State Volker Kähne of the Berlin Senate Office, assisted by former Secretary of State Dr Klaus Dieter Leister and Professor Franz Nuscheler. The chairman of the Advisory Board is Professor Dieter
Senghaas. The Executive Director is Dr Burkhard Könitzer.
Published by:
Development and Peace
Foundation/
Stiftung Entwicklung
und Frieden (SEF)
Gotenstr. 152
D-53175 Bonn
Tel.: (+49-228) 9 59 25-0
Fax: (+49-228) 9 59 25-99
e-mail:
[email protected]
Website:
http://sef-bonn.org
Editor: Tobias Debiel,
Michèle Roth
The Policy Paper series publishes the views of noted experts on urgent issues in
world development. This is one of several ways in which the Development and
Peace Foundation seeks to participate actively in the political debate about global
issues, and to provide recommendations for political action. Policy Papers are occasional publications.
Selected Policy Paper titles
(Published both English and German unless otherwise stated. Current issue price
DM 5.00)
16 Multilateralism vs. Unilateralism. Cooperation vs. Hegemony in Transatlantic
Relations. By Franz Nuscheler, January 2001
15 Conflict Transformation. How International Assistance Can Contribute. By
Mary B. Anderson and Angelika Spelten, December 2000 (only in English)
14 The World Conferences and German Politics. A Contribution to Global Governance? By Brigitte Hamm and Thomas Fues, November 2000
13 Towards a Paradigm of Embedded Financial Liberalization. Interlocking the
Wheels of Private and Public Finance. By Inge Kaul, December 1999 (only in
English)
ISSN 1437-2819
12 Effective Crisis Prevention. Challenges for German Foreign and Development
Policy, Tobias Debiel, Martina Fischer, Volker Matthies, Norbert Ropers, June
1999
© Stiftung Entwicklung
und Frieden
January 2001
11 Media Competence in the Age of Global Communication. In Search of a Political Framework for the European Information Society, Bernd-Peter Lange,
March 1999
Translation: Paul Knowlton
The views presented are not necessarily those of the publisher.