The New New World Order

Daniel W. Drezner

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2007

Summary:  Controversies over the war in Iraq and U.S. unilateralism have overshadowed a more pragmatic and multilateral component of the Bush administration's grand strategy: its attempt to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and international institutions in order to account for shifts in the global distribution of power and the emergence of states such as China and India. This unheralded move is well intentioned and well advised, and Washington should redouble its efforts.

Daniel W. Drezner is Associate Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the author of "All Politics Is Global."

It is too soon to tell whether Washington's moves to bring Beijing and New Delhi into the great-power concert will succeed. Some U.S. initiatives have failed or yielded meager results. The IMF's initial internal reform has so far been modest: China's voting quota was increased from 2.98 percent to 3.72 percent. Reform of the UN Security Council has stalled because the proposals emanating from UN bodies themselves have seemed impractical and the key powers have not been able to agree on which countries merit permanent membership. One of the many stalemates paralyzing the Doha Round is the EU's refusal to further cut agricultural subsidies unless the G-20 countries agree to open access to their nonagricultural domestic markets. And opponents of the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal argue that the arrangement cannot be reconciled with Washington's hard-line stances against Iran and North Korea.

But skeptics should consider that such undertakings only bear fruit over time. Separate studies by Robert Lawrence and Iain Johnston, both professors at Harvard University, have shown that China's continued participation in international economic and security regimes have slowly, over many years, transformed Beijing from a revolutionary to a conservative status quo regime. The Strategic Economic Dialogue with China, which has received fair to middling reviews so far, has only just started. As with the Structural Impediments Initiative conducted with Japan over 15 years ago, which eventually opened up the Japanese market to U.S. retailers, progress with China will not come quickly.

Another difficulty is that rewriting the rules of existing institutions is a thorny undertaking. Power is a zero-sum game, and so any attempt to boost the standing of China, India, and other rising states within international organizations will cost other countries some of their influence in those forums. These prospective losers can be expected to stall or sabotage attempts at reform. Although European countries are still significant, their economic and demographic growth does not match that of either the emerging powers or the United States. Having been endowed with privileged positions in many key postwar institutions, European countries stand to lose the most in a redistribution of power favoring countries on the Pacific Rim. And since they effectively hold vetoes in many organizations, they can resist U.S.-led changes. The Europeans argue that they still count thanks to the EU, which lets them command a 25-member voting bloc in many institutions. But if the EU moves toward a common policy on foreign affairs and security, it will be worth asking why Brussels deserves 25 voices when the 50 states comprising the United States get only one.

Developing countries on the periphery of the global economy can be expected to back Europe in resisting U.S.-led reform efforts: they do not want to lose what little influence they have in multilateral institutions. Such resistance may be all the more common in the future because the Bush administration, having displayed a penchant for unilateralism in some matters, has elevated suspicions about its motives. Many countries are likely to view Washington's reform efforts as an opportunistic attempt to free itself from the strictures of preexisting multilateral arrangements. Moreover, rising anti-Americanism across the globe has made it harder for those governments willing to cooperate with the United States to do so.

The Bush administration faces obstacles at home, too. Some Democrats in Congress opposed the White House's initiative to give China greater influence within the IMF on the grounds that doing so meant rewarding an unfair player in the global economy; thanks to the 2006 midterm elections, this kind of opposition will now have an even louder voice. Exit polls showed strong support among voters for geopolitical realism and economic populism -- positions that could complicate efforts to rework global governance arrangements. On the one hand, Americans seem more likely to endorse any multilateral security initiative that would take some pressure off the overstretched and overburdened U.S. military; on the other hand, they seem primed to oppose the accommodation of rising economic powers.

IN OR OUT?

It may seem odd for the United States today to seek to disenfranchise its long-standing allies in Europe in order to reward governments that often have agendas that deviate from its own. But the alternative is even more disconcerting: if these countries are not integrated, they might go it alone and create international organizations that fundamentally clash with U.S. interests. In the past few years, fueled by anti-Americanism, dormant groups such as the Nonaligned Movement have found new life. If India and China are not made to feel like co-managers of the international system, they could make the future very uncomfortable for the United States. Nationalists in rising powers will be eager to exploit any policy fissures that may develop between their countries and the United States.

China, in particular, has already begun to create new institutional structures outside of the United States' reach. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, for example, which consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan (with India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observers), has facilitated military and energy cooperation among its members, although still at a low level. At the SCO's June 2006 summit in Beijing, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed that the organization "ward off the threats of domineering powers to use their force against and interfere in the affairs of other states." The joint declaration issued at the end of the summit appeared to endorse this sentiment, noting that "differences in cultural traditions, political and social systems, values and models of development formed in the course of history should not be taken as pretexts to interfere in other countries' internal affairs."

China is also aggressively courting resource-rich countries. In October 2006, it hosted a summit with more than 40 leaders from Africa to ensure continued access to the energy-rich continent. And its leaders have proposed creating free-trade areas within the SCO and APEC -- displaying such willingness to go ahead that President Bush was forced to remove the global war on terrorism from the top of his APEC agenda, and in November 2006, he called for an APEC free-trade zone.

China's efforts do not necessarily conflict with U.S. interests, but they could if Beijing so desired. From a U.S. perspective, it would be preferable for China and India to advance their interests within U.S.-led global governance structures rather than outside of them. The United States could get something in return for accommodating these states in institutions such as the UN and the IMF and giving them the recognition and prestige they demand: a commitment by Beijing and New Delhi that they will accept the key rules of the global game.