Towards a post-American world?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you all for joining us this afternoon, this morning for those of you, including our panellist Jonathan Kirshner, in America it’s very early, it’s a tough time in our world, and I have to say I feel very honoured to be chairing a panel of such distinguished thought leaders, intellectuals, Professors, Journalists, scholars, think tank leaders, all three of you have done all of these things. And I’m also especially glad that we had this planned long before I believe, Russia invaded Ukraine, but certainly to have this moment, to come to a really big question, but at a critical moment in our history, I think is really tremendous. I’m Leslie Vinjamuri. I direct the US and Americas Programme here at Chatham House. I’m sure I know most of you, I hope, and if not, I hope I will see you in-person soon, alongside these ongoing discussions.

Today we’re on the record, and the title of our panel Toward a Post-American World”, again, centring again, I should say, around our first speaker. I’m going to give really brief introductions, partly because we have so much to discuss, partly because their CVs are so long and distinguished. But our first speaker, Professor Mick Cox, who’s you know, humbly listed on the introductory slide, as an Associate Fellow on the US and Americas Programme, of course I think this is the most important part. But Mick Cox also founded the US project here at Chatham House, which has since become the US Programme. He founded LSE ideas and directed it for many years, and is Professor Emeritus there, and has written many, many books, on the US, and on global politics, and today we’ve come together in part because of his new book Agonies of Empire: American Power from Clinton to Biden, that looks at five US Presidents and their role in global affairs and transition.

We are also, and I’m very grateful that we’re joined by Bronwen Maddox, well known to many of you, as a Director of the Institute for Government. Bronwen was also a member of our Council here at Chatham House, for six years, so has lead and contributed to our work at the institute, over a very long period of time. She was previously, in an earlier life, Editor of Prospect, US Editor of The Times, Chief Foreign Commentator. And during her time as Chief Foreign Commentator, in 2008, she wrote a book on America, called In Defence of America”, and I mention it because it’s so relevant to today’s conversation.

And, then, Jonathan Kirshner, Professor Jonathan Kirshner, who is a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Boston College, has spent much of his career at Cornell, as Distinguished Scholar of Political Economy, has a book coming out very soon, on the United States, of which Jonathan, The Downfall of the American Order?, with Peter Katzenstein. But I have to say, if you really want to feel the power of Jonathan’s words, I would point you to an essay that he wrote in 2017, shortly before the inauguration of Donald Trump, it brought, frankly, me to tears, and many of my friends and colleagues called America America.

Even saying it, I sort of have to hold my breath, ‘cause the words are so powerful, but it was published in the Los Angeles Review of Books and really, if there’s anything of Jonathan’s that you take time to read, I suggest you read that. So to the exam question, towards a post-American order, we know the stories and the recent stories of internal division and change of January 6th, a polarisation of the radicalisation of the Republican Party. We know the longer stories about the changing nature of US engagement globally. But Mick, can you start us off by telling us, you know, especially at this moment in history, of what consequence? And of course, you know, when we say “Towards a post-American order,” we are taking something for granted, which is that the world was an American world before, but setting that aside, if we can start off with you, and again, thank you for doing this today. Mick, you’re muted.

Professor Michael Cox

Good start. Sorry about that, I did the awful thing of not unmuting. Anyway, first of all, thanks to Chatham House, thanks to Jonathan, thanks to Bronwen, I’ll be brief, I hope to the point, and I hope controversial. The term “Post-American world,” is an interesting one, I’ll use it as a synonym with the word ‘decline’, which often comes into the debate, or the rise and fall of great powers, whichever way you want to do it. And the first big point I want to make is this.

That if you look back as far as I can look back, and I’ve been around a long time looking back and looking forward, the term “Post-American world” or the notion that the world is becoming less American, less dominated by America, less shaped by American policies, in some way or another, that debate has been around for 50 years. It is – there’s nothing new under the sun, in this debate, and I went back and just went through a series of books and articles, written from the 60s onwards. The 1960s was a period when we were told, after Vietnam and all the problems associated with that, the United States could no longer do in the world what it used to be able to do. The 1970s, according to Ronald Reagan, was an era of drift and decline.

There’s a New York Times headline in 1979, “It’s time to stop American retreat.” Ronald Reagan said, “After a decade of retreat, we’re going to rebuild American power.” And in 1987, my good friend and colleague, now at Yale, called Kennedy, wrote a bestselling book, called, guess what, “The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.” Now it is certainly true that for the next 20 years, in the so-called era of unipolarity, that debate went away. But a little bit like the undead, it rose again. Having mistakes thrust through its heart several times over, the debate about a post-American world, a declining American power, the inability of America to shape choices either for itself, arose again. It followed the 2008 crisis, there were other factors that came into it, the Iraq war, no doubt the rise of China, you know the story, you know the factors that went into making this scenario.

By the way, in 2008, Fareed Zakaria, I’m sure most of know, you know, wrote a book called “The Post American World.” Now, Fareed did not say this was the same as decline, but I kind of took that as a little bit of a playing with words really, it added up in a sense, to my mind at least. So we’ve been around with this debate, not just since Fareed Zakaria, but actually not – since Paul Kennedy in 87, but a long time back. And even looking back through a series of new books, I’m sorry be so academic on this, but it’s worth – I mean, 2018, the former Director of Chatham House, no less, my good friend Victor Bulmer-Thomas, “The American Empire in Retreat: The Past, Present, and Future of the United States,” that was Victor.

