Post-American World (Not)

Remember all that talk about how the Libya intervention -- sanctioned by the U.N. and carried out by NATO -- was emblematic of the dissipation of U.S. hegemony and the capability of other actors to pick up the slack? "Lead from behind" and all that? I pushed back against that talk at the time (here's one example and here are others), and it now appears that NATO's on my side:

Despite widespread praise in Western capitals for NATO’s leadership of the air campaign in Libya, a confidential NATO assessment paints a sobering portrait of the alliance’s ability to carry out such campaigns without significant support from the United States. 

The report concluded that the allies struggled to share crucial target information, lacked specialized planners and analysts, and overly relied on the United States for reconnaissance and refueling aircraft.

The findings undercut the idea that the intervention was a model operation and that NATO could effectively carry out a more complicated campaign in Syria without relying disproportionately on the United States military. ... 

The report also spotlights an important issue for the alliance that dates to the Balkan wars of the 1990s: that the United States has emerged “by default” as the NATO specialist in providing precision-guided munitions — which made up virtually all of the 7,700 bombs and missiles dropped or fired on Libya — and a vast majority of specialized aircraft that conduct aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, or I.S.R. in military parlance.

“NATO remains overly reliant on a single ally to provide I.S.R. collection capabilities that are essential to the commander,” the report said.

Etc.

UNC Everywhere

UNC poli sci Prof Andy Reynolds has an informed op-ed on the challenges facing Libya in the News & Observer.

ht: Layna

UNC Everywhere

UNC Poli Sci Prof Graeme Robertson has a nice article in FP on the politics of dictatorship and revolutions. I have a few minor quibbles, but in general it's very good (and he knows much more about this than me, so my quibbles are likely wrong). Those interested in the Mideast revolutions, or the politics of authoritarianism, will likely learn a thing or two from it. For more depth, see his recent book (but maybe wait for the cheaper paperback release).

What Libya Tells Us About American Hegemony

Lawrence Kaplan has a nice short piece in TNR that speaks to the debate between John Quiggin and I regarding America's power. There are lots of quotable bits, but you should read the whole thing so I'll only offer one:

Regardless of his own inclinations, President Obama has been presented with successive crises to which he has been obliged, kicking and screaming, to respond. The United Nations has not been able to. Europe has not been able to. Either the United States will respond, or no one will.

Hegemony and the Middle East

John Quiggin has continued his IR/foreign policy commentary, and I continue to generally disagree with his take, but I think I can finally pinpoint why. Take this:

The approach taken by the Administration [in Yemen] has been broadly consistent with that adopted in relation to Mubarak in Egypt. The Administration initially supported Mubarak’s proposal to stay in power and implement reforms, then shifted to the idea of replacing Mubarak with someone like … who could be trusted to pursue the same policies. When that became untenable, the Administration supported a transitional military government with elections to follow, and this outcome looks sustainable at present. [Maybe not. -wkw] However, there’s no guarantee that the government produced by elections will be as pliable as Mubarak’s, particularly in relation to Israel.

These developments don’t fit well with claims about continued US hegemony, at least if hegemony is supposed to entail a capacity to control outcomes. Obviously, the US is not a negligible player, and its change of side will probably hasten Saleh’s departure. On the other hand, the US changed sides only when it became clear it would be on the losing side otherwise. So, its position might affect the timing and consequences of Saleh’s fall, but it wasn’t decisive in bringing it about.

Given the content of this post, as well as previous entries, Quiggin seems to equate hegemony with something approaching omnipotence. E.g., the U.S. is no longer a hegemon because it can't pacify Iraq, or can't drive Airbus out of the market, or reacts to world developments rather than charting its own course and forcing everyone else to go along without a fuss.

