More on unipolarity

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 3:28 PM Share

Stephen Brooks of Dartmouth has written a response to Justin Logan's guest post from last week in unipolarity (which challenged some of the arguments advanced in Brooks and Wohlforth, World Out of Balance). You can read it (and Logan's response) here. A smart exchange.

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ALEXETRA

4:42 PM ET

August 11, 2009

A question of fungability

Great exchange and useful links from post and response by Logan and Brooks. Along with Logan I will start by agreeing that "Brooks and Wohlforth have the better of the “is unipolarity ending?” argument."

That being said, I want to raise an additional issue that I think Brooks and Wohlforth often fail to adequately address (as do most discussions of polarity). Namely the difficulty of defining, measuring and distinguishing between different types or "classes" of power and the relative (in)fungability of those different classes.

Discussions of polarity always comes back to how we choose to define and measure power (in a way that affords falsifiable testing of hypothesis about the behavior of states under differing power distributions). Typical measures include total military expenditure and share of world total, military spending as a percent of GDP, total GDP, GDP per capita and share of world GDP. Fine.

The case for unipolarity is most evident when considering military power. It is still strong albeit weaker when looking at economic power. The US essentially spends more on its military than the next dozen countries combined and enjoys substantial qualitative superiority in military technology. In the economic realm, the US continues to account for about 22 % of global GDP. The financial crisis though severe will not likely fundamentally alter that share. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed some limits to US military power but on the whole the country has fought two wars for more than five years without military expenditure rising above 4% of GDP (historically pretty low). Fine.

The question though is not so much in the objective measure of the US capabilities according to traditional measures, but how the US translates those capabilities into influence and the attainment of national objectives? Brooks and Wohlforth advocate a non-military "systemic activism" that "involves changing the structure of the global economy, international institutions, and standards of legitimacy." But how fungible across issue areas is US power? Does the US's huge advantage in military terms translate into an ability to change the structure of the global economy? Standards of legitimacy? How does it do this?

How does BMD convince India that it should change its position in the Doha Round? Will the F-22 persuade China or Russia of the merits of respecting minority rights through devolution? How does US economic power (accompanied by massive per capita energy and and resource consumption) persuade other states to join an international climate change regime? Its puzzling that Brooks and Wohlforth (and others) make their strongest case for unipolarity based on US military superiority only to eschew its utility. How exactly does the US translate its preeminence into the kind of "systemic activism" the authors advocate?

NTERRADAS

1:58 AM ET

August 12, 2009

Right on the money!!!

"Its puzzling that Brooks and Wohlforth (and others) make their strongest case for unipolarity based on US military superiority only to eschew its utility. How exactly does the US translate its preeminence into the kind of "systemic activism" the authors advocate?"

Cristal clear. What more can be said?