Navigating the Shadows: An Exploration of Global Power Dynamics, Liberal Hegemony, and the Thucydides Trap
For centuries, the looming darkness has signalled an elevated threat, providing cover for disorderly and immoral practices. The anxieties it brought forth led to the formation of a night watch in the 13th century, establishing rules for those venturing into the streets after dark.
Eight centuries from the inception of the night watchman in London, and we find the resurgence of the concept, now on a global scale. The idea of a “global night watchman” has re-emerged, this time as a principled enforcer in service of the democratic world order, with the aim of preserving American pre-eminence in the 21st century as a U.S. national security strategy. In the words of the éminence grise Henry Kissinger, the United States persistently depicts its foreign interventions as manifestations of its manifest destiny to reshape the world in its own image, as a free, democratic, capitalist society.
Centuries prior, Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian, chronicled the Peloponnesian War, emphasizing the rise of Athens and the fear it instilled in Sparta, leading to an inevitable and devastating conflict between the two leading city-states. Graham Allison later coined the term “The Thucydides Trap,” warning of the dangers when a rising power challenges an arrogant hegemonic power—lessons applicable to the contemporary great power competition between the U.S. and China.
In our present-day “sleepwalking” environment, the notion of the U.S. as the self-appointed “Night Watchman” resonates with conservative, libertarian, and liberal interventionists. These ideologies, which drove Wilsonian excesses in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, have returned with a focus on confronting and defeating Russia and China, seemingly indifferent to the potential long-term risks and consequences.
The ideological fault lines shaping global power dynamics reflect opposing beliefs and national interests. Secretary of State James Byrnes acknowledged late 1945 the vast differences in ideologies between the U.S. and Russia, making long-term cooperation challenging. Realist diplomat George F. Kennan, the architect of containment, advocated for either the breakup or mellowing of Soviet power.
As a political realist, I find myself at odds with my conservative and liberal counterparts who seek to turn Russia into a geopolitical Chernobyl, underestimating the anarchic nature of international relations and overstating the value of Western hegemony. Rejecting Kissinger’s realism and embracing 20th-century Wilsonian crusaderism, they veer away from principles of coexistence, exposing the world to an endless flow of unnecessary troubles.
Divergent worldviews—realist versus idealist/institutional—shape foreign policy decisions. While I, a classical laissez-faire liberal, appreciate the international liberal order based on individual freedom, open trade, democratic governance, human rights, collective security, international institutions, and the rule of law, I recognize its flaws and shallow nature. The 2003 Iraq War discredited liberal institutionalism, in a world calling for more Clausewitzian realism, prudence, and restraint.
Acknowledging the influence of Western political thought, I also respect alternative forms and interpretations from ancient China, India, and Islamic political philosophy, accepting the existence of societies with conservative and arbitrary power. In our complex and adversarial world, I advocate for more realism, balance, and moderation in foreign policy strategies, urging cooperation, compromise, and accommodation of diverse value systems in order to restore the global equilibrium.
As a Thucydidean realist, my views clash with the optimism of conservative and liberal circles, who envision a world as an ideological and moral battlefield. Their pursuit of conflict, sanctions, and regime change strategies rests on the belief in a benign, peaceful, and democratic world order—an order challenged by the reality of authoritarianism’s viability.
Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” envisioned a universal homogeneous state under liberal democracy, but time has proven unkind to such suppositions. Authoritarianism has emerged as a viable alternative, leading to a global retreat of democracy, as highlighted in Freedom House’s 2023 report.
Democracy in our polarized Western societies faces internal challenges, with weakening institutions and rising inequality. Though inequality has persisted through the ages, the concentration of wealth, periodically addressed through violent or peaceable redistribution, remains a natural and inevitable facet of our political history.
On the other side of the pond, American democracy exhibits significant social and economic weaknesses, mirroring the challenges faced by democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Issues such as freedom of the press and judicial independence hardly paint a success story or warrant celebration. Similarly, capitalism, with its negative side effects, is entering a new economic paradigm marked by increasing social inequality. Acknowledging these societal tensions, recalibrating capitalism becomes imperative to achieve a fair and balanced society.
