An Analysis of US Foreign Policy

A friend writes, "What the end of hegemony looks like..."

In another indication that China is growing increasingly concerned about holding huge dollar reserves, the head of its central bank has called for the eventual creation of a new international currency reserve to replace the dollar.

In a paper released Monday, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said a new currency reserve system controlled by the International Monetary Fund could prove more stable and economically viable.

A new system is necessary, he said, because the global economic crisis has revealed the “inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system.”

On the one hand, true. China's over $1 trillion in dollar-denominated reserves aren't as safe as they once were, and a devaluation of that asset through inflation would not be good for China. But, where else are they going to go?

While few analysts believe that the dollar will be replaced as the world’s dominant foreign exchange reserve anytime soon, the proposal suggests that China is preparing to assume a more influential role in the world. Russia recently made a similar proposal.

Lets look at this more closely. The Dollar has its privileged position in the world economy because a) many economists believe that the world economy needs some sort of stable reserve currency, b) the US is willing and can afford to maintain such a strong currency, and c) the rest of the world has left this arrangement unchallenged and benefits from it. Much of this is classic Kindleberger--the world economy needs a stabilizer, one stabilizer, to stabilize the global economy as market, currency, and lender of last resort. The US is that stabilizer.

The third of those reasons--acceptance by other world powers--is now under some degree of threat as China starts to fret about its dollar position. However, absent another actor willing and able to play the role of stabilizer, everyone--China included--risks putting themselves in a significantly worse position should the dollar lose its pride of place in the international economic system.

China suggests that the IMF's SDR form a new reserve currency. This indicates they really aren't all that serious about actually doing anything to dislodge the dollar. For one, to have a currency able to act as a reserve currency requires backing of a stable, authoritative, empowered entity that can manipulate fiscal and monetary policy as needed to protect the value of its currency. We call this a sovereign state. To give the IMF such rights would make the IMF a de-facto global economic sovereign. China has no demonstrated desire to create supra-national authority, not at the UN, nor the IMF. Moreover, there is a significant and real cost to maintaining a strong reserve currency. The strength of the dollar makes the US a great destination for products--we can afford to buy others' cheap stuff. A significantly de-valued dollar (coupled with an increased value of other currencies like the Yuan or Yen or Won) would be a disaster to economies that rely on exports. China would need to show that it is willing and able to take on a stabilizing role in the global economy, which just doesn't seem in the cards as of yet.

Perhaps, though, this might be read as an attempt to gain leverage:

The timing of the Chinese announcement, analysts said, could also be aimed at giving Beijing more leverage to negotiate with the United States and other nations in London on trade and on proposals about how to stabilize the global economy.

All that said, it would be foolish for US policy planners to simply ignore China's (and others) growing dissatisfaction with the Bretton Woods legacy system that now constitutes the global economy. The fundamental bargains that made such a hegemonic system possible (cf Ikenberry) have become frayed, and while neither China nor the EU (nor India, for that matter) are poised to overthrow US hegemony in the short term, they can clearly erode US hegemony by driving up the cost of acting as a stabilizer. In the medium term, this imposes a cost on everyone, as the global economy (and security order) falters without a clear stabilizer, but from a realist perspective, the relative gains (or in this case declines) could benefit the challengers to US hegemony--at least that's what they are betting on.

Labels: China, economic crisis, hegemony

From Obama's speech in Chicago tonight, after winning the Presidency:

And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

Its a clear reference to America's role and position in the world. A clear dose of American Exceptionalism, a rejection of both realism and classical liberalism, and an embrace of a more liberal constructivism. Ruggie argues how the most important element of American Hegemony is its social purpose, those very ideals that shape institutional form and substance, the liberalism that forms the content of the order the US has built and led since 1945. Its the order that Obama now leads as President of the United States.

Labels: Barak Obama, hegemony

The current economic crisis has quickly become a global crisis. Banks around the world are teetering on the edge of failure and governments and central banks are stepping in with as much financial ammunition as they can to bolster the world economy. Despite these actions, and calls for a financial summit by France's President, the world still is looking to the United States Government as the only actor capable of stemming the growing credit crunch and financial panic.

The Washington Post gives a survey of the reaction from bankers and officials around the world. The lede, says it all:

Central bankers and elected leaders around the world acknowledged Tuesday that they lacked a comprehensive strategy to protect their countries from the global financial crisis and were as dependent as ever on Washington to come up with a solution.

