SPEAKING
FREELY The US as benevolent
hegemon By Eric Koo Peng Kuan
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click hereif you are
interested in contributing.
SINGAPORE -
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought about
an abrupt end to the Cold War. It also marked an end of
an era of hostile competition of global hegemonic
influence between two superpowers - the United States of
America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Some have argued optimistically that the US remained the
sole superpower, and a benevolent one, at the end of the
20th century. Indeed, the status quo of the
international political scenario seemed to be so right
up to the beginning of the 21st century, with the world
order being that of one dominated by this superpower.
This gave rise to the concept of unilateralism and the
characteristic of unipolarity amid a world increasingly
fragmented into more and more new nation-states formed
on the basis of ethnicity or religious commonality.
Since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the US has
increasingly taken on the role of a self-appointed
global policeman, with frequent foreign military
intervention into the affairs of other nation-states
such as Rwanda, Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Such
interventions had the legitimate endorsement of large
transnational organizations such as the United Nations
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However, the
Iraq war fought in March 2003 had no such tacit
international approval, and can be regarded quite
rightly as a foreign intervention precipitated mostly
due to an insistently hawkish US administration. This
leads one to wonder whether the US is a benevolent
hegemon as it has always portrayed itself to be.
A hegemonic power inevitably possesses a high
degree of organizational control of its society and
state resources, a powerful economic base and superior
military forces. A hegemonic state is in essence a
powerful political and military entity that is capable
of surrounding itself with weaker powers in a binding
network of inter-state alliances. In return for allied
protection and other mutual benefits, the weaker states
acknowledge the hegemonic state's leadership in
transnational affairs and give cooperation in line with
the hegemonic state's international policies. The
hegemon is thus able to influence strongly other foreign
polices of member countries in its alliance, giving it
much leverage and political clout when engaging in war
or diplomacy with states outside its influence. Nazi
Germany, Napoleonic France, and the Mongols of Genghis
Khan are examples of aggressive, expansionist hegemonic
powers. Tang and Ching Dynasty China are examples of
benevolent hegemonies that provided the benefits of
civilization and cultural influence to neighboring
states. These are all characteristics typical of a
hegemonic power.
If the US is indeed a hegemonic
power, it can be observed first that it fulfills the
first three conditions listed above. The US leads the
world in the field of technology and has practiced a
consistently stable political system as a successful
capitalist democracy almost throughout its entire
history. It has established trade links with almost all
affluent societies or industrial nations in the world,
and US financial markets play a great influencing role
in the international economy.
US military power
relies on the nation's economic strength for its upkeep.
America's costly development and research programs allow
the military to keep its technological edge by
constantly improving and upgrading its weapon systems,
as well as to maintain sizable, highly trained
professional armed forces. When the administration of
president George H W Bush staged the first Gulf War in
1991, US strategists still feared the "Vietnam" syndrome
and, moreover, could not accurately predict the
reactions of the then still-existent Soviet Union. Since
then, US state-of-the-art weapons and rapid-deployment
capabilities have made possible plans for fighting
almost bloodless campaigns that will end predictably in
US victories. Thus US warmaking capabilities also enable
its leaders to influence foreign issues and policies on
the basis of military might alone.
Military
supremacy comes with a price, however, and US military
doctrines for success require, fundamentally, huge
quantities of oil to fuel the military machine and thus
allow the US to remain a superpower. Control or security
of low-cost oil reserves from the Middle East is
therefore vital to US interests if it is to maintain its
eminent hegemonic position in the world. It is for this
reason the US takes an active interest in the politics
of the Middle East region.
Since the beginning
of the 20th century, all wars and military conflicts
that the United States participated in were, strictly
speaking, on foreign soil. No state or nation actually
directly threatened the US by invasion. Therefore, the
US homeland never suffered from the ravages and
destruction that typically accompanied war or a state of
unrest. The US was one of the few Western nations that
respected humanity and the codes of conduct in war.
Notwithstanding a few isolated individual incidents such
as the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War and the more
recent Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse case in Iraq, war
crimes such as looting, genocide, wanton destruction or
rape were never perpetuated as a deliberate policy,
official or otherwise.
Some may argue that the
presence of US troops in certain allied countries may be
considered military occupation. Being a capitalist
democracy, the United States has never needed to
generate wealth or finance via political integration of
occupied territories or through colonization. It is true
the US sought better advantage among trading partners by
having stronger economic and political ties with allied
nations such as Japan and South Korea. But it is a fact
that such nations retained sovereignty despite the
presence of foreign troops on their soil. Having the US
as a trading partner also benefited the host nation to
US troops in general. In Iraq, for example, US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced plans for Iraqi
self-rule by June this year, but US troops were to stay
to continue security missions and peacekeeping.
Certainly, nations under the protective umbrella
of the US did not suffer the ravages typical of
colonialism or military conquest. In late 1990 in
Kuwait, by contrast, the Iraqi army systemically carried
out looting operations of what then-president Saddam
Hussein declared Iraq's 19th province. These facts speak
volumes as regards to the US being a benevolent
hegemonic power. Indeed, if the US cannot be
acknowledged as a benevolent hegemon, certainly no other
state in the world today is worthy of the title.
Eric Koo Peng Kuan is a freelance
writer who holds a master of science in strategic
studies from the Institute of Defense and Strategic
Studies, Singapore.
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click hereif you are
interested in contributing.