While liberal democracy boasts numerous virtues within national boundaries, its efficacy in the global multipolar arena is questionable. Diverse worldviews, rooted in different domestic orders, complicate the functionality of the free liberal order. The alignment of human rights with national rights varies, and priorities among nation-states differ. Advancing liberal democracy globally is a commendable goal for a safer, more peaceful, and prosperous world. However, its implementation has proven exceedingly challenging and is more prone to failure than success.
The European global hegemony that took root in the 15th century, driven by commercial interests and competition among nations, led to a continuous flow of conflict and war between major powers. This upward spiral of economic growth and military effectiveness propelled European societies ahead of the rest of the world, bringing prosperity to great powers such as Spain, the Netherlands, France, the British Empire, and now the United States.
However, the term “defending democracy” may be more self-serving than altruistic, primarily aimed at preserving Western hegemony and safeguarding democracies’ economic interests rather than extending political rights and freedoms worldwide. The costs of “liberal hegemony” are escalating, with consultation giving way to confrontation and illegitimate interference in the internal affairs of other states.
The intrusive actions of the liberal hegemon, often perceived as an 800-pound gorilla, an overstretched superpower, under the guise of promoting democracy, frequently stirs up international relations, leading to a hornets’ nest of conflicts. The age-old illusion that peace can be achieved through the conversion of adversaries initiates a cycle of encirclement, ideological subversion, regime change strategies, sanctions, geopolitical isolation, and war. This erodes the cornerstone of international law—state sovereignty—established in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
The concept of state sovereignty, established in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, proclaimed the full territorial sovereignty of member states and the inviolability of their territorial integrity and political independence. However, in our interconnected modern world, the principle of national sovereignty is evolving from absolute freedom to a relative concept limited by other states and international law.
Since the 1950s, flawed interventions by the hegemon have resulted in election meddling, regime change attempts, and endless wars, from Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, serving the insatiable appetite of the American war economy.
Remarkably, the European Union aligns itself with the American rhythm of conflict, following the wrong strategic lens, an American lens instead of a European one. This adherence to a Western hegemonic viewpoint emphasizes the necessity for enforcing non-negotiable rules in the so-called rule-based order.
The argument supporting the enforcement of rules is based on the belief that failing to enforce rules undermines the rule-based order. However, the efficacy of force, while temporarily conquering, does not legitimize itself. While desiring a perfect world is reasonable and imaginable, achieving it appears unlikely due to the inherent imperfections, egoism, and self-interest of human beings, especially in an anarchic world with diverse cultures and ideologies.
Interventionists argue that the U.S., as the “night watchman,” can insist on compliance with the “rules-based order” to maintain the modern world. This argument ignores the shift from a unipolar to a multi-polar world after the Cold War, as highlighted by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The interventionist stance rests on the premise that “might” decides the day, emphasizing the need for a night watchman or a Hobbesian “Leviathan” to crush opposition.
However, this argument exhibits hypocrisy and a self-serving approach to multilateralism and international law. The tensions between Liberalism, Nationalism, and Realism challenge the existence of a universal truth or global order. Remaking foreign nations in a Western liberal image is akin to a utopia, requiring a fundamental change in the nature, way of life, and beliefs of their citizens.
As scholar John J Mearsheimer notes in “The Great Delusion,” liberal hegemony leads to endless wars, advocating for a strategy of restraint based on balance of power politics. Despite aspirations for a new world order to secure “global justice,” such ideas have perished in previous generations, and interference in other countries’ affairs remains a longstanding practice.
The erosion of sovereignty and a self-serving approach to international law become apparent, challenging the principles of non-interference. President Joe Biden’s pursuit of a struggle between “democracy” and “authoritarianism” risks plunging into the Thucydides Trap, potentially sparking a suicidal war with China and Russia—a conflict with no victor and catastrophic consequences for humanity, with the potential for humanity’s evisceration.
Netherlands, WJJH – 14.1.2024
Diatribe: Navigating the Shadows: An Exploration of Global Power Dynamics, Liberal Hegemony, and the Thucydides Trap? Living in a complicated and adversarial world. A world in need for more realism, balance, and moderation in foreign policy strategies, with less arrogance and export of values in order to find more acceptable and subtle ways to cooperate, compromise and accommodate the multiple value systems to restore the global equilibrium.
In what kind of world do we wish to live 