Even the EU is sidelined in the current crisis. While the economy of the EU rivals the US and its central bank is strong, it lacks the fiscal tools and policy coordination mechanisms among member states to convincingly act to shore up financial markets. An EU spokesperson said:

"The United States must take its responsibility in this situation, must show statesmanship for the sake of their own country and for the sake of the world," Johannes Laitenberger, a spokesman for the European Commission, told reporters.

Labels: economic crisis, EU, hegemony

The NY Times has a very interesting article out today reporting that the influence of the US Supreme Court is waning--internationally. While the Court holds no jurisdiction beyond the US borders, for a long time it served as an intellectual leader in world judicial opinion. Other nations looking to develop a strong judicial system looked to the US Supreme Court as a model, and looked to the Court's opinions as cutting-edge legal thought that could--and did--shape legal arguments elsewhere.

The signature innovations of the American legal system — a written Constitution, a Bill of Rights protecting individual freedoms and an independent judiciary with the power to strike down legislation — have been consciously emulated in much of the world. And American constitutional law has been cited and discussed in countless decisions of courts in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and elsewhere.

In a 1996 decision striking down a law that made it a crime to possess pornography, for instance, the Constitutional Court of South Africa conducted a broad survey of American First Amendment jurisprudence, citing some 40 decisions of the United States Supreme Court. That same year, the High Court of Australia followed a 1989 decision of the Supreme Court in a separation-of-powers case, ruling that a judge was permitted to prepare a report for a government minister about threats to aboriginal areas because the assignment did not undermine the integrity of the judicial branch.

Sending American ideas about the rule of law abroad has long been a source of pride. “The United States Supreme Court is the oldest constitutional court in the world — the most respected, the most legitimate,” said Charles Fried, a law professor at Harvard who served as solicitor general in the Reagan administration.

Interesting enough, while the US Courts serve as a source for other countries legal arguments, US judges don't often rely on International Law. Some, like recently retired Justice Sandra Day O'Conner or current Justice Anthony Kennedy, would like to see a greater use of international law. But, as one scholar observed

“We are used to encouraging other countries to adopt American constitutional norms, “ he wrote in an essay last month, “but we have never accepted the idea that we should adopt theirs.”

“It’s American exceptionalism,” Professor Posner added in an interview. “The view going back 200 years is that we’ve figured it out and people should follow our lead.”

Labels: Exceptionalism, hegemony, law

The US bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was a massive government intervention into the securities market. Why do this?

Dan Drezner gives some insightful instant analysis, noting how the fall-out has reverberated through the global economy, hitting China, Russia, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and many other key international actors. The US Government:

is also trying to soothe financial markets and-more important-please foreign creditors. China is far and away the largest foreign investor in long-term U.S. government agency debt-more than $375 billion. In the past month Chinese officials had warned about the implications of a collapse of the two housing giants.

Beijing was not the only foreign government to raise hackles about the status quo-other foreign officials voiced their concerns directly to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Senator Chuck Schumer told the Wall Street Journal that, "There was a real fear that foreign governments would start dumping Fannie and Freddie...and not buy the bonds."

As long as the United States runs a current account deficit of more than $500 billion a year, it will need the trust of foreign capital and foreign governments. Judging by the global market reaction, seizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped preserve that goodwill abroad. One reason this happened on a Sunday was so that Asian stockmarkets would have the first opportunity to respond.

How necessary was this reassurance to international capital markets? The nightmare scenario Paulson faced was:

But let's say that the Treasury did not support the debt of the mortgage agencies. The Chinese bought over $300 billion of that stuff and they were told that it is essentially riskless. The flow of capital from them and from other central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and plain old ordinary investors would shut down very quickly. The dollar would fall say 30-40 percent in a week, there would be payments system gridlock, margin calls at the clearinghouses would go unmet, and only a trading shutdown would stop the Dow from shedding half its value. Most of the U.S. banking system would be insolvent. Emergency Fed/Treasury action would recapitalize the FDIC but we would lose an independent central bank and setting the money supply would be a crapshoot. The rate of unemployment would climb into double digits and stay there. Many Americans would not have access to their savings. The future supply of foreign investment would be noticeably lower. The Federal government would lose its AAA rating and we would pay much more in borrowing costs. The deficit would skyrocket.

Charles Kindleberger famously observed:

For the world economy to be stabilized, there has to be a stabilizer--one stabilizer.

Here you have the US acting to stabilize the international economy. It needed to be done, and no one else could do it.

Labels: bailout, finance, globalization, hegemony

Ecuador has decided not to renew the lease the US has on its base there. The roughly 450 US personnel there had been very involved in anti-drug operations.

