Who's Afraid of Mr. Big?

• Author: Joffe, Josef
• Position: Global relations with the United States

THE PUZZLE persists: Why is the world not "ganging up" against the "last remaining superpower"? Why has history not claimed its due a dozen years after the end of the Cold War, the twentieth century's last and longest dominant conflict? For history (and theory) asserts that the international system abhors imbalances, that great power will spawn counter-power. At this point, the United States is the mightiest nation on earth. Its reach spans the globe. Its economy dwarfs the next-largest, Japan, by a factor of two and a half; its defense outlays exceed those of the next five-biggest spenders combined. Nor is it just a matter of "hard power." America's "soft power", to invoke Joseph S. Nye's term, looms even larger than its economic and military assets. U.S. culture, low-brow or high, radiates outward with an intensity last seen in the days of the Roman Empire--but with a novel twist. Rome's and Soviet Russia's cultural sway stopped exactly at their military borders. America's soft power, though, rules over an empire on which the sun never sets.

Yet history (still) refuses to kick in against Number 1. The Soviet Union's demise in 1989-91 has not produced the expected outcome. There is no "reversal of alliances" as after World War II, when the United States inducted defeated Germany and Japan into its anti-Soviet coalition. Nor has America's Cold War coalition crumpled, as history would have suggested. The alliance against Revolutionary France was essentially dead by 1822, seven years after Waterloo. The anti-German alliance of World War I began to unravel in Rapallo in 1922, three years after Versailles. But twelve years after the Soviet capitulation in the Cold War, there is not even a trace of real, that is, military, balancing against the United States. No armed coalitions, formal or informal, are being organized by former friends or foes.

So much for the puzzle. One way of cracking it is to frame the issue in different terms. Just because there is no explicit counter-aggregation of military power does not mean that there is no balancing at all. Hence we might distinguish between three different types of balancing: psycho-cultural, politico-diplomatic and military-strategic--a distinction to which classical balance of power theory has paid no attention. No, there is (as yet) no strategic balancing against Number 1, but on the two other levels a different picture emerges. To elucidate its nature, this article will focus on the Atlantic relationship within the global post-bipolar context. The gist of the story is this: psycho-cultural balancing--high; politico-diplomatic--medium; military-strategic--low. Why is this so, and what are the implications for America's grand strategy?

Balancing Against the Barbarians:

The Contest of Cultures

A RECENT Newsweek essay was titled "Europe: The Un-America." The author, Michael Elliott, makes short shrift of a common transatlantic civilization. To set the stage, he quotes columnist Polly Toynbee from the British Guardian:

The two [American party] conventions [in 2000] displayed all that is most repugnant and alien in a political system corrupted beyond recognition. . . . God's chosen people, uniquely blessed, nurture a self-image almost as deranged in its profound self-delusion as the old Soviet Union. [1]

The thrust of such a critique is directed not at what America does, but at what America is. As depicted mainly, but no longer exclusively, in the liberal media (officials are far more circumspect), the United States is what Europe is not, nor wants to be. Hence, Europe as the "Un-America." The indictment, to caricature it with maximal authorial license, is threefold:

America is morally retrograde. It executes its own people, which Europe does not, and it likes to bomb others, which Europe does only when dragged along by the United States. It is the land of intolerant, fundamentalist religion, while Europe is charting a path toward enlightened secularism. The United States is a nation that will not submit to the dictates of global goodness; hence it will not respect climate conventions, nor will it ratify the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the land mine ban. Internationally, it is "Dirty Harry" and "Globocop" rolled into one--an irresponsible and arrogant citizen of the global community.

America is socially retrograde. It is the land of "predatory capitalism" (in the words of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt) that denies critical social services, like health insurance, to those who need it most. Instead of bettering the lot of the poor and unskilled, it shunts millions of them, mainly dark-skinned minorities, off into prison. Europe, on the other hand, metes out rehabilitation, not retribution. America accepts, nay, admires gross income inequalities, whereas Europe cherishes redistribution in the name of social justice. The United States lets its state school system rot, not to speak of the public infrastructure.

America is culturally retrograde. It gorges itself on fatty fast food, wallows in tawdry mass entertainment, starves the arts and prays only to one God, which is Mammon. Instead of subsidizing the good and the high-minded, as do the Europeans, the United States ruthlessly sacrifices the best of culture to pap and pop. Its great universities (for the rich and well connected only) conceal vast illiteracy and ignorance of the world. In matters sexual, America is both prurient and prudish, a far cry from the wiser ways of Europe.

America, in short, gets it both coming and going. It is puritanical and self-indulgent, philistine and elitist, sanctimonious and crassly materialist. It is a society where Europe's finest values--solidarity and community, taste and manners--are ground down by rampant individualism. It is the "Un-Europe."

This is, to repeat, a polemical exaggeration, bereft of all cross- and countercurrents. But whatever the caricatures fidelity, there is a deeper problem with such an indictment. Europe--indeed, most of the world--also wants what America is. Nobody has ever used a gun to drive Frenchmen into one of their 780 McDonalds. No force need be applied to make Europeans buy clothes or watch films "Made in USA." Germans take to "Denglish" as if it were their native tongue. So might the French to "Franglais" if their authorities did not impose fines on local DJs when they do not call a "hit parade" a "parade de frappe", as it were.

In fact, European governments must resort to the force of law to stop their citizens from imbibing all things American. This is where "cultural balancing" takes on an operative coloration. In 1993 the French coaxed the European Union to insert into its commercial treaties a "cultural exception" clause exempting cultural products, high or low, from normal free-trade rules. Other European nations impose informal quotas. The purpose is a balance of power policy of sorts. It is to contain American cultural clout--to erect trade walls instead of real turrets and battlements. The enemy is not America the Conqueror--not the "Imperial Republic"--but America the Beguiling.

But why the bad-mouthing of America if it is so alluring? This is where a related type of balancing comes in; let us call it "psychological." Shall we ask Professor Freud to explain? He would mumble about "reaction formation" and "projection" a bout feelings of deficiency and dependence breeding assertions of moral-cultural superiority...