The popular myth of multipolarity
One could endlessly chronicle each tragic error and blunder committed by this U.S. administration since the President assumed office. The willful sabotage of the U.S.-centric global trade system, the threats and insults directed at valuable allies, partners, and fellow democracies, the shortsighted cuts to desperately needed foreign aid, and the careless lack of an aggressive strategy to actually ensure Ukraine’s victory against Russia are but a few of the most reckless acts of commission or omission that have characterized the modus operandi of this administration.
Nevertheless, the President has, in many ways, confirmed a crucial point of analysis: the primacy of the United States in the world is largely undiminished despite repeated policy mistakes and the reassertion of an adversarial entente made up of Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.
Much has been made of the supposed decline of the United States and the purported end of the so-called unipolar moment in world history. It is, however, usually prudent to be skeptical of irrationally inflated declinism. Every generation since the foundation of the Republic has felt the need to lament the miserable state of affairs, ever distrustful of the next generation to follow, and habitually eager to predict inevitable decline.
No human creation lasts forever, and neither will the unipolar world order that emerged after the defeat of the USSR and the implosion of international communism following the Cold War. However, the predictions of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Unipolarity never meant infinite or boundless power for the one geopolitical pole that remained. Neither did it present the U.S. with the guarantee that all of its endeavors would invariably succeed. What it meant was unrivaled U.S. global dominance combined with unmatched freedom of action. Most of all, it denoted the absence of conquered, adversarial spheres of influence. If no other anti-American state is willing or physically capable of absorbing its neighbors, then they are in no position to form a distinct geopolitical pole.
Many nations have conquered spheres of influence before: the Soviet Union during the Cold War in Eastern Europe, Napoleonic France in Western and Central Europe, Nazi Germany all over Europe, and Japan in East Asia, to name but a few historical cases.
Today, Russia is in the process of re-creating its former sphere of influence—and failing. Not only has Ukraine not been absorbed, but over the last three years, Russia has had to retreat from sizeable swathes of occupied territory in Ukraine. It has also become vulnerable to both a prolonged territorial incursion and occupation within its Belgorod and Kursk Oblasts, while the entire country is now exposed to drone, missile, and artillery attacks from Ukraine. Those are not the bearings of a great power but of a blundering middle power. And while Russia’s political and security influence is fading in Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the transatlantic alliance has pressed its advantage. The U.S. is now strategically invested in a transport corridor between Azerbaijan and its exclave, Nakhichevan. Even at the height of the unipolar moment in the 1990s, Russia remained the most influential external actor in the South Caucasus. That time has now passed.
China hasn’t even been trying to build a sphere of influence in any classical sense. Today, countries in East Asia are free to choose their own economic model, political system, and geopolitical alignment. When the East Germans in 1953, the Hungarians in 1956, or the Czechs in 1968 were trying to leave their command economies, one-party totalitarianism, and the Warsaw Pact behind them, they were invaded by the Soviet Union. If Cambodians want to reassess their friendly relations with the People’s Republic of China or if the people of Thailand were to push back against the military junta to democratize their country, the Chinese will monitor the situation, express their concerns, further escalate restrictions at home, and make sure their economic investments are secure. Yet, they’re in no position to significantly challenge these fundamental shifts even within their periphery.
The predicament of East Asia can clarify the often misunderstood meaning of benevolent hegemony. It’s not the ability to force everyone in a specific region to follow your every wish. It’s the power to preserve a regional order that’s largely aligned with your nation’s interests and strategic preferences. In other words, the U.S. wants an East Asia in which friendly countries cannot be seriously attacked or even incorporated by adversarial ones. As long as the U.S. is capable of preserving the current status quo in East Asia, it’s the benevolent hegemon and thus the only geostrategic pole in the region. However, if China is allowed to roam free and incorporate whatever territory it covets or coerce other countries to align their political system or foreign policy orientation with Beijing, just as Imperial Japan successfully did beginning in the 1890s, the regional order in East Asia will remain unipolar. Having said that, this doesn’t apply to the economic sphere, where multipolarity is an undeniable fact.