2019, a book by George Packer, “Our Man,” Richard Holbrooke, and “The End of the American Century.” And then Andrew Bacevich, a wonderful Writer too, I think, on the United States, and for many years, in 2020, “The Age of Illusions: How American Squandered its Cold War Victory.” So, I suppose what I’m really trying to point to, there’s nothing new about this debate, which actually does alert us to a problem, which only – which I think Mark Twain summarised rather well, many, many, many years ago, in an entirely different context, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” And I just wonder if we don’t need to remember the words of Mark Twain, if you don’t mind me quoting that great American Writer, to thinking about this particular discussion, at the moment.

Now this is not to say, for one second, that America hasn’t faced a whole host of problems, which have been manifesting themselves, both at home, and I know Jonathan’s going to talk about that, and abroad. But I suppose, the title of my book of course, is called “Agonies of Empire,” so I inevitably deal with many of those problems, both domestic and foreign, as they would say. But I suppose I still get back to a kind of structural, kind of, way of thinking about America, and it still retains, I can’t see there’s very much dispute about this, it still retains vast amounts of what we call power. Whether measured economically, militarily, in terms of alliances, in terms of corporations, in terms of innovation, in terms of winning Nobel prizes in the stem subjects, etc., etc., etc.

So the question I want to pose, and I only pose the question without answering it, so therefore, what’s the problem? Because if America still retains such vast amounts of structural power, why therefore, have we been talking about this problem for many, many years, and indeed, in a more intense way, over the last few years? So what do we mean by decline? And I’ll leave that open as a question to debate. Could it be a problem though, and that’s where I want to, kind of, focus my last comments and open up to my two friends and colleagues.

If one looks at not what I’m saying, or what Jonathan or Bronwen would be saying on this issue, but look at what’s being said in Beijing, and what is being said in Moscow, over the last ten years. There is a strong perception, and this is certainly true of Putin and Xi Jinping has said it time and again, they both said it together, “America is on the way down.” It started probably with the 2008 crisis, for China it used to argue that it’s been accelerated by the Trump Presidency and indeed by the way America has not dealt with or dealt with the COVID crisis. America leaving Afghanistan, again was another indication of this decline towards a post-American order.

Now, they may or may not be right, but perceptions in this, as the great political scientist Bob Jervis once put it, “Perceptions can be everything.” And if there is a perception by those out there, let’s call them less liberal, or illiberal powers, who have a rather different view of the world order than I think is shared by many people in this particular discussion, then that creates a problem. In other words, perceptions of American decline can lead to ways in which external actors are not at all friendly to the West, and certainly not at all friendly to the United States have behaved. And I would actually further the argument a little bit, you know, again the provocation, the controversy comes in, I just wondered too, whether or not this perception, held not only, if you like, by academics within the West, that’s fine, we can have that debate going on forever, and we’ve had it forever. But what about perceptions of real political actors in the world, who can shape international politics? And I just wonder, whether going through Putin’s head, and even Xi Jinping’s head over the last few years, there’s been this assumption that America’s on the way down, the West is therefore on the way down, therefore this is the time to push and take advantage of that weakness.

I’ll leave it there Leslie, and hope that provokes and generates discussion, thanks again.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Mick, then I think really good to have that argument on the table, and also to have that argument from you and, you know, to be quite blunt, not from an American, which is – which sort of raises plenty of questions, but I think sort of raises maybe – it makes it very interesting, and is for so many people, quite provocative actually, in the current context. But Bronwen, let me come to you, to hear your thoughts on this broader question.

Bronwen Maddox

Leslie, thanks very much indeed, and I was listening to Mick with enormous interest. As always, Mick is absolutely right that this debate is a very old one, and there has been this stream of books and speeches, with titles about decline, for decades now. And just three, four years after Paul Kennedy’s immensely influential book about the rise and fall, America or the technology and ideas coming out of America, created the internet and changed life on this planet for pretty well everyone, forever. And I offer that just as one nugget of the innovative power of America at just those points, when people are about to write it off. But I’m nonetheless going to answer essentially yes, to the essay question, of are we moving towards a post-American world, for two sorts of reasons? And I’m really going to come down where Mick has an aversion of decline. To answer yes to that question, you don’t have to talk about decline, you might simply talk about the rise of China, and the rise of countries who want to work with China, to set their version of the rules for the world.

And before Ukraine, when it seemed easier and less controversial for countries to line up with not just China, but Russia and indeed, Iran and others, to try to work towards setting an alternative set of rules. You know, several months ago, we might have been having that discussion, and simply to talk about the end of the unipolar world of this period of it, would in a sense be to talk about the move towards a post-American world. And I think those still hang there, there is a challenge to American values, it does not have the – and cannot have the presumption that its values have won out, which was the thrust of the end of history, and all the complacency that followed that, not just in the US, but in Europe.

But as I said, I think we do have to talk about American decline. It is not economic at this point, not in any significant way. It’s not in innovation and technology, and if at any point in what has been, you know, really challenging years, to talk about politics, one has wanted a burst of optimism, a ray of sunshine, you could go and look at what is happening in science, technology, medicine, and the sheer creativity of people saying “I am living through a revolution,” and being glad of that. And, you know, America still represents a huge amount of that.