The problem with this is that Quiggin has continuously phrased his argument as "U.S. decline has already occurred" or "U.S. is now just another state" or "U.S. has lost its hegemony". He believes that the U.S. used to be a hegemon, but now is not. But I can't think of the period in which the U.S. had unlimited capacity to do whatever it wanted without regard for anyone else. The types of examples he's given as evidence of the limits of current U.S. power -- trouble controlling local populations, regional satellite governments refusing to do D.C.'s every bidding, U.S. corporations facing strong competition globally -- have fairly clear analogues throughout post-WWII history. The U.S. had trouble pacifying Korea and Vietnam, couldn't keep the lid on Iran, was never able to cast aside Castro. Several of the U.S.'s major industries in the 1950s -- such as United Fruit -- lost dominance by the 1970s. The major industries of the 1960s -- the rust belt industries -- lost market share by the 1980s. So when was this time when the U.S. got everything it wanted, just how it liked it?

I think Quiggin may be overestimating just what "hegemony" really implies. It is not absolute power. Some theorists of hegemony refer to a "preponderence of power" that is exercised (largely) through indirect means (to distinguish from empire). Kindleberger referred to a hegemon's ability to stabilize the international system, not dominate it. In any case, it is a continuous rather than dichotomous measure. Quiggin has argued that hegemony, in the American case, requires authoritarianism in the periphery as a means of control. This is the very nearly the opposite of what most recent theorists of hegemony contend. Instead, the "American order" is predicated on the diffusion of liberal norms -- broadly defined, but generally including relatively open, but mixed, economies and representative governments -- throughout the international system, buttressed by a collection of multilateral institutions and a strong U.S. military with a global reach.* In other words, it's a hegemony of consensus rather than brute force, but force can be used if the consensus breaks down.** To the extent that this consensus-based system reinforces the values that the United States prefers, it isn't pushing things too far to attribute its persistence to U.S. hegemony. Indeed, much of what the U.S. wanted (and got) since WWII is not directly unobservable. I.e., the U.S. rehabilitated Japan and Germany and re-integrated them into the international system without much controversy. There have been no major power wars since 1945, and before you say "that's because of nuke deterrence" remember who it was that was doing the deterring. As always, counterfactuals are hard, but mainstream IR theorists from most ideological traditions tend to agree that the U.S. has had a stabilizing influence on the international system. Therefore, if you go with Kindleberger's definition -- hegemon as stabilizer -- rather than Quiggin's -- hegemon as dominator -- you end up with different interpretations of both the motivations and results of the U.S.'s behavior.

Of course there have been moments where the U.S. has had to choose between values: either open markets, or representative government. In many of the cases, i.e. where it has had no large interests, the U.S. has not directly intervened. In other cases, particularly at the height of the Cold War, it's chosen markets over democracy. The type of action that the U.S. has taken to reinforce open markets has ranged from force intervention (the removal of Mossaddegh in favor of Pahlavi, and Allende for Pinochet) to diplomacy (China) depending on the situation. Since the 1980s there's been something of a reversal: the U.S. has preferred accommodation to force when promoting market openness, and has used force to push political reform. Interventions into Somalia, the Balkans, and Afghanistan were clearly not for material reasons, and I think the case that the Iraq invasion was motivated primarily by economic interests is remarkably weak. This shift, I'd argue, is a response to the collapse of the Soviet alternative, which effectively removed the primary rationale for realpolitik in the promotion of American economic values, which left the liberal political values as what needed spreading.

Quiggin hones in on what may be the exception: the Middle East and N. Africa. It's true that American policy there is closer to its Cold War pattern of supporting authoritarians so long as they're willing to keep markets open and not exacerbate security dilemmas. For example, American policy towards Egypt has long been conditioned by Suez Canal politics, as well as Egypt's stance towards Israel. But there has been another component for at least a few decades: try to use American support as a moderating influence on regimes. In Libya, that meant buying off Gaddafi's nuclear program. In Pakistan, that's meant trying to prevent a full-on military/ISI takeover, and dismantling AQ Khan's proliferation network. In numerous countries it's meant limiting belligerence directed at Israel. We might question how successful all of these have been, but in each case there's both a logic to the U.S.'s behavior and most likely some tangible gains from them.