This move reflects two negative trends for US relations in Latin America. First, is the simple reduction in US influence. The Post reported that the millions the US pays each year no longer buy the influence that they once did, as more millions from other countries (ie Venezuela) and development infrastructure projects flow into the country.

Second, and more disturbing, is the wide-spread currency of anti-American politics. Part of this is a reaction to policies of the Bush Administration. But another part of it is structural. As the Ecuadoran Security Minister observed,

"This is a problem for us of sovereignty," [Security Minister] Larrea said. "It's as if we had a base in New York. This would be incomprehensible for North Americans."

Labels: Ecuador, hegemony, military

The NYT had a fascinating behind the scenes profile of NBC's Olympics coverage. In it, they revealed how much influence NBC, and by extension, the American media market, has had on the Olympics. The IOC (and China) moved the games back from September into August to accommodate the US TV schedule.

The time of some of the events (swimming and gymnastics) was moved to the morning so it could be live in the US in the prime-time evening broadcast hours.Switching swimming and gymnastics to prime time was not the biggest scheduling coup Mr. Ebersol helped pull off. Long before that, during the Games in Sydney, Mr. Ebersol played the central role in a move to alter the weeks when the Beijing Games would be held.

By the summer of 2000, NBC already possessed the rights to the Winter and Summer Games through 2008. The network had made a deal in 1995 to secure them all even before the Games were awarded to any cities - a notion Mr. Ebersol sold effectively to the I.O.C. as a better way to go than having the cities make plans without knowing how much they were going to acquire in TV rights.

But the Sydney Games, which took place in late September, were not doing especially well in the ratings. Juan Antonio Samaranch, then the I.O.C. president, left Sydney after the first day because of the death of his wife. When he returned, Mr. Ebersol related, he visited the NBC broadcast center and observed that the ratings were not what NBC had hoped. He asked Mr. Ebersol if there was anything he could do to help.

"Not for these Games," Mr. Ebersol said he told him. But he wanted to plant another thought. "I believed China was going to win the bid for 2008," he said. And he had heard that China planned to bid based on dates similar to Sydney. He asked Mr. Samaranch if China could move the dates of its bid four weeks back into August.

"If you’re into September, you’re going to lose a big percentage of your male viewers," Mr. Ebersol said. "There’s N.F.L. coverage on Sundays and Mondays, and college football is now on four or five nights a week. All of that goes away if you start in mid-August."

Also, he said, moving the dates back meant bringing in children who would be in school a month later and thus not allowed to stay up late to see American stars like Nastia Liukin on the balance beam. "The Olympics are about the last event that gets the whole family viewing together," Mr. Ebersol said.

Mr. Samaranch listened to the arguments carefully. "Forty-eight hours later, when the Chinese made their official bid, the dates were in mid-August," Mr. Ebersol said.

The start date of 8-8-08 was not picked because it was lucky, it was picked to accommodate NBC (and the tennis people).

Also fascinating is the sheer amount of money the US, through NBC, has poured into these Olympics to ensure prime consideration.

In both cases when NBC’s desires were accommodated, "no money changed hands," Mr. Ebersol said. The $894 million that NBC paid for the American television rights was already in a Chinese bank, Mr. Ebersol noted. But the I.O.C. has an intense interest in assuring that its American TV partner has a success with the Games, he said, because American television money accounts for more cash for the I.O.C. than all the world’s other broadcasters combined. (By contrast, he said China paid $17 million for its television rights, while selling $400 million worth of ads.)

We often refer to a similar stat in military spending, that US spends as much as the Rest Of The World combined. Do we now need a similar stat for TV rights?

Point being, there is a very subtle influence of cultural and economic hegemony here. No other national broadcasting corporation could dare to ask for what Ebersol and NBC requested. That the IOC was so concerned with US TV ratings shows how powerful the US market is, and how powerful its position is in setting the global cultural agenda.

So, while these are a global games, the influence of the US lurks behind in many ways, and its a kind of influence that not even the host nation can match.

Labels: hegemony, Olympics

With the Confrontation in the Caucuses seemingly over, I wanted to try to think through some of the implications for US foreign policy. Although it was a short conflagration, these past 5 days have the feeling of an important turning point. I don’t think that the Confrontation itself has fundamentally altered the nature of International Politics, but rather it seems endemic of a slow shift that had been underway for some time. Though the past order may have eroded gradually, Russia’s stark exploitation of the situation reveals the full extent of the shift.