So, it’s not economic, it’s not innovation, it’s not in any way that currently matters, in military terms, though China is in some of the new developments in military, giving America a run for – when I say for its money, for the still vastly greater amount of money it spends on military. But where the decline is, is political, and in the external expression of that, beyond America’s borders, in the internal organisation of its politics. We’ve had many, many years of discussion now, on the divisions within the US, even leading people, apocalyptically to talk about the breakup of the United States. But this is very, very sharp political division, not only stalling Congress, but changing the character of Congress, particularly the Senate, as Politicians no longer see it as their role to work with each other to some kind of solution, but see themselves in a much more adversarial system.

You have the expression of that in who runs for politics, who becomes Governor, who becomes President, and the divisions that follow that. You’ve got a withdrawing of public support for acting in the world. Again, that’s one of those things that has ebbed and flowed over the years and decades. But very definitely, in retreat at the moment, and Joe Biden capturing quite a bit of that, in the move out of Afghanistan, untidier, crueller than the US would have wanted, but really getting a huge degree of support across the United States, at home.

So you have a political decline, I think, which is real, and before Ukraine, I think we were all sitting round thinking, you know, where is this going to go? At one extreme, you know, could the United States split up? Or is it simply going to get very, very stuck and no longer either be an advertisement for its own values, or even perhaps in parts of its political life, even an advocate for them? Ukraine has changed that a bit. It has created dramatically, in a way no-one – sorry, no-one, I think, really, really expected, a sudden external enemy, in a very retrograde form, a form that we thought had gone of an enemy rolling tanks into part of Europe. And so, it does provide that clarifying moment, of countries to stop focusing on their own internal divisions, and think what are we about? What are we really standing up for and what do we want to do about this? And it is a sobering moment and I think it is a clarifying one for lots of countries. I wouldn’t be surprised if discussions, like the ones that led to Brexit, indeed, you know, the ones around succession of different parts of countries, whether those got more subdued for a bit.

It doesn’t of course, answer all those questions, because the question still hangs there, what do you want to do about it? And even in Europe, one month on, we’re seeing more divisions than there were there a few weeks ago, as Germany in particular, begins to put the brakes on some kinds of sanctions, and the US has not answered that question of what it wants to do. But it has that question now, about Taiwan, about what form of nuclear deal it might want to do with Iran, what, and picking up on Mick’s final point, what expectations it wants to give the world, about its willingness to intervene. Because I think Mick’s last point is absolutely resonant, that perceptions of American decline can become self-fulfilling. And one of the things that America can most easily influence at this point, by explaining how it intends to act in the world, is to affect those perceptions of its own decline. I’m going to stop there, thank you very much.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Bronwen, and I think you’ve sort of pivoted us nicely, from where you began, to perhaps where you’ve taken us, and you have raised the question of Ukraine, we’re going to come back to that certainly. How much of a gamechanger, how much does it change this overall picture? But before I say anything more, I want to turn very quickly, and importantly, to you, Jonathan.

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

Thanks, and thanks for having me, it’s a real pleasure to be here, and thanks to Mick for giving us the opportunity to have this conversation. I’m going to – we were given four test questions, and I’m going to answer question one and question four. But before I do, I want to frame this by agreeing with something that Mick said about these ways of diclinism, and I think one of the best papers ever written about this, was Sam Huntington’s paper in 88 or 89, in foreign affairs, about the five ways of diclinism in American politics.

Nevertheless, I’m going to go down swinging with decline anyway. The first question that had to do with the main contributing factors to the reduction in American global influence, and I think two of them are pretty easy, there’s just a natural change in the international balance of power that was going to occur, no matter what. How consequential that is, is open to debate and I think this was considerably exacerbated by astonishingly self-inflicted wounds in America’s wars, that were rooted in the hubris of a superpower.

But what I think I’m going to add is that, as they used to say on late night TV, but wait, there’s more. In 1999, The Economist asserted that “The US bestrides the globe like a colossus,” and we’re talking about an American predominance so great that we – ‘hegemon’ and ‘superpower’ didn’t even seem good enough words for this, and so we invented the word ‘hyperpower’ to describe the US. But I’m going to argue that at the same time, the US was quietly cultivating the conditions that would contribute to its consequential social desiccation, that was probably more important in explaining American behaviour on the world’s stage, and the general diffusion of international power or the consequences of its foreign wars.

And this brings us back to Sam Huntington, who was a bit of a contrarian, and so at the unipolar moment in 1999, he wrote another essay, in which he said that “States was such immense power are normally able to maintain their dominance until weakened by internal decay or by forces from outside of the system.” And I think as is often the case in retrospect, I think we can see that the internal decay in the US was already well underway, at the time, at that heady time when Sam Huntington wrote that paper. If we, kind of, breakdown the impressive economic growth of the 1990s, we can see what we now see more obviously, was that that growth was very unevenly distributed toward the already very wealthy. And that is a trend that would continue for the next two decades, while median household incomes stagnated, exacerbated by the global financial crisis.

And my point here, when answering this question, is that America is richer and more powerful perhaps, than it ever was, but it is less robust, as an international actor. And that gets me to question four, the question posed there was, is polarisation at home in the US, leading it to be something of a crippled giant abroad? And I have a very short answer for that and that answer is yes. And I think this boils down to grasping the significance of both power and purpose, in international relations. Theorists have always done a pretty good job understanding that purpose doesn’t really mean much if you don’t have power, right? You can think all you want, but if you don’t have the power to exercise that purpose, then it’s not really that important.

