TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: STRATEGICALLY A SECOND AMERICAN CENTURY WITH CAVEATS

[ In the emerging multi-polar global power structure of the 21^st Century, only three countries from Asia figure, namely, China, Japan and India.  With China as the revisionist power intent on challenging the United States only Japan and India figure as potential counter-weights to China and thereby be of assistance to the United States. 

Israel is the only American foothold in West Asia and Eastern Mediterranean.  It has valiantly fought off onslaughts from the nations of the Islamic world. The United States should therefore desist from pressurizing Israel to compromise on its security imperatives without corresponding concessions from the other side.] 

By Dr. Subhash Kapila 

Introductory Observations 

Strategically, the 20^th Century was decidedly an American Century. United States strategic, military, political and economic predominance was global and undisputed.  In the bi-polar global power structure comprising the United States and the Former Soviet Union it was the United States which globally prevailed.  The 20^th Century’s dawn was marked by the First World War which marked the decline of the old European colonial powers, noticeably Great Britain.  The Second World War marked the total eclipse of Great Britain and other colonial powers.  The United States replaced Great Britain as the new global superpower.  The 20^th Century’s end witnessed the end of the Cold War, with the disintegration of the Former Soviet Union as the United States strategic challenger and counter-vailing power.  On the verge of the new millennium the United States strode the globe like a colossus as the sole global super power. 

With a decade of the 21^st Century having gone past, many strategic and political analysts the world over have toyed with projections that United States global predominance is on the decline, and that the 21^st Century will not be a second American Century.  Having toyed, with such projections, these analysts however shy away from predicting whose century the 21^st Century will strategically be? 

The trouble with such projections is that they are based predominantly on analyses of economic trends and financial strengths and less on detailed analyses of strategic and military strengths, and more significantly strategic cultures. 

Presumably, it is easier for such analysts to base trends on much quoted statistical data.  Strategic analysis of global predominance trends is a more complex task in the opinion of the Author, as it cannot be based on statistical data analysis. Global predominance trends need unravelling of strategic cultures of contending powers, the reading of national intentions and resolve and the inherent national strengths and willpower demonstrated over a considerable time  span of half-centuries and centuries. 

Crisply put, one needs to remember that in the 1980’s, Japan and Germany as ‘economic superpowers” could not emerge as global superpowers. Hence global predominance calls for more than economic strengths.

The United States getting strategically bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of the 21^st Century has not led to any noticeable decline in American global predominance. Despite Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States reigns supreme globally even in East Asia where China could have logically challenged it.

More significantly, and normally forgotten, is the fact that the off-quoted shift of global and economic power from the West to East was facilitated by United States massive financial direct investments in China, Japan, South Korea and India. 

China quoted as the next superpower to rival the United States would be economically prostate, should the United States surgically disconnect China's economic and financial linkages to the United States. More significantly, while examining the prospects of the 21^st Century as a “Second American Century” it must be remembered that besides other factors, that out of the six multipolar contenders for global power, none except China have shown any indications to whittle down US global predominance.  Even China seems to be comfortable with US power as long as it keeps Japan in check. 

This Paper makes bold to assert that the 21^st Century would be a Second American Century despite China’s challenge and the strategic distractions arising from the global Islamic flash-points.  The United States with its resilient strengths can configure the 21^st Century into a Second American Century, but with some caveats.  This paper intends to focus on some of the significant caveats as follows: 

• United States Must End its China Appeasement and Ambiguous Policies onChina
• United States Needs to Dispense With Islamic World Appeasement Policies
• United States Needs to Dispense NATO/Atlantic Alliance as Sheet Anchors of its Global Strategy
• United States Asia Embedment Strategy Needs to be Overwhelmingly Based on Israel, India and Japan
• Other Strategic Caveats for United States

United States Must End its China Appeasement and Ambiguous Policies on China 

This is a recurrent theme in this Author’s papers.  It has been recently touched and examined in significant detail in my last two papers on the US-China strategic dialogue and the noticeable downslide in US-China relations.  Hence there is no intention to repeat those details.  This theme is being re-emphasized for the following reasons: (1) United States cannot adopt dichotomous approaches to China, one of China appeasement for itself and the other of China-containment by Asian countries (2) United States own strategic blue-print gets distorted in the process and so also its operational planning and force structures.  At the height of the earlier Cold War with the Former Soviet Union, the United States drew ‘red lines” for China not to cross.  China transgressions were resolutely met by the United States in the Korean Peninsula and in Vietnam.  While both wars may have ended in stalemates, but the stalemates were in favour of the United States and did not lead to any diminishment of the global strategic predominance of the United States.  With a Second Cold War in the offing, this time with China itself, the United States needs to delineate stronger “red-lines’ for China.  United States resoluteness so displayed could induce the “fence-sitters” on the US-China issue to rally around the United States. 

United States Needs to Dispense With Islamic World Appeasement Policies 

In the 21^st Century the so called traditional Islamic allies of the United States and others have exhibited the following trends:

• More reminiscent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 bombings in Mainland America in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania gave the indication that in the 21^st Century, the Islamic World is at war with America.
• Pakistan predominantly and directly, and Saudi Arabia indirectly facilitated 9/11.
• In its wake US strategic distractions in Iraq and Afghanistan were a consequence.
• In its wake, US traditional allies in the Middle East like, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia etc have gravitated towards Russia strategically
• A plethora of Islamist terrorist organizations stretching from the East Mediterranean to the Pacific are targeting USA and those friendly to it.  Most of the Muslim nations where they have sprouted use such terrorist organizations/armed militias as instruments of state policy.