First, US credibility and influence has taken a severe blow. Georgia had been a “darling” of the US, sending troops to Iraq, a model of democracy and liberalism in the Caucuses, and potential NATO member. There are clearly mixed signals as to who knew what when. Georgia seems to think that it had either implicit US backing for its moves in South Ossetia or a tacit promise of support should Russia retaliate. Russia seems to have at least thought it had a free hand to intervene within South Ossetia. Its possible the US signaled all of this, just as its possible that the US didn’t intend to signal any of this. As Rob points out, mixed signals happen all the time in IR and we have no shortage of theories to explain it.

Regardless of who may have said what to whom, what matters now is who is affixing what meaning to who’s actions. Importantly, Russia’s ability to escalate with relative impunity against a Western ally coupled with such a tepid US, European, NATO, and Western response certainly sends a message. First and foremost: Sending troops to Iraq doesn’t buy you much, get the Article V guarantee first. In other words, aligning with the US doesn’t buy you much in terms of real security because there really isn’t much the US can do in a situation like this. No one (rather I should say no credible and sane person) has suggested that the US intervene to support Georgia and take in Russia.

In a sense, it sounds like the opening chapter of some of the novels on my table for beach reading on my upcoming vacation: A set of covert and suspicious circumstances halfway around the world from two leaders determined to advance their own power agendas leads to a conflict that soon spirals out of control. Pressure builds, and the US is on the verge of intervention, which would mean war between nuclear superpowers, the nightmare of nuclear World War III everyone thought had died in 1991. Only Jack Ryan / Mitch Rapp / Austin Powers can stop nuclear Armageddon…

That’s fiction. The reality is that the limits of US influence have been exposed. Russia had a relatively free hand to do what it did in Georgia and there was nothing that the US (or anyone else for that matter) was going to do about it. If you’re Poland, do you think twice about hosting a missile defense site? If you’re Estonia, do you think twice about your statues? Now, these are NATO allies, but they will now require reassurance, a complex intra-Alliance game. More to the point, what of the rest of the Caucuses and central Asia? What does China think about Taiwan or Mongolia?

It also forces a re-thinking of Bush’s foreign policy legacy. Now, the Administration itself has already completed this process, moving far away from its first term international activism to a more traditional second term pragmatism. The greatest element of Bush’s policy was its promotion of democracy. The multi-colored revolutions, including the Rose in Georgia, were seen, in part, as a successful demonstration effect of Bush’s democratization agenda. This agenda was threatening to Russia and China (and Iran…), where democracy promotion is seen as a form of US imperialism. From a US perspective, the success of Democracy in the Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and such pressures Russia, China, Iran, and such. Putin’s increasingly authoritarian Russia was able to spank Georgia’s Rose Revolution, again setting a marker limiting the influence of US-backed democratization movements.

While democracy promotion may be a normatively preferred plank in US strategy, it suffered a blow here. The pleadings of neoconservatives, still committed to the original Bush project, for intervention on behalf of Georgia drives the agenda to its logical end, a reduction-ad-absurdum that somehow bolsters the appeal of a more traditional realpolitik.

Finally, it shows the end of the unipolar moment. While the US may still enjoy its position of hegemony (and probably will for some time), the end of US Unipolarity has come. Dan’s insight here is prescient and bears repeating:

Russia wants status, wealth, and predominance in what it considers its sphere of influence. Only the last goal brings it into conflict with the US, and perhaps it is time that a less subtle, and more credible, discussion of precisely what that sphere of influence entails needs to happen. It obviously cannot include the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania--and this is one reason why NATO cohesion must be at the top of the US agenda. But there's something odd in claims that "sphere of influence" are somehow inherently immoral; the real issue seems to be that, in a "unipolar world," a bid for a sphere of influence means relatively less influence for the US.

In a unipolar world, there is only one sphere of influence—the whole world is the US’s sphere of influence. Russia’s ability to carve any sphere of influence effectively ends Unipolarity (if there ever was such a moment).

The significance of the Confrontation in the Caucuses is not that it ended the Unipolar moment, but that it signaled the end of a unipolar order. Russia has taken an aggressive step in the art of the possible, pushing the boundaries of what a great power can do in this new age of multipolar / non-polar US hegemony.

Labels: Bush Administration, foreign policy, Georgia, hegemony, Russia

A little water, and $1.4 billion goes up in flames...



via Rob at LGM

Labels: air force, hegemony, things that go BOOM

This week's Economist has an outstanding look at US foreign policy (Leaders and Special Report), with a pointed analysis of Bush's policy shifts that have made him hugely unpopular both at home and abroad and an insightful look at the dilemmas that the next President will face. Their conclusion: While the new President will certainly enjoy a brief honeymoon, there are deep currents of world politics and US foreign policy that auger for more continuity, rather than change.