But I think the IR scholarly community in general, with obvious exceptions, has less appreciated the fact that power can only be understood within the context of purpose and that there’s good reason to be sceptical about the trajectory of American purpose. And about whether in fact, the US could exercise its power, that is, could the US marshal its enormous power, in support of a purpose, especially if that purpose sounds something like a farsighted grand strategy that might require sacrifices, in the short run? And some, I think that the US has, on the one hand, an astonishingly vast reservoir of underlying material power. But it may be a very leaky bucket, to kind of draw on those resources and bring them to bear over a distance, and I think provocatively, I would say that the US looks a little more like France in the 1930s. It was considered the most capacious military power on the continent, than today, that most people would like to admit. And if I have a minute, and you can tell me I don’t, I can play the bonus Ukraine round or not?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Take one minute, please, ‘cause we can come back.

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

Sure, again, I take as my point of departure, that the future is unwritten and that chance and contingency and uncertainty, define the potential pathways that play the roles in telling us the trajectory of where politics will go. So I think all prognostication should be offered in the context of enormous analytical humility, and we do have a remarkable exogenous shock, this, Putin’s war, its early stumbles and uncharacteristically robust response by Europe and the US to that. And it’s as if Putin has perhaps done what no-one would have thought possible, kind of, taken out the paddles and shocked life back into a transatlan – a more robust transatlantic partnership. And you know, I count myself among those who see something of a silver lining in the horrors that are ongoing, in that it has perhaps, or kind of refilled this kind of purpose and partnership across the Atlantic.

But as Harry Truman reportedly lamented in his search for a one armed Economist who couldn’t say on the other hand, whether or not this actually leads, I think, to a revived NATO, and the US shedding its short-sighted and self-defeating America first disposition, remains to be seen. I would be inclined to emphasise that the underlying forces attendant to America first, that have been bubbling just below the surface of American politics for decades, are arguably now more representative of the American disposition than they have been in 70 years, and they are particularly robust, and they do get us back to this question of polarisation, both the right and the left of their support for engaged internationalism, is dramatically reduced. And that is what gets us to this question of whether we see both polarisation and perhaps even paralysis, of American power and purpose.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. Wow, lots on the table here. Let me ask, I guess, maybe a comment and a question, or a question and a question, to each of you, I’m pleased those of you who are in the audience, please be ready to ask your questions. There’s some coming in, I’d love to hear your voices, so those of you who are willing to unmute, all hands on deck and be ready. You know, I guess a couple of things is, you know, there’s clearly a range of views here, and sophisticated and nuanced views, on what’s happening inside America, on American’s structural power. But I guess on that, I’m less sure that I know exactly what you think about that American world part. I’m not even sure exactly what that means, but that is the existing question, and just to throw a couple, you know, figures at you, that you’ll know, Freedom House put out its annual report. They said that “20% of the world’s population, only 20% of the world’s population, live in free countries.”

The 141 countries in the UN General Assembly that voted to condemn Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine, represent less than 50% of the world’s population. I mean, there are a lot of things out there that are suggesting that there’s something that hangs in the balance, and whether that is about a liberal order, or an American order, or something else, I mean, I guess, you know, one of the questions is, you know, what is it, right? If it’s – was it ever an American order, and if it’s not an American world, what is it? Is it, you know, was it Charlie Kupchan who said, “No-one’s world?” I mean, there’s lot of, kind of, you know, there’s sort of the question of America and what’s happening in America and how about matters beyond America’s borders?

But there is all this broader question, 16 years of decline in democracy globally, and I guess, for many people, the devastation, the brutality, the tragedy that we’re seeing, every single minute, at the moment, demonstrates that there’s something really significant at stake, and that America’s, you know, got some ability to shape that. But maybe I can come to you, Mick, and just say, you know, I mean, you’re on one side of the debate, but what about the global question of order, where are we going?

Professor Michael Cox

Thanks, Leslie, and thanks for the comments, both by Bronwen and Jonathan. I’m not sure there’s a great dividing Chinese Wall between us. I think there’s nuances around the central questions, but I’m bound to say that, being English, I suppose.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Irish.

Professor Michael Cox

Well, firstly – Anglo-Irish, yeah. Okay, on this question of an American world, look, I lived through, was part of, and indeed, wrote a lot about the Cold War. In that sense, there was never an American world. The USSR was there, and it was there in alliance with, do you remember the term, “Red China”? and lasted right through until the early 60s, and then – but nonetheless the USSR was still there. So, in some senses, even the – in that moment of what we call American hegemony, Pax Americana, the Soviet Union was still a major player and actor in that world. And in some way, I’d still want to argue that the end of that order, the end of that bipolar order, as Ken Walls called it, really did open up a much more – greater possibility of an American order, yeah, I would argue that. And I’d still want to say that whatever the challenges that are facing the United States and the order that it proports to promote, I think even in spite of all those challenges, which are mentioned by Bronwen, this kind of new vision of an illiberal order, the consequences of a disastrous war in Iraq, which Jonathan talked about, the 2008 economic crisis, and indeed, most importantly possibly, Jonathan, in spite of those huge problems at home, which I totally agree with you, I’d probably even go further and say I think even American democracy could be at stake, if a certain Presi – if a certain man comes back into the White House in 2024.

Nonetheless, I suppose I begin with the argument, maybe end with it too, ‘cause I don’t want to go on for too long, that simply the collapse of the bipolar order, the collapse of the Soviet system, as an alternative, a serious alternative order, changed the world forever, and I think we still live within that. And I think we’ve got to get that historical perspective in. I hope that made some sense to you, in terms of where I think the order is today.

