In the 21st century, the extent of US power is manifest in the following four forms: its military capability which influences the whole world, its continuing leading position in economic development, its technological advancement facilitated by the third-wave industrial revolution and its vulgar popular culture to which no other country's comes close.
In other words, whether one has a positive or negative view of the US, no one can deny that it still plays the role as the leader of the world. A view predicting that the US hegemony would fade emerged in the early 1980s. But it seems that the US has been the only nation at the peak of the pyramid of power since the beginning of the post-Cold War period following the collapse of the Soviet Union. More recently, threats and concerns about "asymmetrical warfare" have begun to spread along with globalization and the information revolution. Those concerns were confirmed on Sept. 11, 2001 when terrorists attacked the US.
Whether the fortunes of the US rise or fall, it will continue to have a significant influence in the world. Responding to this issue, Joseph Nye, former assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Clinton administration and a Harvard scholar, wrote a 1989 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. In it he argued that US hegemony will not end in the near future, and due to it unavoidably being the world's most powerful nation, it has no way to escape from its responsibility to dominate the world.
Though Nye's belief in the US' positive future hasn't changed, the wake-up call of the September 11 attacks prompted him in write another book in 2002, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone. From that title, we can tell that Nye has profound worries about the imbalance between the US's power and its global influence, and its inability to perform its inescapable duty to be a world leader.
The Economist magazine, in a review of President George W. Bush's diplomatic policy, said that the US will only abide by the regulations set by international bodies when it is to its own advantage; otherwise, it will prepare to use its policies to restrict or avoid such bodies. Nye believes that this contradictory position has inhibited US use of so-called "soft power" -- the power to persuade rather than coerce other countries through appealing values and principles -- and has forced it along the road of becoming a global hegemon.
Nye's view on "soft power" has had a large influence on academics, but that does not mean there is a consensus. For example, George Soros used to agree with Nye's arguments. But last year he wrote a book, The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power, which aimed to redefine the role of the US in the international community.
Similar to Nye, Soros believes that the plight of the US' superpower status is a result of an over-reliance on conventional power, especially in military activities. He points out that by exaggerating the need to uphold national interests by means of military power, the US may be sealing its own doom. Soros further explains, using the analogy of a "bubble economy," that the US has already strayed from its rational track.
In opposition to the two extreme views proposed by Nye and Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor in the Carter administration, published a book, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, early this year attempting to determine the likely duration of US global dominance.
First, he emphasizes that the US is different from past global powers. Contrary to a world greatly dominated by imperialism in the past, the US superpower can reach all over the world, but its homeland is in danger. In other words, though it remains the world's superpower, it has increasingly become threatened by certain organizations which are not particularly strong. Therefore Americans must become used to living with danger.
Brzezinski also admits that the US will eventually lose its advantageous position, and although he believes that the speed of its decline may be slower than expected, it will occur faster than Americans have imagined. In fact the US is already experiencing this gradual decline.
The crucial point is that the change of the US's supremacy is not solely caused by its internal conflicts, but rather it is interdependent with global trends. On this point, Brzezinski suggests that if the US can diminish its superpower status in an orderly manner, we will be able to create a mutually beneficial international society, and let super-national organizations replace the traditional system based on competing nation-states.
Strictly speaking, whether it's Nye, Soros or Brzezinski, all authors see continued US supremacy as being linked to its government's degree of rationality. Their views mainly differ in that where Nye believes in the existence of rationality, Soros denies the possibility of it and Brzezinski hopes for its emergence.
For Taiwan, whose national security depends heavily on the US, a research emphasis by academics and policy-making bodies should be the observation of the changing nature of US' supremacy. Just as being rational is the key determining the shape and speed of the US's fading power, it is also a crucial determinant to knowing whether Taiwan will be able to gradually adjust its relations with the US. Maybe Taiwan can take as models well-off countries such as South Korea and Japan, who were once dependent on the US's long-term protection, to gradually carve out its own independent future.
Tsai Tung-chieh is an associate professor in the Institute of International Politics at National Chung Hsing University.
TRANSLATED BY LIN YA-TI
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