Nowhere has American primacy been reasserted as decisively as in the Middle East over the last year. As Charles Krauthammer said, decline is a choice, and so is taking advantage of your dominance or hegemony over a region. If a state doesn’t regularly mow the lawn in an unstable region, its influence declines. In the absence of proactive measures to roll back the serial aggressions of a regional disruptor, unipolarity becomes practically invisible. But once a hegemon, with muscular support from its allies, pushes back, the actual geopolitical hierarchies are once again revealed. In other words, U.S. dominance over the Middle East never truly vanished, but the post-Iraq syndrome, just like the post-Vietnam syndrome before it, clouded the strategic judgment of successive U.S. administrations that tried to voluntarily surrender the American position in the Middle East. Today, the Iranian nuclear program lies in ruins, the Iranian regime is crumbling, the Assad regime has fallen, and Lebanon has effectively been turned into a U.S.-Israeli condominium with U.S. diplomats serving as de facto proconsuls who are overseeing the Lebanese effort to disarm and disband the remaining vestiges of Hezbollah and separate Palestinian terror outfits on Lebanese territory. Syria has turned from an adversary to yet another quasi-protectorate, with the U.S. and Israel holding all the cards and provisional President Ahmad Sharaa acting as a relatively weak custodian.
In Gaza, the U.S. has already spearheaded a parallel humanitarian relief effort through the GHF, engineered the diplomatic process to force Hamas to surrender, and committed itself to contributing to an International Security Force to oversee the dismantling of Hamas. The U.S. is now the geopolitical supervisor of last resort in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Iran. In the case of the latter, by designing and enforcing the UNSC snapback sanctions regime, monitoring any nuclear activities, and by overshadowing Tehran with the constant possibility of reactivating the joint U.S.-Israeli use of force whenever a renewed threat is about to materialize somewhere inside Iran.
When Iran fired missiles at Israel, Israel penetrated Iranian airspace and dismantled its air defenses. When Russia attacked Ukraine by land, air, and sea, Russia’s territory was invaded, its refineries and military installations (including its strategic bomber fleet) have come under relentless and devastating attack, and its Black Sea fleet turned into a moot point.
When the U.S., however, killed a leading Iranian military commander, neutralized the Iranian nuclear program, intercepted incoming projectiles from Iran directed at Israel, launched a prolonged air campaign against Houthi military targets, and struck several Venezuelan vessels in Venezuelan waters, what happened? Precious little. All those enemies were forced to respond impotently, which is a testament to the unipolar balance of power in the world. When rivals attack the liberal world order, the U.S. and its allies can respond with extreme prejudice. If the U.S., on the other hand, proactively shapes the regional order through the appropriate use of force, it is insulated from any significant, conventional, adversarial reaction.
Nevertheless, the President has, in many ways, confirmed a crucial point of analysis: the primacy of the United States in the world is largely undiminished despite repeated policy mistakes and the reassertion of an adversarial entente made up of Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.
Much has been made of the supposed decline of the United States and the purported end of the so-called unipolar moment in world history. It is, however, usually prudent to be skeptical of irrationally inflated declinism. Every generation since the foundation of the Republic has felt the need to lament the miserable state of affairs, ever distrustful of the next generation to follow, and habitually eager to predict inevitable decline.
No human creation lasts forever, and neither will the unipolar world order that emerged after the defeat of the USSR and the implosion of international communism following the Cold War. However, the predictions of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Unipolarity never meant infinite or boundless power for the one geopolitical pole that remained. Neither did it present the U.S. with the guarantee that all of its endeavors would invariably succeed. What it meant was unrivaled U.S. global dominance combined with unmatched freedom of action. Most of all, it denoted the absence of conquered, adversarial spheres of influence. If no other anti-American state is willing or physically capable of absorbing its neighbors, then they are in no position to form a distinct geopolitical pole.
Many nations have conquered spheres of influence before: the Soviet Union during the Cold War in Eastern Europe, Napoleonic France in Western and Central Europe, Nazi Germany all over Europe, and Japan in East Asia, to name but a few historical cases.
Today, Russia is in the process of re-creating its former sphere of influence—and failing. Not only has Ukraine not been absorbed, but over the last three years, Russia has had to retreat from sizeable swathes of occupied territory in Ukraine. It has also become vulnerable to both a prolonged territorial incursion and occupation within its Belgorod and Kursk Oblasts, while the entire country is now exposed to drone, missile, and artillery attacks from Ukraine. Those are not the bearings of a great power but of a blundering middle power. And while Russia’s political and security influence is fading in Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the transatlantic alliance has pressed its advantage. The U.S. is now strategically invested in a transport corridor between Azerbaijan and its exclave, Nakhichevan. Even at the height of the unipolar moment in the 1990s, Russia remained the most influential external actor in the South Caucasus. That time has now passed.