I suppose the other question is, and it’s a difficult question, because IR has asked this question for many years, Jonathan, has it not, what do we do and can we create any kind of order, without the United States? And, you know, I mean, this is why I’ve always had a bit of a problem with those, kind of, you know, rather easily talked about American decline. Well, the question I ask, which is not a very popular question to ask sometimes here at the LSE is, well, if it does decline, what comes after it? You know, because, you know, declining great powers do not necessarily leave behind them, you know, order, stability, prosperity and ordinary people’s lives being fulfilled, so I also want to throw that into the mix as well. And this is not a criticism of what Jonathan or Bronwen said, but I think we do need to ask that question, what comes after we feel actually the United States is in decline, or we are moving into a post-American order? And I’m not sure, in my own heart really, that it’s one that’s going to be easier and nicer and more stable.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And Bronwen, let me come to you, ‘cause you really did take us into that broader order question, and I’m glad you did. You know, Zelenskyy’s out there, when he spoke the US Congress, and quite extraordinary that not only did he ask for help for Ukraine, but he put a pitch out for a new international organisation that in many ways fits with, you know, the US, America’s vision of the international order, kind of wrap it, or what it used to be perhaps. Rapid response, I think he called it, United 24, do you see this as a pivotal moment for order, do you think? I mean, are you – what is your kind of reflection on all these numbers that suggest that the liberal order, partly an American order, is very deeply challenged, can you say a little bit about that, or your reaction, also?

Bronwen Maddox

No, absolutely, and the numbers, you know, counting democracies, is – kind of seems a bit of an odd exercise, some are big, some are small, some are – there are shades of democracy. But still, the stark numbers do tell you something, do tell you something about the direction of travel as well. And I find even if it’s a crude kind of proxy for what is going on, that’s stocktaking, by Freedom House and others, of the state of democracy in the world. I find it illuminating and at other moments, sobering.

I mean, we know what we mean, broadly, by the American order, and that is, you know, organisations around us, set of values, which are democracy, individual rights, human rights and the upholding of law. Though when you get to institutions that then represent that, and obviously reaching for many of the ones created after the Second World War, you begin to stack up as well, quite a view that America has not been a wholehearted supporter of, financial supporter, and ones it’s declined to take part in and so on. The International Criminal Court being one more recent one.

On the order, I think we just don’t know where it’s going at the moment. President Zelenskyy’s challenge was an astonishing one, and it was astonishing in that kind of rhetoric that really reached into those years after the Second World War, and said, almost created these things out of the power of words, created a kind of vision of how the world could be organised. And the values of those who had won that war, then, you know, embodied and captured and preserved. And he’s saying, “Are you going to do it again?” I’m not sure what’s going to happen to NATO. Yes, this has been a charge in it. I remember writing articles, having seen Tony Blair and George Bush, kind of, standing, making speeches about what they were going to do, and writing articles in the past about the decline of NATO. But the two of them seemed so uninterested in this organisation and more conscious of what they could do together.

But NATO is nothing without America, very, very hard to get it in any form, without American participation, and so America’s equivocation at the moment about what it will do in Ukraine, or clarity, it won’t go that – won’t go – won’t actively participate, has raised a question about it. What happens after an American order? You get, as powers retreat, even if they don’t decline, you get something messier. You get coalitions of the willing, if I can resurrect that phrase, you get countries who are thrown together, to act together. And we may see some of that in Europe now, including on the defence side, though, as I said, we’ve already seen a division, not a surprising one, but a renewed division on the question of sanctions over oil and gas, with Germany and Italy particularly, and Hungary particularly, on one bloc of those. So you get smaller blocs of countries inevitably, those are weaker. And we’re seeing that within Europe at the moment, specifically on this question of sanctions against Russia.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Jonathan, just before we come to Kevin Ryan and Domenic Carratu to ask their questions, can you just say a little bit about, you know, where we’re going in the US? Everybody here wants to understand what’s going to happen in the midterms, but perhaps, more importantly, does it matter, and how much does it matter for these bigger questions, and where do you – I mean, given your piece on America America, given your very passionate and very careful thinking about what’s happening within the United States, do you have a view on 2024, and how much it matters? But especially do you have a view on 2024?

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

I think I do, but I want to quickly track back and start with where I agree with Mick, because I think there was an American order. I’m a Professor and I grade on curve, and if you look at what the world looked like in the late 1940s, and in the 50 years that came before that, and there were people who purposefully tried to found a different way of organising the world, I think by that metric, it was remarkably successful and recognisably American. Even if it was obviously messy, imperfect and often bloodstained. And I do think that that order is no longer with us, and the reason why I think that order is no longer with us, is to now answer your question, is this global rise of illiberalism, so the change really is ideological, in basis. And that illiberal tide is visible, not just outside of the United States, but inside the United States. So I’m not – I can’t say with confidence, as I’m not in the prediction business, what’s going to happen in 2022, or 2024, although I do shake in my boots wondering about the dark side of what could happen in 2024, but is there a liberal consensus and purpose that the American policy is going to generate in the near future? I think not. And therefore I think that’s going to inform not how strong the US is, if you’re counting planes and tanks, and patents, but what it’s going to do with that power, and again, this gets back to the question of whether it can really mobilise it’s power in the service of some observable and farsighted purpose. And I am – I do think that the American economy is a much more damaged place, and as a consequence of that, is less likely to be with, you know, obvious exceptions, a capacious actor in the world.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Yeah, lots of questions there about exactly what that means and where, but before, I’m sure it will all come back that, but let’s turn to you, Kevin Ryan, to ask your question? Please unmute. While we’re waiting for Kevin, maybe we can come to Domenic. Oh Kevin, go ahead.