Which leads me to Quiggin's conclusion:

Now let’s do what game theorists call backward induction. The crisis in the Arab world has shown that, when push comes to shove in the form of a popular revolt, the US state will have no choice but to leave friendly dictators to their fate. But, if that’s the case then a rationally self-interested US state would not commit significant (military, financial or political-credibility) resources to backing those dictators in the first place, since the benefits are likely to prove transitory. So, even if the current wave of revolts peter out leaving some of the autocracies in place, it would make good sense for the US state to disengage from them.

This only works if Quiggin is correct that the maintenance of authoritarian regimes is the ultimate U.S. goal. But, as should be clear, I see no reason to think that's the case. It seems to me that the U.S.'s $2bn/year or so of aid to Egypt was worth it, as it lessened security dilemmas between Israel and Egypt and gave the U.S. some leverage over the Egyptian military when it was not clear whether they'd support Mubarak or the protestors.*** Similarly, U.S. aid to Libya convinced Gaddafi to abandon his nuclear program; can you imagine the situation there now if Gaddafi had been able to weaponize nuclear material? Saudi Arabia has similarly learned to live with Israel because it gets rich off of the U.S. In other words, there are a range of intermediate interests besides "preserve authoritarianism" that might make U.S. engagement with authoritarian regimes rational. That does not mean that the U.S. prefers those regimes in all cases (although it might in some); instead it means that hegemony always comes with constraints, so some interests are given priority over others.

*Once again, I'd refer Quiggin to Ikenberry's After Victory.

**There's a long line of thought related to this -- from Gramsci to McCloskey outside of IR, and including Ruggie and Gilpin and many others within IR -- and Quiggin himself seems to endorse a variant of it in his "Fukuyama, F*** Yeah!" post.

***How much leverage is not clear. I suspect we'll learn much more about this in the coming years. But surely the answer is "more than Obama would've had if the military didn't rely on the U.S. government for ~ 25% of its funding".

Mysteries of the Universe

Matt Taibbi asks a good question:

Why, I wondered, would the Federal Reserve be giving Muammar Qaddafi $26 billion in near-zero interest loans?

I have no idea.

More on Libya and the U.S.

Phil Arena adds to my recent posts on Libya, social science, and (non) American decline. All of his points are great. Better than mine. The key takeaway is that it's really important to think about political motivations, not just optics. And when you do that, it's pretty clear that the political story is much more interesting than "U.S. in decline" or "France is taking control" or whatever other narrative you're seeing.

FYI

For anyone interested in reading about the organizational politics of NATO's intervention into Libya, Steve Saideman's your guy. See, e.g., this post on who has influence in NATO decision-making, which concludes:

Handy tip--keep track of the number of sorties (each individual plane flying a mission related to the campaign--bombers, fighters, early warning, coordinators, refuelers). As long as the number is near or over 100, the concept of the Americans turning the mission over to the Europeans is much more symbolic than not.

The Post-American World? Not Yet.

Let's see what Peter Beinart has to say about Libya:

Some commentators love the Libya war; others hate it. But most agree that it’s profoundly unnatural that we were pushed into it by… France. Welcome to the post-American world.

Oh, my. An inauspicious beginning. Does it get any better?

America’s fiscal condition is terrifying and the Pentagon is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, trying to stay out of one with Iran, and keeping one eye on a rising China. I don’t know what it took to convince an obviously reluctant Robert Gates to permit American involvement in the Libyan no-fly zone, but it’s a reasonable bet that had Barack Obama not been able to promise that it would be a mostly European affair, Gates would now be a military analyst on Fox News.

Not so far. Dare I peek ahead?

So Obama is trying to do it on the sly, to reduce the costs of American foreign policy without reining in our ambition. In Afghanistan, he’s moving inexorably toward greater reliance on drones—just as Nixon turned to air power in the latter stages of Vietnam—because it’s cheaper in blood and treasure. And he’s trying to burden-share, just as Nixon tried to get regional allies like South Vietnam and the shah’s Iran to do more of the work of containing the USSR. The Libya operation is a good example of this. The White House’s humanitarian hawks don’t want a Srebrenica on their watch, but they know they need other countries to bear more of the load. Enter Nicolas Sarkozy.