The crux of the analysis centers on a traditional realist's reading of the current state of international affairs:

[I]n a world that is still Hobbesian, the country that is for now still the world's sole superpower is going to continue to put its own interests first.

And those interests aren't always shared by the rest of the world.

In my class this semester, I have been using Hegemony and its attendant IR theories to make sense of this conundrum. Though it doesn't label it as such, the Economist adroitly lays out the dilemmas of a mature hegemony.

Check it out, its certainly worth your time.

Labels: foreign policy, hegemony

One of the interesting and recurring themes in USFP, especially when you look at it through the lens of Hegemony as we are this semester, is the role that certain countries play in the domestic debate. That is to say, there are certain type-cast roles that are used to justify certain policy positions, and having someone to fit that role really helps the person making the particular policy argument in question.

One of the classics is 'China' as "the next big thing." As a rhetorical device, this has little to do with what China is actually doing or plans to do. Rather, there is a role for the future challenger to the USA that requires action today, and China now fits that role. It didn't always have this role--long ago, it was the Soviets, then for a brief time it was Japan.

Fred Kaplan, in Slate, has a very interesting write up of the latest use of the China Card, this time in the Air Force's desire to buy more F-22's. Secretary of Defense Gates wants to stop production of the F-22, which costs $385 million per plane.

Gen. Carlson's rationale for this expansion: "Most people say in the future there will be a China element to whatever we do." In plainer words: He says we need more than twice as many F-22s than the secretary of defense says we need because of the future military threat from China.

Two things should be noted about this claim. First, by the Pentagon's own measure, the Chinese military has a long way to go before it constitutes a threat to U.S. forces. Second, even if it does become a threat, it's not at all clear that the F-22 would be the best weapon to deal with it....

The F-22 is the centerpiece of Air Force procurement at the moment. It has nearly no role in the sorts of wars that the United States has been fighting in the last 20 years—or has much prospect of fighting in the next 20.

And so, the China threat is dragged out of the cellar once again, as it has been to justify troubled weapons systems for 40 years now.

Kaplan goes on to document the leaps and bounds by which Chinese military power is behind the US. Its certainly worth reading all of it, especially if you are a China-o-phile. The moral of the story: China's military doesn't fit the role today, but the role is quite powerful--powerful enough to drive billion-dollar military spending at a time when the US military has many other more pressing and immediate needs. He concludes

In other words, it's worth keeping an eye on China. But it's probably not worth spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars now for a program like the F-22, which its own sponsors admit might be needed in case a threat develops 20 years in the future.

(plus, how can you not love a chance to have some cool F-22 pics on the blog?!?!)

Labels: China, f-22, hegemony, military

Last weekend, a pair of Russian TU-95 "Bear" bombers buzzed the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier.

According to published reports, one Bear buzzed the Nimitz while another circled several miles off. The Nimitz launched planes to intercept the bombers, and escort them away from the carrier. (you wonder if it was anything like when Maverick and Goose 'communicate' with a MiG in the opening of Top Gun...)

This type of military signaling is something that used to happen all the time during the Cold War--on both sides. We'd send ships in international waters all around their coast, just to show them we could, we'd send planes to fly along the outskirts of their airspace. They'd send planes to fly by our ships, just to let us know that they knew we were there and the like. It was a complex signaling game, each side showing that it could maintain a deterrent posture, communicating its resolve and intentions.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has abandon these kinds of flights, as they are quite expensive. The Bears were, literally, thousands of miles from home, and you need a superpower-sized military budget to keep that up.

Interesting, though, is that even with the supposed "rise" of other countries / currency zones and the relative decline of Russia, its really hard to imagine anyone else doing this. The US still sends out its patrols (recall the P-3 incident with China back in early 2001--a similar deal where we sent a P-3 up their coast in international waters, and they sent a plane out to 'communicate' back). Still, only Russia has anywhere near the ability to do this in the middle of the ocean. Neither China nor India have the projection capabilities. The EU simply wouldn't think to do such a thing--they lack much of the capabilities, but as 'allies' they could just have a guy on the US ship as a guest.

A small incident but telling of what it takes to offer any kind of challenge to the US military.

Labels: hegemony, military, Russia, signaling

A must-read for the Hegemony class in today's New York Times magazine. Parag Khanna writes that the unipolar moment is over and a new tri-polar order is emerging, with Europe, China, and the US negotiating the future of world politics.