Kevin Ryan

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, my question is, if America really is in decline, how do we square that off with the fact that America’s often argued to be exceptional?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

I’ll come right back to the panellists with that. Bronwen, do you want to take a stab at it?

Bronwen Maddox

What an interesting question, Kevin, you can be in exceptional decline. I think, you know, the question about America is whether this individualism and exceptionalism still can be bound together in one country. It’s always been America’s defining characteristic of uniting lots of completely different people from completely different backgrounds and indeed, countries, in one project, or have a country. And the question is not – I think there’s much less doubt about whether those people retain a sense of individual exceptionalism, as to whether they can be still united in one project.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Others, it’s a complex question actually, but it’s sort of an interesting one to reflect on, thank you for asking it, Kevin. Jonathan, do you want to add to that?

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

Well, American exceptionalism is a loaded term, and I don’t want to dive into those debates. But I do want to reintroduce this notion I suggested about the similarities between American politics now and politics in France from the 1930s. And I think an important one is that for principal actors within France in the 1930s, their views were that their greatest – the greatest threat to their understanding of their civilisation and way of life, came from within the country, not from outside the country. And I think that this is similarly true in the United States today that many powerful American actors see the greatest adversaries as within the country, as opposed to externally, and therefore rank order their preferences, priorities and policies in that context, and I’m not defending a Civil War, I’m just suggesting that if you see the threat to your way of life, as coming from within the country, it may lead you to deprioritise the role of foreign policy choices, as you get up in the morning and decide what’s the most important thing that you’re going to be doing that day.

Professor Michael Cox

I’ll just jump in very quickly, Leslie, if I – I mean, I don’t want to extend it, because, you know, you get into discussions about exceptions, we could go on for a very long time. Yeah, I think there is something still exceptional about the United States. If I could just actually say the most obvious thing, look how big it is, you know, compared to single individual European countries. You know, I always stress with my students, think geography, study geography and geography and position of America in its own hemisphere and its own geographical advantages, when God was going around the Earth distributing resources, he did a damn good job on the United States. And I still think that plays into American power, you know, can’t be ignored.

Secondly, it’s exceptional in the sense that it’s gone through great wars of the 20th Century, and always come out on the other side winning, and this is also quite exceptional for a great power, as well. Not all great powers do that, as indeed, Paul Kennedy pointed out in 87. He was wrong about America, but he was also right about the past, which is easier to do than looking into the future.

In other words, America looked as if it was in decline then, but it’s not, and I think that’s another part of the exceptionalism. Now where we are today is I agree, we are in a different place, but I still want to kind of get back to my Cold War reference point. That was perceived to be and understood then, until 1991, to be an enormous threat to an order which we called the American order. And I think everything we’ve seen since, though deeply significant, particularly in the case of China, and especially in terms of the internal crises, which is there in America, still is that the same thing or same degree as we saw until 1991? I’d simply open that up as a question, without giving a precise answer at this stage.

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

I’d just like to jump in.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Ah, I’m going to hold you back, Jonathan, you can jump in after we get Domenic’s question. Domenic Carratu.

Domenic Carratu

Yeah, hi, just it builds on where you were just now. The US used to represent a shining city upon a hill, this beacon light guides freedom loving people everywhere. But now, as Jonathan was hinting, there seems to be a clear divide between, for simple sakes, between the red and the blue states. And the question is, is the US committed to continue acting as the global police between Europe and the Indo-Pac, or is Trumpian isolationist movement, likely to dominate?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Let me take one more also, from Nicki Sun, if that’s okay, and not too technologically – ah, we have such an extraordinary team here at Chatham House. Nicki, your question.

Nicki Sun

Hi, just the one question, so where did this perception of US decline come from, in the first place, from the perspective of China and Russia? And if this is a misperception, how would that affect US relations with China and Russia, going forward? Do you think this kind of perception needs to be, you know, corrected to, sort of, protect the US interests globally, and who stands to gain from this, kind of, you know, misperception? Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Great question. Alright, Jonathan, you wanted to jump in, so I’ll let you take those first.

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

Well, I just had a quick question from Mick, on his comment, which is just a speculation, did the US need the Cold War to hold it together, as a political actor, and then when the Cold War went away, the US didn’t have that glue, and therefore we should not be surprised to see the entropy that we’re seeing there?

Professor Michael Cox

Yes, very quickly, in response to that, Jon, I call it the ‘paradox of victory’. You win, but you lose. You win insofar as you won and you clearly won, the West won. And that opened up a space in the world for opening up to the market globalisation and all the rest of it, includes an express side, of course, brilliantly well. In many, many respects, he was dead lucky in the 1990s. So you’ve won, on the other hand, you’ve lost that focus. And my good colleague here at the LSE, Pete Trubowitz, I think has written about this in – very brilliantly, which is, in a sense, without that external focus, giving you the focus you need, both externally and internally.

Then there is that kind of problem, and I think that maybe, looking long-term, over the last 30/40 years, if that’s right, that may be the fundamental question, that the United States can’t answer, perhaps he can’t answer that one. And as Bronwen quite rightly said, you know, 911, terrorism, international terrorism, that didn’t replace the Soviet Union. I’m not even sure China is replacing the Soviet Union, given China’s importance to the global capitalist economy either.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Bronwen, boy, that’s sort of – I mean, it leads, I’m sure it’s not what you mean, but it sort of raises deeply structural, certain degree of inevitability, and really over apportioning causality and perhaps, blame too, you know, the broader international, than it does to any number of choices that were taking place domestically. But Bronwen, what are your views, and to these questions about perception?