China hasn’t even been trying to build a sphere of influence in any classical sense. Today, countries in East Asia are free to choose their own economic model, political system, and geopolitical alignment. When the East Germans in 1953, the Hungarians in 1956, or the Czechs in 1968 were trying to leave their command economies, one-party totalitarianism, and the Warsaw Pact behind them, they were invaded by the Soviet Union. If Cambodians want to reassess their friendly relations with the People’s Republic of China or if the people of Thailand were to push back against the military junta to democratize their country, the Chinese will monitor the situation, express their concerns, further escalate restrictions at home, and make sure their economic investments are secure. Yet, they’re in no position to significantly challenge these fundamental shifts even within their periphery.
The predicament of East Asia can clarify the often misunderstood meaning of benevolent hegemony. It’s not the ability to force everyone in a specific region to follow your every wish. It’s the power to preserve a regional order that’s largely aligned with your nation’s interests and strategic preferences. In other words, the U.S. wants an East Asia in which friendly countries cannot be seriously attacked or even incorporated by adversarial ones. As long as the U.S. is capable of preserving the current status quo in East Asia, it’s the benevolent hegemon and thus the only geostrategic pole in the region. However, if China is allowed to roam free and incorporate whatever territory it covets or coerce other countries to align their political system or foreign policy orientation with Beijing, just as Imperial Japan successfully did beginning in the 1890s, the regional order in East Asia will remain unipolar. Having said that, this doesn’t apply to the economic sphere, where multipolarity is an undeniable fact.
Nowhere has American primacy been reasserted as decisively as in the Middle East over the last year. As Charles Krauthammer said, decline is a choice, and so is taking advantage of your dominance or hegemony over a region. If a state doesn’t regularly mow the lawn in an unstable region, its influence declines. In the absence of proactive measures to roll back the serial aggressions of a regional disruptor, unipolarity becomes practically invisible. But once a hegemon, with muscular support from its allies, pushes back, the actual geopolitical hierarchies are once again revealed. In other words, U.S. dominance over the Middle East never truly vanished, but the post-Iraq syndrome, just like the post-Vietnam syndrome before it, clouded the strategic judgment of successive U.S. administrations that tried to voluntarily surrender the American position in the Middle East. Today, the Iranian nuclear program lies in ruins, the Iranian regime is crumbling, the Assad regime has fallen, and Lebanon has effectively been turned into a U.S.-Israeli condominium with U.S. diplomats serving as de facto proconsuls who are overseeing the Lebanese effort to disarm and disband the remaining vestiges of Hezbollah and separate Palestinian terror outfits on Lebanese territory. Syria has turned from an adversary to yet another quasi-protectorate, with the U.S. and Israel holding all the cards and provisional President Ahmad Sharaa acting as a relatively weak custodian.
In Gaza, the U.S. has already spearheaded a parallel humanitarian relief effort through the GHF, engineered the diplomatic process to force Hamas to surrender, and committed itself to contributing to an International Security Force to oversee the dismantling of Hamas. The U.S. is now the geopolitical supervisor of last resort in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Iran. In the case of the latter, by designing and enforcing the UNSC snapback sanctions regime, monitoring any nuclear activities, and by overshadowing Tehran with the constant possibility of reactivating the joint U.S.-Israeli use of force whenever a renewed threat is about to materialize somewhere inside Iran.
When Iran fired missiles at Israel, Israel penetrated Iranian airspace and dismantled its air defenses. When Russia attacked Ukraine by land, air, and sea, Russia’s territory was invaded, its refineries and military installations (including its strategic bomber fleet) have come under relentless and devastating attack, and its Black Sea fleet turned into a moot point.
When the U.S., however, killed a leading Iranian military commander, neutralized the Iranian nuclear program, intercepted incoming projectiles from Iran directed at Israel, launched a prolonged air campaign against Houthi military targets, and struck several Venezuelan vessels in Venezuelan waters, what happened? Precious little. All those enemies were forced to respond impotently, which is a testament to the unipolar balance of power in the world. When rivals attack the liberal world order, the U.S. and its allies can respond with extreme prejudice. If the U.S., on the other hand, proactively shapes the regional order through the appropriate use of force, it is insulated from any significant, conventional, adversarial reaction.