From a hegemony perspective, this is a must read and Khanna's analysis of the emerging work order is very insightful, and he has some important recommendations on how USFP can adapt to this new situation. Dan Nexon, over at The Duck, raises some good points to critique the article, also worth reading.

I'm guessing this will make an appearance again later in the semester...

Labels: hegemony

Saturday's NYT had a fascinating story about ongoing Presidential election from a global perspective. Quite possibly unlike any election anywhere, ever, the whole world is watching. I don't mean watching, as in interested in the outcome. I mean watching as in participating, following every debate, poll, and story arc.

To look at the reams of coverage in newspapers outside the United States or to follow the hours of television news broadcasts, you might conclude that foreigners had a vote in selecting an American presidential candidate — or, at least, deserved one, so great is America’s influence on their lives.

From Berlin to London to Jakarta, the destinies of Democratic and Republican contenders in Iowa or New Hampshire, or Nevada or South Carolina, have become news in a way that most political commentators cannot recall. It is as if outsiders are pining for change in America as much as some American presidential candidates are promising it.

The personalities of the Democratic contest in particular — the potential harbinger of America’s first African-American or female president — have fascinated outsiders as much as, if not more than, the candidates’ policies on Iraq, immigration or global finances.

And there is a palpable sense that, while democratic systems seem clunky and uninspiring to voters in many parts of the Western world, America offers a potential model for reinvigoration.

They then do a round-the world report of how folks view this election. An election like no other.

Labels: election, hegemony

As Barry Posen argues, American Hegemony is based on military command of the commons: the ability of the superior US military capability to control the global common areas of airspace, the high seas, and outer space.

This week's Economist has an excellent discussion of the importance of space-based assets to American military superiority:

The Combined Air Operations Centre's exact location in “southwest Asia” cannot be disclosed. But from here commanders supervise tens of thousands of sorties a year. Through aircraft surveillance pods they get a god's eye view of operations that range from old-fashioned strafing to the targeted killing of insurgent leaders with bombs guided by global positioning system (GPS) satellites, and emergency air drops to isolated soldiers using parachutes that steer themselves automatically to the chosen spot.

If Napoleon's armies marched on their stomachs, American ones march on bandwidth. Smaller Western allies struggle to keep up.

(implying that lesser developed potential rivals--Iran, North Korea, for instance--are left in the dust...)

[T]he armed services' hunger for electronic data means that four-fifths of America's military data is transmitted through commercial satellites. A single Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft flying over Afghanistan can eat up several times more satellite bandwidth than was used for the whole of the 1991 war against Iraq.

In a nutshell, the US relies on space-based assets as the backbone for all of its technologically dominant military technology.

China, starting with its 2007 A-Sat test, is making an overt play to challenge the US military by placing these space-based assets at risk. Even by creating more space-junk, they put valuable satellites at risk of collision with a deadly piece of debris. Now, a poorly developed challenger to US influence has no hope of countering the massive military advantage afforded by space dominance. But a so-called "near peer" competitor (ie China, Russia) could. By blinding or even taking out US satellites, they could drastically reduce the US military's ability to exercise its dominance in other areas of the global commons.

While it will be a long time before any other nation can match what the US has produced and launched into space, its a current reality that several nations could level the playing field significantly by taking out America's space based assets.

The key question: How likely is such an action, and how much would it really matter?

Labels: China, hegemony, outter space, satellite

Obviously, the Mitchell Report is all the big news in the world of sports, culture, and politics this morning, and is receiving saturation coverage. Rather than try to add my 2 cents as a baseball fan, I thought I might try to tease out an interesting IR angle to the whole thing.

As I was driving home yesterday, I heard Selig in his press conference assert that Baseball had one of the most stringent testing drug policies (now) of any major sport. The radio commentators were discussing this and said, well, if by major sport you mean NFL, NBA, and MLB, then yes. But, compared to the testing at the Olympic level, it has a long way to go.

Earlier this morning, on my way into work, I heard Sen. McCain on ESPN, and they were asking him what, if anything, the government could do about this (and recall that most of the good stuff in the Mitchell Report is the result of government work--the hearing and several drug busts and plea agreements). McCain said (paraphrasing): Not much, except to fund the USADA to improve testing practices and perhaps work more with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

From an IR perspective, I think this raises a rather interesting question--given that there is a robust international organization with a well developed regime of anti-doping rules and norms that apply to international sport, why is it that the major US sports feel that they are somehow exempt or above or beyond these global norms? Past attempts to apply Olympic-level testing to US pro athletes (NHL hockey and NBA basketball players) by the USOC met with resistance from the leagues and players associations of those sports.

