The World Without Us

In the current issue of Democracy, Charles Kupchan and Adam Mount, say we should abandon the quasi-utopian dreams on both the right and left for a Western dominated world order and instead begin accommodating ourselves to a world of greater political diversity.

Instead, the United States should take the lead in constructing a more pluralist international order. Were Washington to orchestrate the arrival of this next order, it would not denigrate the accomplishments of democracy, but rather demonstrate an abiding confidence in the values the West holds dear and in the ability of liberal forms of government to outperform and ultimately prevail against authoritarian alternatives. Cultivating new stakeholders, carefully devolving international responsibility to regional actors, and placing the international economy on a more stable footing will also allow the United States the respite needed to focus on rebuilding the foundations of its own prosperity.

The United States will be better off if it gets ahead of the curve and helps craft a new order that is sustainable than if it fights a losing battle against tectonic shifts in global politics. As Kissinger observes, "America needs to learn to discipline itself into a strategy of gradualism that seeks greatness in the accumulation of the attainable."

I suspect Kupchan and Mount are correct about the overall contours of the international system in 20-30 years, but I don't think we're going to arrive there by dint of any coherent strategy on behalf of the U.S. Just as containment was cobbled together across a diverse array of bureaucrats and politicians with conflicting visions, America's "post hegemony" phase will mostly consist of ad-hoc adjustments to new realities.

Photo via Stephen Moore under Creative Commons license.