Bronwen Maddox

Yeah, I do think an external enemy has – is a – does produce a kind of focus. It produces a clear sense of purpose of national unity, of a reminder, in the crudest terms, that one of the functions of a state, one of the most basic functions is defence of the people within it. So it’s simplifying if you like, but it can be falsely simplifying, because the world isn’t simple. And all those other questions are still there, it’s not just a point of indulgence or the luxury of the victor to begin to examine internal differences. Those are there, and one of the questions for the United States, in its maturity, is whether people have discovered such significant differences that they no longer buy into that common project. They no longer, in fact, recognise in each other, common values. And I don’t think that question is going to go away, even if it’s muted at the moment, by this external horrific drama. So, you know, it is simplified, the Cold War many people have described was simple in that way. 911 wasn’t simple in that way, but it – and I remember all these books again, going back to what Mick was saying, why do they hate us? There’s bewilderment of America being attacked in that way, at that time, when it thought it had won the battle of values.

But it was clear that terrorism, while it might be very disruptive to ways of life and societies, was not going to be an existential threat to the countries or to the kind of values, unless it prompted such a clampdown on information, on expression, on immigration. You know, it was a shock, it was a deeply shocking thing, but it was not an existential threat in that way.

On Domenic’s question about isolationism, and he called it Trumpian isolationism, I think this really has come and has really flowed back and forth over the decades, in the United States, of how much – this is a country that right from the start, has had to devote a lot of energy internally, to working out how it’s going to work, and that’s a future of its own complexity. And it’s, you know, every now and then, wanted to assert its values in the world, or share them, and then has retreated.

I’m really struck by how different the conversation that you have about Iraq is, in Britain, and in the United States. In Britain, simplify things too much, you know, this is a war that didn’t work, should Tony Blair have gone with George Bush? There’s a sense, kind of, up and down failure. I hear much more in the United States of, well we offered them democracy, they didn’t embrace it in this way, we did our best, and now we’ve retreated from that. There is not – it depends which circles you’re having this discussion in, but you know, George Bush has – George W has not been career surrounded with opprobrium about it in the way that Tony Blair’s has. And I think we are now in isolationist, you know, swing of America’s pendulum, but it may not be eternal.

On Nicki’s question, I’m going to leave it to the other two, ‘cause I’ve been talking enough, but it’s a really interesting question, which Mick was talking about.

Professor Michael Cox

Yeah, can I just jump in on the China?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Yeah, Before you do, I just want to raise a question, one question, maybe you can speak to it, Mick, and I take – I mean, I think it’s a really powerful point about the clarifying, you know, the clarity that an external enemy produces. But as our three thought leaders, scholars, authors, know very well, there were some pretty turbulent moments in America’s history, you know, Civil Rights Movement, the post – the Vietnam era, I mean, these are not like, everything looks rosy in retrospect, but – and they remain deeply unresolved questions that continue to fracture America’s society, and we’ve seen dramatic demographic change and all the rest of it.

So I just, you know, just as a reminder, that the sort of consensus was – you know, not everybody was included in the consensus.

Professor Michael Cox

Absolutely right.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And it wasn’t as, you know, sort of clean as maybe we…

Professor Michael Cox

No, no, no, and I wouldn’t want to – I mean, as a child of the 60s, I sometimes even call myself a 68er, and most people don’t understand what that means now, but that’s what I was. Yeah, clearly, if you look at the 60s, how divided was America in the 1960s, for goodness sake, you know? Hugely divided, along political lines and racial lines and class lines, and I agree with you, Leslie. The only point I’d make, without over making the point is in spite of all that, you still had the – you still had the external enemy, you know, after the 1970s decade of drift and decline, according to many on the right in America, including Reagan, you still had the Cold War, you still had that reference point.

You could always go back to the North, what I call the ideological and strategic North Star. That’s not what you can do so easily, after 1991, that’s the only point that’s being made here, not to, you know, simplify the domestic turbulence that surrounded debates in America, about American foreign policy.

Even the Korean War created huge debates inside the United States as well, so I’m not trying to, you know, overdo that one. Can I get back to the China/Russia one, ‘cause I think that’s a really great question? And it’s something I’ve been thinking about, five or six years ago, I wrote an article which nearly everybody disagreed with, which actually made me feel terribly good actually, by the way. Which was actually argued that China and Russia actually were in the early stages of forming an alliance. That was back in 2016/2015, it was a very unfashionable view to take then.

Maybe the only prediction I’ve ever made in international relations, Jonathan, to get back to the problem of prediction, which may have actually been – turned out to have been right. Now I know there are other questions we could raise about that, but I do think that this is actually the new factor in the challenge to the American order. You know, I don’t think it’s just INCO-8, it’s a simple redistribution of power. I think there is essentially now, a challenge to that liberal world order shaped by the United States and its various allies, both in Europe, very important, which we’ve not discussed so far, and of course, within Asia. And I think that has been gently bubbling along, boiling along, and has been clearly expressed most recently by the way, on February the 4th of this year, only three weeks before the invasion.