So, why is it that the US and US-based organizations place themselves above this global anti-doping norm? Many major international sports have an Olympic-caliber anti-doping regime, which requires tough random testing, and a number of their most significant events have been hit by drug scandals (Tour de France...). As US pro sports go global in an every increasing way (particularly baseball and basketball), how can they make global inroads and yet flout a global norm on drug testing?

I suspect the answer has something to do with Hegemony (free preview of my Spring class!) in two ways. First, I think the sheer market size of the US and the dominance of the US professional sports leagues in their respective sports means that they don't need to comply. The best basketball in the world is in the NBA, and its become a very international league, with the best players from everywhere. The NBA doesn't need anyone else. Same with MLB--you now see the best Japanese players coming over, wanting to play in the Majors in a way that they didn't even 5 or 10 years ago.

Second, I think there's an identity component to it--why we call it the World Series or the Superbowl winner World Champions. They aren't world champs, they just won a league. But, the US doesn't recognize any other league as being on par with the US leagues. Interestingly enough, the major sports are starting to recognize the impact of globalization and playing US vs. the World all star games or stating up such things as a World Cup for baseball. But, the World Baseball Classic is largely an MLB dominated activity, not an international event like The World Cup.

Hegemony. When your champion is the world's champion.

So, why then doesn't the hegemon follow the world norm on anti-doping?

Labels: baseball, global governance, hegemony

China is in the Satellite business.

The NYT reports that China is launching a communications satellite for Nigeria (pictured right).

The lead says it all:

For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the world’s elite space club. So lately China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club.

Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world — the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on earth. The latest and most prominent example came last week when China launched a communications satellite for Nigeria, a major oil producer, in a project that serves as a tidy case study of how space has become another arena where China is trying to exert its soft power.

This past semester, in my Hegemony and US Foreign Policy class, we talked about China often--usually in terms of a 'hegemonic challenger.' One of the point that we often noted, however, was that a hegemonic challenger must do two things: 1) overthrow the old hegemonic order, in this case, knock the US off its block as teh global #1, and 2) replace it with a new hegemonic order. In most of our discussions, we concluded China not really keen on either--instead treating the US as a rival (as opposed to an enemy) and looking to improve its own position within the system, as China now benefits tremendously from certain aspects of the current US order--especially in areas such as trade.

The key line in the lead is "form its own club." Space has long been seen as a global commons, one where the US can provide certain public goods (such as satellite communication and navigation) and exercise its Command of the Commons as a foundational aspect of US Hegemony. Here you have not just China challenging that US order, but starting its own club for other states with similar interests.

You also see the invocation of "Soft Power." I must admit, we read a lot of Nye in the class (probably second only to Ikenberry on the syllabus) and his work was popular with the students. The notion of Soft Power as a tool for hegemonic management is the heart of Nye's work--get them to like you and want what you want so you don't have to force them to do what you need them to do--and here you have the NYT reading China in that light.

The second interesting thing is the impetus toward the move into space. What I found notable was that the NYT managed, in the span of 3 brief paragraphs, provide ample evidence for Constructivist, Liberal, and Realist explanations of this launch:

For China, the strategy is a blend of self-interest, broader diplomacy and, from a business standpoint, an effective way to break into the satellite market. Satellites have become status symbols and technological necessities for many countries that want an ownership stake in the digital world dominated by the West, analysts say....

China’s more grandiose space goals, which include building a Mars probe and, eventually, putting an astronaut on the moon, are based on an American blueprint in which space exploration enhances national prestige and advances technological development. But Beijing also is focused on competing in the $100 billion commercial satellite industry....

Satellites also are becoming vital to Beijing’s domestic development plans. In the next several years, China could launch as many as 100 satellites to help deliver television to rural areas, create a digital navigational network, facilitate scientific research and improve mapping and weather monitoring. Research centers on microsatellites have opened in Beijing, Shanghai and Harbin, and a new launching center is under construction in Hainan Province....

But China’s focus on satellites has also brought suspicions, particularly from the United States, since most satellites are “dual use” technologies, capable of civilian and military applications. Currently, China is overhauling its military in a modernization drive focused, in part, on developing the capacity to fight a “high tech” war.

Constructivism: Prestige, status, and identity: having a Satellite shows you're one of the cool kids.
Liberalism: Maximize gains: satellites as income generating, development promoting devices with a key focus on domestic political factors.
Realism: Enhances military power relative to the USA.