Wait a second. Did using air power in Vietnam signal the "post-American world"? How about getting regional allies to help contain the USSR (whatever that means)? It seems like Beinart is abandoning his argument several paragraphs after he's made it.

What to make of this. Let's do some mental exercises to consider the plausible explanations for the patterns of foreign intervention in Libya. One is what Beinart has suggested: the US is being bullied by France into intervention, and the US's role in international affairs is now effectively over. That's one possibility. Another possibility is that Obama -- motivated perhaps by his advisors Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton, all of whom learned a lot from Bosnia/Kosovo and Rwanda -- wants to avoid another Srebrenica but isn't sure he has the domestic support for more interventions (although non-Rasmussan polls show more support for intervention), especially in the recalcitrant Congress. He also doesn't want to jeopardize the improved view of the U.S. (and himself personally) around the world, where citizens now approve of U.S.'s policy more than all other major powers.

How might he achieve that goal? Well, to appease domestic audiences he could push for other countries to share more of the costs of intervention, as well as let them make the loudest noises in favor of intervention. Enter Sarkozy. To get those countries to share more of the costs, he can give them some symbolic concessions -- like letting a Canadian head up the NATO command -- despite the fact that operations have been coordinated at US/NATO bases in Germany and Naples, Italy. To keep international approval high, he could push for UN and Arab League support for intervention rather than building an ad hoc coalition. To appease Congress he can frame this as a UN operation, rather than a US operation, and can point to the fact that no US troops will be in harm's way and the costs will be shared.

In other words, Obama can try to satisfy multiple audiences by working through the UN, NATO, and other allies. Does that mean the US's influence is waning? Maybe. But consider that the transition of operations to NATO is a victory for Obama. In the early days of the conflict, the U.S. flew the majority of sorties ("well more than half"). I read somewhere (but can't find the link now) that of the first 124 Tomahawk missiles fired by coalition forces, 122 of them came from the U.S. The other two were British. The French moved their aircraft carrier off the coast of Libya three days ago; the U.S. has had a carrier there since February. (The U.K. doesn't have any carriers to mobilize, although this is probably a rational choice.) The U.S., not NATO, is still conducting the airstrikes that protect civilians; NATO is just enforcing the no-fly zone, which is perhaps less difficult.

What does all this mean? It means that, in this particular case, Obama had a lot of reasons for letting Sarkozy speak the loudest. He had a lot of reasons for getting the UN and Arab League on board. He had a lot of reasons for pushing for other NATO members to share the costs of interventions. But that just demonstrates that he's politically savvy. Much of the heavy-lifting is still being done by the US, and that is likely to continue, although the Obama administration has made it clear that it wants to transition more of the costs onto France and the rest of NATO in the coming days. (Of course that, too, could be taken as evidence of the US's influence, although that's certainly not the only explanation.)

But there's no way to say that this represents the end of US influence. Instead, it's important to look at the political dynamics: Obama's domestic constraints, his desire to appease foreign as well as domestic audiences, and his wish to shift the costs of intervention onto others. It's a pretty clever play by Obama.

"Social science and the Libyan adventure", Rebutted

This post from Stephen Walt obfuscates some things:

Before France, Britain, and the United States stumbled into its current attempt to dislodge Muammar al-Qaddafi from power in Libya -- and let's not kid ourselves, that's what they are trying to do -- did anyone bother to ask what recent social science tells us about the likely results of our intervention?

I doubt it, because recent research suggests that we are likely to be disappointed by the outcome.

He then surveys some of the high points of the literature. The basic takeaway is:

We should all hope that Libya proves to be an exception to this tendency, but these various scholarly studies suggest that the probability that our intervention will yield a stable democracy is low, and that our decision to intervene has increased the likelihood of civil war. Heading off that possibility is likely to require a costly and extended international commitment, which is precisely what the people who launched this operation promised they would not do. We'll see.

