Getting Hegemony Right.

• Author: Ikenberry, G. John
• Position: Analysis of the United States as a "hyperpower" nation

IN MAY 1999 the Oxford Union debated the proposition, "Resolved, the United States is a rogue state." The resolution was ultimately defeated, but around the world there is growing unease about a global order dominated by American power--power unprecedented, unrestrained and unpredictable. The unease is felt even by America's closest allies. "The United States of America today predominates on the economic level, the monetary level, on the technological level, and in the cultural area in the broadest sense of the word", French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine observed in a speech in Paris in early 1999. "It is not comparable, in terms of power and influence, to anything known in modern history." European diplomats, following Vedrine's coining of the term, have begun calling the United States a "hyperpower." During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States kept each other in check. Today the restraints are less evident, and this has made American power increasingly controversial.

This is an unexpected turn of events. Just a little over a decade ago many pundits argued that the central problem of U.S. foreign policy was the graceful management of the country's decline. Paul Kennedy's famous book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, argued that the United States would go the way of all great powers--down. Japan was on the rise and Europe was awakening. World politics after the Cold War, it was widely assumed, was to be profoundly multipolar.

But the distribution of world power took a dramatic turn in America's favor. The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, the decline in ideological rivalry, lagging economic fortunes in Japan and continental Europe, growing disparities in military and technological expenditure, and America's booming economy all intensified power disparities during the 1990s. Today it is not decline that the United States must manage but the fear, resentment and instabilities created by a decade of rising American power.

A global backlash to U.S. power is not inevitable, however, particularly if the United States remembers its own political history. Our leaders have the ideas, means and political institutions that can allow for stable and cooperative order even in the midst of sharp and shifting asymmetries of power. The United States faced this problem after World War II and solved it by building what might be called a "stakeholder" hegemony. America can do it again today.

The Dangers of Success

THE UNITED STATES has a hegemony problem for a simple reason: It started the decade of the 1990s as the world's only superpower and then proceeded to have a better decade than any other power. Disparities in economic and military power between the United States and the other major states widened. Between 1990 and 1998, U.S. economic growth (27 percent) was almost twice that of the European Union (15 percent) and three times that of Japan (9 percent). [1] The weakness of the euro since its launch is ultimately a result of these divergent European and U.S. economic trends. While Europe and Japan have struggled with economic restructuring, America has ridden the wave of the "New Economy" and rising productivity. The United States also reduced defense spending at a slower rate after the Cold War than the other major powers, resulting in greater relative military capabilities by the end of the 1990s. In fact, it has come close in recent years to monopolizing military-related research and development, spending roug hly 80 percent of the world's total. [2] These developments have resulted in an extremely lopsided distribution of world power. The U.S. economy has slowed in recent months, but the disparities in wealth creation remain.

While such brute material disparities might normally be hidden below the surface, recent developments have rendered them salient and provocative. The U.S.-led NATO air campaign over Kosovo in 1999 provided at times dramatic--and, to countries such as China and Russia, disturbing--evidence of America's military and technological advantage. The squabble between the United States and Germany over the leadership of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also gave the impression that America had acquired a taste for dominance. Washington similarly bullied Japan during the East Asian financial crisis, opposing Tokyo's plan for an Asian Monetary Fund and insisting on American-approved remedies. Bipartisan support for a national missile defense, despite the opposition of the other major states and its potentially unsettling consequences for world security relationships, is another source of resentment and suspicion. In the meantime, the expansion and integration of world markets--unfolding under the banner of globali zation--are seen by many as a Washington-directed phenomenon that spreads American values and disproportionately favors American interests. For these and many other reasons, it is widely believed around the world today that the global distribution of power is dangerously out of balance.

Realist thinkers argue that what is happening is not surprising. Balance of power theory makes a clear prediction: Weaker states will resist and balance against the predominant state. According to realists, security--indeed survival--is the fundamental goal of states, and, because states cannot ultimately rely on the commitments or guarantees of other states to ensure their security, they will be very sensitive to their relative power position. When powerful states emerge, secondary states will seek protection in countrevailing coalitions of weaker states. The alternative is to risk domination. [3] A leading scholar of balance of power theory, Kenneth Waltz, argues that with the end of the Cold War, relations between the United States and its allies will loosen and move toward a more traditional balance of power model. With...