All that from one fun picture.

Labels: China, hegemony, satellite

I'm watching the Oscars-- I don't really know why, I don't really like the show, its far too much Hollywood self congratulations (you're great, no, you're great, heck, we're all great!) and yet I'm watching when I should be reviewing Ikenberry and Ruggie for tomorrow's class. (I'll get to that at some point, probably between Best song and best director in a supporting role).

What really made me think, though, was when they did best Foreign Language film (won by some German film I'd never heard of. The one I did see, Volver, didn't win). The Academy gives out Best Picture, for The Best Movie of The Year. A few foreign films have been nominated but never won. This year could be interesting, as Letters from Iwo Jima could win best picture and is a foreign language, though American produced film.

Yet what other country's national film awards offer an award for Best American film?

--Ooooh, lets take a brief break to see if Al Gore wins an Oscar!!!
And yes, he did. How about that. George Bush may have won the election but I doubt he'll ever get an Oscar. Gore's a bona fide celebrity now.

Anyway, as I was saying / typing...

What other country would even bother to have a Best American Film? Could you see the French Film Awards giving an award to the Best American film?

But The Academy can certainly judge the best picture of the year, not just here, but from around the world. And the world's celebrities all come to Hollywood for the Oscars. These are the awards to get. This is the Academy to please.

If you want to think about American Hegemony and its influence in shaping the current world in which we live, and if you want to understand how much bigger American Hegemony is than the mere US Government, perhaps The Academy might be an interesting place to start.

They're doing a tribute to an Italian movie score guy. He did the music for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I love that. And he's accepting the award in Italian, with Eastwood semi-translating. Fantastic.

Labels: Academy Awards, hegemony

As its ideational hegemony this week, and as I spent a good 3+ minutes in class Monday talking about the Superbowl, I though that this might be appropriate, at least to start.

Gregg Easterbrook, Brookings Institute scholar and author of one of my favorite columns (where else can you get a discussion of football with asides in public policy, international politics, and science fiction?), Tuesday Morning Quarterback, writes today:

The popularity of American-style football is likely to grow internationally – gridiron is taking off in Mexico at the moment, for instance. Not only is football fun to watch and to play, most of the world continues to admire the United States and look up to us – it's our foreign policy the world disdains; the American dream remains beloved almost everywhere. As democracy expands and more nations liberalize, more nations will long to become like the United States. And since football resides near the core of American culture, more people internationally will want the sport. They will reason, "America is strong and free and prosperous, America loves football, maybe football somehow helps you become strong and free and prosperous." There's a case to be made that football actually does help society – I'll suggest why in a moment. Anyway, this awareness, spreading globally, will increase the impact of the sport.

Rather nicely dovetails with Joe Nye's soft power arguments.
Easterbrook continues, however:

Now we get to the major ways in which football will become more important – ways that concern the evolution of culture and economics. As Michael Mandelbaum wrote in his wonderful 2004 book "The Meaning of Sports," football in the past century has leapfrogged other team games in importance because its structure reflects the modern industrial era. Like big corporations and complex organizations, football requires large numbers of people cooperating. As recently as the stillness before World War II, most Americans made their livings working alone or in small groups in agriculture, craftsmanship, merchandising or owner-operated industry. For the past 60 years, large organizations have dominated the social structure of the West. Large organizations ask large numbers of people of diverse backgrounds to work together cooperatively. Football asks large numbers of people of diverse backgrounds to work together cooperatively. And it's not just the guys on the field who must cooperate. TMQ's Law of the Hidden Moms holds that for every boy who steps onto the high school football field, two people worked behind the scenes to make it possible. In big-college and the pros, it's more like five or six behind the scenes for every one on the field. Other team sports require much less in terms of group commitment. For football to happen, large numbers of people who otherwise would have nothing to do with each other must make a commitment to get along. And that describes a modern economy, doesn't it?

Now consider the direction in which the global economy is headed. In a global world, communication and interpersonal skills grow ever-more important. The explosion in communication, especially, means the successful person of coming decades must be able to cooperate with not just those in his or her immediate field of vision, but people all around the country and all around the world. Daily contact with people all around the country, if not all around the world, is the likely state of affairs for coming generations. Because sports are part of education, there will be rising emphasis on sports that teach interpersonal skills. And that points to more importance for football.

Learn to love football, and learn to organize your society and economy in a way that serves the "modern industrial era." Learn to want what we want to uphold a particular economic and cultural order. Almost Gramscian (via Cox in IR), one could say.

Football as the new tool of hegemony?

Labels: football, hegemony