What's the difference between those two claims? In the first, Walt alleges that the goal is to remove Gaddafi. In the second, he claims the goal is to establish democracy. Meanwhile, UN/NATO claims the goal of the intervention is to protect civilians, although it certainly hasn't hid its preference for a Gaddafi-free Libya. These goals are hardly the same, and some may be more achievable than others. So what is likely?*

As Walt says, those hoping for the UN/NATO intervention to provide a clear path to democracy are likely to be disappointed. The Downs/Bueno de Mesquita (2006) paper (ungated) that Walt mentions is a classic study. But that is not a stated goal of either NATO or the UN. Sarkozy, Cameron, and Obama may like to see a democracy in Libya, and they'll certainly pay some lip service to democracy over the coming months, but the primary goal is to stop the killing of civilians and the secondary goal is the removal of Gaddafi. This is evidenced by the fact that the intervention only occurred after Gaddafi started killing civilians. So while the installation of a liberal, secular democracy might be the ideal outcome, the coalition leaders may be willing to accept something less than that.

I haven't carefully read the study by Downes that Walt mentions, but it seems to not quite say what Walt thinks it says. It's an analysis of "foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC)" that concludes that the likelihood of civil war onset increases following FIRC. But in Libya there is already a civil war underway, so if Gaddafi falls, it really can't be considered a "foreign-imposed" overthrow in the sense Downes appears to be describing. Indeed, the intervention is a response to the civil conflict that is already underway, and appears to be largely intended to tip the scales in favor of the rebels.

So what we should be doing is asking what the literature has to say about interventions into civil wars. I'm not super-up on this literature, but Andrew Kydd wrote a survey of it in the most recent Annual Review of Political Science. (Sorry, I don't see an ungated version.) He draws a distinction in the academic literature between conflict prevention and conflict resolution, and says that third parties can affect civil conflicts through material incentives (including military intervention) and information provision. At this point I think we can agree that we're past the "prevention" possibility, and the UN/NATO intervention is probably more about material support than information revelation, so let's hone in on those corners of the literature.

The first thing that intervention can do is dramatically change the costs of fighting. If this cost-increase is large enough that it will off-set any benefits from continuing to fight (Kydd says this "expand(s) the bargaining space", sorry SBD), then conflict resolution may become more likely. Centinyan (2002) finds that the threat of intervention does not affect the probability of conflict, only the terms of the bargaining process. Favretto (2009) argues that the effect is nonmonotonic: highly-biased and unbiased third-party interveners can help the warring factions reach a settlement, while weakly-biased interveners exacerbate the situation. Regan (2002) finds that biased interventions shorten the length of conflict, by altering the costs associated with continuing to fight. Collier, Hoeffler, and Soderbom (2004) find that rebel-biased interventions shorten the duration of civil conflicts. Thyne (2009) finds that UN interventions likely do not lengthen the duration of conflict. Gent (2008) argues that interventions are not about the duration of conflict, but about the outcome of it, and finds that third-party interveners do effect these outcomes.

With the caveat that this is bit out of my realm of expertise, what does this literature sum to? Third-party interventions are often able to successfully shorten the duration of the civil conflict, and to alter the outcome of it. These effects are most pronounced when the interveners are biased in favor of one of the sides in the conflict. So to the extent that the UN/NATO intervention in Libya is interested in both shortening the conflict and advantaging the rebels seeking overthrow Gaddafi, there is reason to be optimistic that they'll be successful. To the extent that the UN/NATO interveners are primarily concerned with installing a democratic regime after the conflict is over, there is less cause for optimism.

In other words, Walt is only correct about his view of the likely outcomes if he's correct that the interveners are primarily concerned with promoting democracy, as opposed to other goals. But I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption, especially coming from an unreconstructed realist, since normative concerns like democracy-promotion are assumed to be irrelevant for states' foreign policies.

*Of course, the preferences of the U.S., U.K., and France may not be same, and other NATO and UN members might have other interests as well. UNC's Stephen Gent has explored this relationship in his research. See here, e.g.

UPDATE: This post by Saideman, and this one by Carvin, say a lot of good stuff about politics of the UN/NATO mandate and command structure.