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Diplomatic doublethink

Shadi Hamid's argument for a world with the US as the sole hegemon is more confused than convincing

7 min read
Updated On: Jan 10 2026 | 6:00 AM IST
Abhinav Chakraborty
The Case for American Power By Shadi Hamid Simon & Schuster

The Case for American Power By Shadi Hamid published by Simon & Schuster

In the pilot episode of the brilliant but short-lived television drama The Newsroom (2010-12), upon being asked at a post-panel discussion why America was the greatest country in the world, the character of news anchor Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) launches into an angry rant about why it was no longer so, be it in terms of domestic politics or foreign policy. In the next act of the same episode, his executive producer MacKenzie McHale (played by Emily Mortimer) offers a stinging rebuttal to his earlier diatribe, saying that what made America great was its belief that it “can do better”, which she thought was in its DNA.
The Case for American Power, a new book by the academic and public intellectual Shadi Hamid, is very much in line with this brand of optimism. 
Neatly divided into eight chapters, each chapter of the book deals with one facet of the idea of American power. Hamid starts off by terming the attacks on September 11, 2001, an “accident of history”: one that changed the world forever. Right off the bat, he is upfront about his evolving relationship with American power: from protesting against the “endless wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq and feeling “betrayal” at the United States’ (US’) complicity in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza to becoming a reluctant advocate for “Pax Americana”. While he concedes that American power is no longer uncontested as it once was following the end of the Cold War, the world needs American dominance primarily because its only rival is a “brutal authoritarian regime that has only grown more brutal with time” — meaning China.
  Hamid then explores the idea of soft power. Although one would say that the most successful example of the US’ soft power would be its cultural and commercial exports, Hamid suggests it was in fact its form of democracy throughout the 20th century, given how even totalitarian regimes in countries such as North Korea and the Congo (formerly Zaire) slapped the “democratic” tag onto their official names.

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  In the chapter Decline, Hamid returns to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to point out how they loom large in narratives of the US’ decline. He contends that such “declinism” has been something of a national pastime for generations of Americans. He identifies the growing number of Americans losing faith in the idea of America as a “thorny problem” and then links this pessimism to the emerging phenomenon of “oikophobia” (fear or hatred of one’s own society), especially among progressives and supporters of the Democratic Party. This, he believes, is reflected in their dismissal of the US’ accomplishments while elevating those of less familiar societies such as China’s (and previously the Soviet Union during the Cold War).
  Moving on to democracy, Hamid goes back in time to point out how the US’ founders were not completely enamoured by it. In what is a critical examination of its limitations, the author admits that even when democratic governments, on average, perform better than non-democracies in terms of delivering economic outcomes, they can be chaotic and even demoralising, particularly in their early years. He also delves into the idea of the deep state in the popular imagination and the rise of anti-establishment, anti-elite figures in the form of Donald Trump, Brexit, and far-right or right-wing parties across Europe.
  Political elites often lament that people make “wrong choices” by voting for populists in a democracy, but they fail to understand why they do so in the first place. Hamid contends that populism serves as a necessary corrective to the failures of democratic life and an antidote to the elites growing indifferent to the concerns of ordinary citizens. At the risk of sounding counterintuitive, he writes that this has brought back sensitive issues such as immigration and national identity into the realm of everyday political discourse, something that ought to be the norm in functioning democracies. Cautioning against the tendency to lose faith in the American system when populist leaders get elected, he stresses the need to believe that democracy, despite its faults, was preferable to its alternatives.
  Hamid argues that democracies represent an existential threat for dictators — “an unacceptable reminder that there is another way”. According to him, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule had corrupted Russian society by distorting the inherent morality of those living under it. While looking at how experiments of “benevolent dictatorship” (such as Singapore) and “smart dictatorship” (China under the Communist Party rule) are often touted as successes on the basis of “performance legitimacy”, he posits that even though autocrats may produce better policy outcomes in the short run, their good judgment never seems to last over a longer period of time. This was evident in China’s zero-COVID approach to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic slowdown it experienced after years of continuous growth.
  In what reflects his intellectual honesty, Hamid dedicates his longest chapter to American hypocrisy in international affairs — and the list is indeed long. The story of American foreign policy, he writes, is that of the gap between what the US says and what it does, such as its wars in West Asia, where the country was sometimes “both the arsonist and the firefighter”. He is unsparing on the US’ role in the prolonged Israel-Palestine conflict as well, where he calls US policy since the Oslo peace process as the “perfect encapsulation of diplomatic doublespeak”.
  But he then turns his initial argument on its head by stating how hypocrisy was “an inevitable fact of living imperfectly” that allowed holding one to one’s sense of morality. He gives the example of Trump as US president, who has done away with any pretence whatsoever of what American values stand for, and whose mercantilist approach allows him to do business with autocrats without any compunctions. He wonders if this is a good thing, because it would mean giving up hope that the US can do and become better.
  There is no question that Hamid presents his case throughout the book clearly in terms that even lay readers would understand. However, when it comes to being coherent, his constant equivocation by presenting both sides of the broad questions he is tackling would perhaps leave readers more confused than convinced about his central argument. By his own admission, the author is conflicted about the role of the US in upholding a liberal democratic world order, given its Cold War track record of backing right-wing dictators and orchestrating a series of coups against democratically elected leaders in various countries, or its recent failures in West Asia, including the “moral stain” of Gaza.
  Indeed, it would be no surprise if those in the Global South were to prefer Trump’s honesty to the hypocrisy of his predecessors, even though Hamid’s assertion that such a “masks off” scenario makes a totalitarian society possible might have more truth to it than one realises. Although Trump’s re-election and subsequent actions in office (including a rather inward-looking National Security Strategy) have put a great deal of strain on the old ways of doing things, Hamid’s contention that democratic governments at the very least enable a peaceful alternation of power rings true, underlining the need to preserve them.
  At best, Hamid makes a strong case for placing faith in the democratic system, which does not always produce talented politicians but eventually boots them out of office. So, even as “benign” autocracies appear all the more tempting in moments of crisis, democracy remains the best bet, even if it is in a world which the US is unwilling to lead.
   
(The Case for American Power By Shadi Hamid Simon & Schuster; Pages: 256,  Price: ₹899. The next book that the Blueprint will feature: Great Power Games by Vikram Sood)
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Written By :

Abhinav Chakraborty

First Published: Jan 10 2026 | 6:00 AM IST

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