Pax Americana: Why the world needs the US to stay true to its ideals

The world needs an America worthy of its ideals, because the alternative could be brutal authoritarianism

The Case for American Power

by Shadi Hamid

Published by

Simon & Schuster

241 pages $28 

For some, patriotism often evokes criticism, frustration and feelings of betrayal about the state of affairs in their country. These expressions are an honest way of seeking course corrections. The acclaimed author Shadi Hamid makes a provocative case for why America, despite its many flaws, remains the best hope for the world. This self-critical book raises the most fundamental question facing the United States today: How it should think about the power it has and regain its moral purpose in a world beset by tragedy.

 

Mr Hamid’s years of experience at the Washington Post have lent him a unique perspective on America’s foreign policy, as both an American and a Muslim coming of age in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks. His book confronts head-on America’s failures, contradictions and resilience.

 

American cynics view the 9/11 attacks as a culmination in the disastrous decision to invade Iraq. Like many critics, Mr Hamid, too, disagrees with several of America’s foreign policy decisions, including the Vietnam War, the misadventure in Afghanistan and missteps in West Asia. These misjudgments have, however, been framed as the fulfilment of patriotic duty rather than its negation, disregarding the erosion of America’s moral fortitude. Notwithstanding these blunders, Mr Hamid argues that Pax Americana has been — on balance — good for the world after World War II because it avoided a total war. The justification for the use of force by America for the greater good and peace seems to resonate with the Machiavellian tenet that “the ends justify the means” and the Hobbesian acclamation of individuals willing to surrender their rights to an absolute authority — the Leviathan — in exchange for security and order.

 

However, the construct of a unipolar world led by America in the 21st century has serious limitations, which the author seems to have overlooked. Growing multi-polarity driven largely by emerging economies is a major balancing force in world politics today; the negotiating approach is mostly based on trust, tactics and consent rather than dictum; and the rapid rise of China’s economic might and technological prowess is, demonstrably, circumscribing America’s global leadership role. Countries of the Global South are courting alternatives forums such as Brics and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to amplify their voices and seek solutions for their problems. American political scientist Joseph Samuel Nye Jr, who famously defined “soft power”, aptly captured this evolving dynamic in international relations by underlining that “political power is a

 

shared power”.

 

The author is a die-hard democrat and goes on to contrast its merits with the demerits of autocracy. The sense of accountability to their electorates in democratic countries is said to be the reason that wars do not escalate beyond a point, he reasons. The political theorist David Runciman argues that democracy is better aligned with human nature, while autocracy is misaligned with their own people, even under enlightened despotism. The US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, an expert on Russia, aptly captured this dynamic: “The longer a democratic regime survives, the less likely it will collapse while the longer an autocracy survives, the more likely it will collapse.” Mr Hamid harnesses this logic to reiterate that the sort of full democracy that exists in America makes it resilient. The 19th century diplomat and historian Alexis de Tocqueville grasped its essence to highlight the importance of people believing in democracy for it to be successful.

 

The long history of American hypocrisy, according to Noam Chomsky, is the gap between words and deeds. The self-contempt, known as Oikophobia, cast long shadows on American policies. In West Asia, America projects the rhetoric of freedom and democracy but behind its efforts for peace in the region it only seeks to remove potentially existential threats to Israel. Ukraine is said to be simply a pawn in America’s imperial designs that deliberately encouraged the eastward expansion of Nato, even as the current president condemns Russian invasion as a criminal war of aggression.

 

The author recognises these hypocrisies and argues that they should serve as a constant reminder of America’s unfulfilled commitments towards the very ideals it claims to cherish. Mr Hamid’s defence of immigration, rooted in the belief that it induces economic resilience and strengthens democracy, is refreshing, given the rising aversion to immigrants in America.

 

Progress depends on human agency, where individual choices, accumulating over time, shape outcomes. In a corrupting power, the collective will of people acts as checks and balances and this intrinsic trait in the American polity, Mr Hamid believes, will help to reshape and redirect America when circumstances demand. The alternative to America could be brutal authoritarianism that can stifle peoples’ potential and aspirations, he warns. Predictably, therefore, open societies are better able to manage their challenges.

 

Mr Hamid wants the readers to understand America’s past as intertwined in a certain cyclical logic of success and failures. In this intensely personal book, Mr Hamid wills himself to optimism, realism, and calls for an America worthy of its ideals.

         

The reviewer is a retired IFS officer