United States strategic distractions in the Islamic world and its appeasement policies therein have led to two significant adverse strategic consequences for USA, namely: 

• USA can be strategically paralyzed by asymmetric warfare of Islamist organizations.
• United States strategic distractions in the Islamic World has led to a strategic vacuum in South East and East Asia, facilitating China to move-in.

The United States should leave alone the Islamic World to its own devices and dynamics.  There are enough regional and sectarian conflicts within the Islamic World to keep them busy. The major problem is that when it comes to the United States, despite American munificence endowed on them, they invoke anti-Americanism in the guise of pan-Islamic issues like Palestine and Kashmir, to divert attention from their own political misgovernance. 

United States Needs to Dispense NATO/Atlantic Alliance as Sheet Anchors of its Global Strategy 

NATO/Atlantic Alliance were necessary strategic assets for US global predominance during the 20^th Century in the two World Wars and the Cold War with Russia.  In the 21^st Century in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have amply highlighted that the NATO/Atlantic Alliance countries gave grudging assistance and that too under coaxing and coercion.  In the 21^st Century, where a Second Cold War is in the offing and where China will challenge the United States in the Asia Pacific, the United States can write off these strategic assets.  They may continue as political assets but not as military alliance assets.  The United States in the alternative has to re-craft and re-configure its global strategic architecture in the Asia Pacific minus NATO/Atlantic Alliance.

United States Asia Embedment Strategy Needs to be Overwhelmingly Based on Israel, India and Japan 

In the vast Asian expanse from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Pacific, there are only three nations which stand out in terms of potential to assist the successful embedment of the United States in Asia.  These are Israel, India and Japan. 

In the emerging multi-polar global power structure of the 21^st Century, only three countries from Asia figure, namely, China, Japan and India.  With China as the revisionist power intent on challenging the United States only Japan and India figure as potential counter-weights to China and thereby be of assistance to the United States. 

Israel is the only American foothold in West Asia and Eastern Mediterranean.  It has valiantly fought off onslaughts from the nations of the Islamic world. The United States should therefore desist from pressurizing Israel to compromise on its security imperatives without corresponding concessions from the other side. 

Paradoxically, United States policy formulations so far and more currently, have shabbily treated Israel, India and Japan on whose potential shoulders rests the future of United States Asia embedment. 

Israel is being coerced by USA to be accommodative to Palestinian concerns at the expense of its fragile security, not out of any urges to enhance Israeli security but to improve American prestige amongst the Arab countries and Islamic World.  Similarly, the United States has persistently pressurized India to be accommodative to Pakistan Army’s insecurities and compromise on Kashmir and other disputes.  All this unmindful of Pakistan's persistent proxy war and terrorism against India where Islamic Jihad has been primarily used as the motive force. Japan as a staunch ally of the United States for the last 50 years is always sidelined by United States appeasement pushes towards China and tolerating North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. 

While Israel and Japan may tag along as US allies of long standing, the United States would need to re-calibrate its South Asia policies if it wishes to enlist India as a strategic partner. 

It is strategically odd that Israel, India and Japan which have never been at odds with the United States or strategically double-timed it; the United States should reserve its special attention for China, Pakistan and such like countries.  All this would have to change. 

Other Strategic Caveats for United States 

Ones that come instantly to mind are: (1) USA must not allow its war commitment issues to be politicized due to domestic political considerations (2) US military strategic planning also needs to focus in increasing the manpower strength of its ground forces (3) Constant grilling of military commanders in Congressional hearings inhibits US strategic military audacity and operational flexibility in the field (4) US military successes cannot be reduced to measurement by statistics but by meaningful results which can only emerge after time is given for their military materialization.

Lastly the US Government has to sensitize US citizens that maintaining US global predominance, which in turn assures its citizens “The American Way of Life”, does not come cheap. Power does not come cheap and the United States has to be ready to pay that price to safeguard its 'Manifest Destiny'

Concluding Observations 

The 20^th Century was an American Century because the United States had the will to use power and pay the price for ensuring United States global predominance.  The 21^st Century has belied the expectations of those who forecasted sequentially that it would be a Japanese Century, then a Chinese Century and more lately an Asian Century. 

The 21^st Century despite more complex challenges to US power than the 20^th Century can still be an “American Century” in all its connotations.  If doubts arise it is because US policy formulations themselves create ambiguities in global capitals.

 Of all the multipolar power centers likely to emerge in the 21^st Century, China is the only one which can become a prime threat to the United States.  The United States would have to accept and live with this reality and cannot wish it away by policies of appeasement.  In the 21^st Century an American Century cannot emerge on the shoulders of NATO, China or the Islamic World.  A Second American Century in the 21^st Century can be built by the United States on the shoulders of Israel, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.  United States policies need to be re-formulated in this direction.  The 21^st Century is in the grasp of the United States as an “American Century” provided the United States itself does not falter from its resolve to provide strong global leadership and a resolve to pay the price.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.  He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group.  Email:drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com) 

Source: South Asia Analysis Group, Noida,  India