The World's Resentment.

• Author: Rodman, Peter W.
• Position: Anti-Americanism

Anti-Americanism as a Global Phenomenon

CHARLES Krauthammer was one of the first to speak of the "unipolar moment"-the extraordinary global predominance that the United States suddenly acquired when Soviet power collapsed. He wrote in 1990, when the USSR still existed. But Krauthammer chose the word "moment" wisely. He did not doubt that in this instance, as so often before in history, predominance would give rise to challenge, and that therefore its duration could not be predicted.

He did not have long to wait. Well before that decade was out, challenges began to appear. The unipolar moment that Americans so enjoy is not, it seems, so universally celebrated elsewhere. Most of the world's other major powers--even our friends--have made it a central theme of their foreign policies to build counterweights to American power. In fact, their efforts in this direction constitute one of the main trends in international politics today.

Americans seem strangely oblivious to this. One reason, perhaps, is the traditional Wilsonian bent of American thinking about foreign policy: an America that sees itself as leading and acting in the name of universal moral principles has a tendency to assume that its leadership is welcomed and endorsed by everyone else. Such an America is genuinely puzzled by the idea that its assertiveness in the name of universal principles may sometimes be construed by others as a form of unilateralism. Yet unilateralism is precisely one of the charges being levied by many against the Clinton administration--and, again, this includes some of our friends. Our assertiveness--in any cause--is today perceived by others as an exercise of our predominant power.

The fact is that the rest of the world is reacting to American power in a thoroughly classical, un-Wilsonian, balance of power fashion, according to which it is not motives and intentions that are decisive but comparative power. The Russians and Chinese have, for the past five years, made it a centerpiece of their foreign policies--and of their increasingly close collaboration--to restore what they call "multipolarity" to the international system. Our Western European friends, in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993, committed themselves to a stronger European Union not only in the economic field but also in foreign and security policy; the Kosovo war of 1999, instead of vindicating NATO and American leadership, as it was seen to do in the eyes of the administration, had the effect of accelerating efforts to build a new all-European defense organization. Other powers in the world are reacting similarly to American predominance.

Another manifestation of this phenomenon is widespread sentiment that the United Nations Security Council ought to be the principal arbiter of international security, as was envisioned in the UN Charter. Many feel especially strongly that military interventions are not generally legitimate unless carried Out under a UN mandate. (We heard a lot about this during the Kosovo crisis.) One of the main motives for this attempted elevation of the Security Council is to restrain American power.

How widespread and determined is this global reaction, and how seriously should the United States take it? Is it just rhetorical emoting, among countries that know full well they still need American leadership, or does it portend the kind of counter-coalition that has often in history cut a hegemon down to size? How much of it is structural--the natural response of others to a single power's predominance--and how much of it is the result of specific American conduct in the recent period? What policy lessons should the United States draw from the evidence, assuming it enjoys its pre-eminent position and would like to prolong it?

The Sino-Russian Mantra

IT IS NOT hard to accumulate evidence for the proposition that much of the rest of the world sees American predominance as a problem, rather than a blessing. The mantra for this point of view is "multipolarity"--the explicit rejection of the idea that the world ought to be, or remain for long, unipolar.

The Russians and Chinese were the first to develop this theme. This is ironic, perhaps, in that the Clinton administration for a long time congratulated itself for its "strategic partnerships" with both countries. A "strategic alliance with Russian reform" was how President Clinton characterized his policy toward Boris Yeltsin's Russia in an April 1, 1993 speech. He could visualize, or so it seemed, a natural affinity between a progressive American administration and a reformist Russian leadership. Similarly, a "constructive strategic partnership" was often said to be the aim of American policy toward China.

Yet, if there has been any consistent theme in Russian foreign policy in the post-Cold War period, it is Russia's categorical rejection of American leadership. In September 1996, then-Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov told the UN General Assembly that one of the basic conditions for achieving a durable peace was

the emancipation from the mentality of 'those who lead' and 'those who are led.' Such a mentality draws on illusions that some countries emerged as winners from the Cold War, while others lost it. But this is not the case. Peoples on both sides of the Iron Curtain jointly got rid of the policy of confrontation. Meanwhile the mentality ... directly paves the way for a tendency to establish a unipolar world. Such a world order is unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of the international community.

Boris Yeltsin likewise hailed the trend toward multipolarity that he professed to see gaining ground in the world. "This trend in universal development has been formulated by Russia", he boasted in a speech on May 12, 1998. "Most countries have agreed with it." And since, as Yeltsin insisted, attempts were...