Now, I’m not saying the communique is the same thing as going to war, but it is a bit of a coincidence, as they say, and that is an alternative order. The big question for me is a) does it represent a genuine alternative, as Bronwen, I think, hinted at the beginning, and we didn’t pick up on that point? For many people it does, and I don’t think we should underestimate that challenge. And I certainly don’t, Bronwen, particularly if you’ve got two states with different kinds of power, like China and Russia, promoting it.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Mick, I’m going to stop you, ‘cause I’m going to come to two final people to ask very succinct questions, and then each of you to have a wrap-up, before we close. But also, you know, it’s in the balance, the Russia-China question. I still believe agency matters, and people are trying to work on that.

Professor Michael Cox

No, no, I’m a structuralist. I’m a structuralist.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Ah well, God, we might as well all just retire at this point. Yosef Isaac and Jamila Phillips. Yosef.

Yosef Isaac

Thank you. Well, I think China’s new positioning, which has not been determined yet, will affect the world, and my question is, to what extent will the US new position towards China, influence the future of the American order, or the order following it, and conversely? Thank you very much.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Yosef, great question. Jamila Phillips.

Jamila Phillips

Thank you all for such an interesting discussion. My question is, in what ways does the climate crisis give America an opportunity to reverse this decline, or perhaps hasten it? Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Great question. I’m going to go in reverse order and, you know, very short answers sadly, because we’re right at the end, but Jonathan, Bronwen, and then Professor Mick Cox.

Professor Jonathan Kirshner

I will be very brief and I will ignore the questions and seize on something that Leslie said, because like Mick, I’m a 1968 junkie, and I do think it’s right to observe that the 50s and the 60s and the early 70s in the United States, were an extraordinarily divisive and tumultuous time. McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, race riots, domestic bombings, all of those things going on. So I did what I often do, which is I walk into the office of a revered political theorist friend of mine, who’s advice I always counted on, and said, “Are we just exaggerating how bad things are today, because of all those things?” Ad he said to me, “No, we’re not, because back then we knew that we were moving in the right direction.”

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. There’s so much to say about that, but there will be more opportunities. Bronwen.

Bronwen Maddox

Okay, I will pick up the questions. Yosef, a great question on – I think it enormously matters how the US approaches China, and indeed, vice versa, in what happens to the remaining elements of the American order. It matters at this point how it communicates with China, about specifically Taiwan and whether – you know, if China were to try to take over Taiwan at this point, and America did nothing, it would mark, for many people, the end, in a sense, of that American world of international order.

Clearly, the US does not want to be put in that position where that happens, and I think it has a choice now about how to try even more emphatically to head China off that, by indicating what it would do. But beyond that, it’s going to have to keep negotiating with China on trade, and being deeply engaged. And it has a way to feel it’s – it has an opportunity to feel its way towards a, kind of, new, kind of, order, where the two of them dominate.

On the climate change question Jamila, I think again, terrific question, we could spend a whole hour on. Any country now almost has, but particularly the US, has an opportunity, not just to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, but to take a lead in developing the technology of solar and so on. I think, you know, the last COP may have taken the ability to get international agreement as far as it can go at the moment. But it is an area in which the US could take a lead, more of a lead than it has so far.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you.

Professor Michael Cox

I’ll jump in very quickly, Leslie, ‘cause I know time’s running out. I actually think the Ukraine crisis and the whole question of energy dependence on Russia, is going to raise the question of climate change yet again, in an even more acute way, ‘cause it’s now not just a question of survival of the species, it’s also a question of the immediate geopolitics, and I think that’s going to be a very, very big question, going forward, and I’m glad you asked that particular question. And to Yosef, yeah, thanks for that, again, in a sense, you could say it’s the number one question.

The only thing I’d add to that point, Yosef, is it’s not just China alone, it’s China working with Russia. Look, and do you remember one of the biggest moments in the history of the Cold War, Leslie? Sorry to keep going back to my playground, was when Kissinger went to China and split Russia and China permanently. Now the big question today, it seems to me in geopolitical terms, is can that happen again?

Now, clearly, one can see the huge efforts being made now, to achieve that. My conclusion to that, and I want to be a bit careful here, it might happen, but I think deeply unlikely. Everything that China and Russia have said about each other, and what China has said about this particular war, suggests that China’s going to cling on, because therefore breaking that relationship now, is going to be very, very difficult indeed. But that, I think, is going to be the key big geopolitical question, going forward. Not just China alone, but China in this, what I call, quasi alliance, what China itself has called better than allies, going forward. “Rock solid,” said the Chinese Foreign Minister, in terms of our relationship.

Now, will it be so rock solid in two weeks’ time, three weeks’ time, four weeks’ time? I don’t know, I’m not going to make a prediction on that. But if I’m going to put my money somewhere, I think it’s probably, here I go ruining my reputation forever, Jonathan, saying that I think there’s going to be huge upheaval in China, if they were to abandon, move away from a relationship they’ve invested so much in, over the last ten years.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Well, lots there, and I think we’ve raised enormous questions and put a lot of ideas on the table. I encourage you all to read the writings, in all versions, of our three panellists, ‘cause they’re really remarkable. Thank you all. Thank you, Jonathan, for coming early and from afar. Thank you, Bronwen, for your leadership, and for your thought leadership, and for your comments today, and, Mick, thank you for, you know, creating the US Programme and writing all the books that keep it going, and the history of the US Programme. Thanks, everybody.

Bronwen Maddox

Thanks, great questions.

Professor Michael Cox

Thank you very much. Best of luck to everybody, keep safe.