America's conundrums: hyperpower humbled
By 2008 America's role in the world was at a crossroads. The explosion of scepticism and outright hatred that the Iraqi War and the subsequent occupation had wrought around the globe was worrying American foreign policy analysts.
The United States had, some charged in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, become a ‘rogue superpower'. Indeed, from 2003 to 2007 global opinion polls showed a steady erosion of goodwill for America around the world. Transatlantic relations were in crisis as many of its key NATO allies opposed the invasion and expressed their consternation over the subsequent occupation in no uncertain terms. Elsewhere, from South America to Africa and Asia, the Bush administration was condemned by popular opinion as well. Highly publicized disclosures of unsavoury American activity, such as the pictures and stories documenting the use of torture in the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, played a substantial role in causing America to lose its ability to persuade other countries and peoples by using so-called ‘soft power'.The Americans themselves were apparently the last people to wake up to the realization that their country was perceived by many in the outside world as the twenty-first century's ‘evil empire'. Abroad, the resounding victory of George W. Bush in the 2004 US presidential election only further inflamed the critics of Amerian foreign policy. The Democratic candidate, John Kerry, had, after all, made improving America's global standing an important part of his campaign. His defeat seemingly confirmed the continuation of the unilateralist policy of the incumbent president.
In the next few years, however, it became clear that the loss of friends and allies was neither as complete as many argued nor as completely ignored by the Bush administration as most assumed. Some key countries, most significantly Britain, remained steadfast in their support of the United States.
Germany and France, perhaps the fiercest critics of the Iraq invasion, began to reconcile with the United States after new leaders assumed power (Angela Merkel in 2005 and Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007). As the news from Iraq continued to be bad, the heads of the most prominent supporters of the invasion and the ‘war on terror' (save the president and the vice-president, Dick Cheney) began to roll. Most significantly, after the November 2006 mid-term Congressional elections in which the president's Republican Party suffered a major defeat, Bush ousted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Even before that, however, the administration had started rebuilding relations with European and Asian countries. The president also became a late convert to such multilateral issues as climate change; by September 2007 he was publicly making speeches about the need for a ‘new approach' to tackle the global problem which he had, in earlier days, castigated as mere speculation. Bush's ‘new diplomacy' is, however, unlikely to win many friends; that task will be left to his successor.The troubles for America and its role in the world were, however, deeper than Iraq and the ‘war on terror'. For the world of 2008 is far different from that predicted in 1991 when pundits talked of a post-Cold War world dominated by a lone American superpower. Terrorism and the American inability to rein in opposition in Iraq and Afghanistan were symptoms of the relative impotence of traditional forms of military power. Meanwhile the defiance of North Korea and Iran was a reminder of the relative impotence of diplomacy and economic sanctions in the modern world and the ability of countries, even small ones, to maintain their independent course even in a globalized world.
Challenges to American dominance of international relations were also emerging from other large nation-states. For example, the United States retained a substantial lead in its military capacities over its closest competitors, but such countries as China and Russia were rapidly moving towards modernization.
The former, buoyed by decades of uninterrupted economic growth, was planning its first manned mission to the moon. The latter, encouraged by new-found prosperity based on significant profits from its ample reserves of energy sources (oil and natural gas), was planning an overhaul of its badly demoralized post-Cold War military forces. Neither country saw a world dominated by America as necessarily in its interest. In 2008 some analysts even saw worrying signs of a renewed cold war between the United States and Russia, or between the United States and China. In the end, the United States may well withstand any challenges to its dominant global role. However, as Americans geared up for the 2008 presidential campaign, the combination of uneven globalization and a ‘war on terror' that ultimately lacked clear-cut front lines was eroding the ‘unprecedented strength and influence' upon which the so-called Bush Doctrine had been based.