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A casual observer of international affairs, perhaps even the common city pedestrian, would recognize the United States of America as the most powerful nation on earth—perhaps even throughout history. Power is a multifaceted concept. It is both abstract and actual. Whether you describe the United States' power colloquially or canonically, it is a challenging task to deny its current supremacy.
The United States has the world’s most powerful military, by far. A military that’s paramount goal is readiness; it is exorbitantly funded by the state and has over 500 known bases in all corners of the world. Its objective is to, hypothetically, be able to fight three different conventional wars, concurrently.
In addition to the overt display of military prowess, the United States. holds the steering wheel to global finance and international economics. It is the world’s financial capital and controls the world’s paramount currency—i.e. the dollar’s momentary hegemony. The United States’ international preeminence extends beyond the conventional measurements of power. The state has amassed a cultural presence that permeates throughout the western world, even influencing states thought to be culturally incompatible with American values.
Though, the United States has not always held this position at the top; in fact, it has only held its international supremacy for the past few decades. Throughout its history, the United States was like every other state either pursuing its preservation or jostling for power.
John Quincy Adams and the geniuses of U.S. Foreign Policy:
At the birth of the United States, prominent statesmen like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams sought to maintain the republic they had just fought a war to earn. So, in addition to introducing an unprecedented democratic constitution, they aimed to establish an enduring sentiment towards national security and foreign policy.
In the infant years of the United State, the 6th President and 8th Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, remarked in the famous Monroe Doctrine that “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all.” When John Quincy Adams shared these remarks, The United States was a different country, within a different geopolitical landscape, then it is now. His aim in this remark was to tell the world, then, that America acts as an example to all. It sought to show a world ruled by autocrats with unilateral authority that an authentic democratic nation can prevail and prosper (Edel, 2013).
The Founding fathers knew that America was a project for progress. America, as a government ruled by its citizens and not its king, needed to succeed for the ideas of democracy and freedom—ideas which were the impetus for the revolution—to promulgate to Europe and the rest of the world (Edel, 2013). They aspired to practice and showcase the philosophical ideas of the enlightenment; to prove that free men can cooperate with one another to govern themselves, instead of being unilaterally ruled by one man or family. Or as John Quincy Adams states: “…She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all.”
In the decades that followed the American Revolution and the advent of the new republic, the United States was a fragile power. One that was tenuously held together by the week union of competing states (sub-states) that continued to act as independent nations. At this time, the United States’ economic model centered around the production of the agriculture.
The founding fathers and early statesmen of the republic knew that the United States was not, yet, ready to compete on the world stage. So, they set to establish a foreign policy of isolationism. They wanted to protect their young nation so it would endure while it matured. They understood that domestic industry needed ample time to ripen and strengthen before allowing foreign completion. Furthermore, the nation had just exited a war and did not possess a portion of the military prowess needed to challenge a European power. Moreover, they did not want powerful states abroad interfering in domestic governing, consequently impeding America’s maturity. They deeply wanted to avoid becoming a vassal state of Europe.
The early foreign policy introduced by statesmen like John Quincy Adams was one predicated on protection/isolationism and the distribution/projection of American values. As Adams implies, America was not looking to challenge nations abroad for power, instead, she sought to mature her infant nation; a nation based on democratic values. One that needed to prosper while championing these ideas so that it will act as an exemplar of freedom and democracy to the world.
Although, through the United States' short history, its sentiment towards national security and foreign policy has shifted from that one of preservation of the union as a paradigm of democracy, to one of expansion and the pursuit of power.
A World-scale opportunity to shift U.S. Foreign Policy:
As all nations do as they mature, America’s foreign policy diverted from its genesis and evolved. America went from an isolated nation protected by two oceans at its margins to the chief nation in an interconnected world. A nation with over 500 known military bases, multi-billion-dollar international corporations, and major multilateral trade deals.
The turning points in the United States’ foreign policy where it overtly changed course was the aftermath of the Second World War (WWII).
After its birth and before she entered the Second World War, the United Stated remained absent from the world stage and its conflicts. The United States did participate in the latter end of the First World War, but the nation chose to become even more isolated after the war’s conclusion. Before WWII, the United States’ paramount focus was to dominate its own continent, North American. Many of the conflicts the United States engaged in were motivated by either expansion (e.g., Manifest destiny, American-Spanish War, etc.) or preservation (e.g., Civil War and War of 1812); in all cases, it did not go abroad, across the oceans, to engage in conflicts or compete for power; or as John Quincy Adams says, “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy”.
Though, by entering WWII, the United States saw opportunity in the disarray created by monsters abroad. She looked abroad at the world’s most bloody conflict and observed how it had begun to reform the international structure and would alter the future’s course. The United States was an emerging power, and it saw a Europe tearing itself apart and a soon-to-be exhausted continent; it saw a weak Asian region in turmoil; it saw its former WW1 allies beginning to turn the tide of the war; in war, it saw a chance for increased productivity and economic growth. The United States saw the War as an opportunity for it to emerge as a global power. A power with the capability to curate the international order to its avail.
After the War’s conclusion, the United States was discerned as the chief state of the western world and an eminent global power, rivaled by none. It reigned as the victor of the bloody global contest. It had established itself as the supreme, lone, military power on earth by introducing and using two nuclear weapons in battle with Japan. The United States did not need to use nuclear warheads to defeat Japan--their defeat was inevitable—but by using the warheads, the United Stated had the opportunity to project power that would permeate the world and change the global dynamic forever.
Moreover, to add to their newly established military preeminence, the United States spearheaded the creation of the post-war (and current) global order and infrastructure. The disarray and devastation that followed the war gifted the United States the opportunity to steer and design the creation of our current intergovernmental organizations; organizations that act as the overarching infrastructure that tether nations to one another (e.g., United Nations, World Trade Organization, International Monterey Fund, etc.).
In the post-war creation of the current international infrastructure, the western powers, led by the United States, established a new global monetary system. Since the United States was the most powerful and stable nation that emerged from the war and had the majority of the global gold reserves (70%), The U.S. dollar (USD) emerged as the world’s reference currency: the United States and its allies agreed to Dollar-to-gold convertibility for all currencies—i.e., if any currency was converted to dollars, those dollars could be exchanged for a specific amount of gold. Therefore, the dollar became the global medium of exchange for international trade and international finance. Resulting in the United States acting as the de facto conductor of international economics (Bernanke, 2016).
Moreover, the United States’ economic clout and supremacy—as a result of the dollars’ hegemony—gifts it ample economic advantages. First and most import, a dollar with robust global demand allows the United States to continue printing dollars to fund exorbitant spending without risking serious inflation—as long as the demand keeps pace with the supply. This allows the United Sates to fund public spending on social services and its military--this economic practice is called exorbitant privilege (Bernanke, 2016).
Additionally, the dollars’ position as the global reference currency and a stable medium of exchange allows it to wield immense global economic power. The United States can sanction any nation by cutting off its access to USD; hence, cutting off—or at least damaging—a nation’s means of finance and/or trade. This ability to sanction nations is vital to US national security and foreign policy.
Additionally, the United States introduced trade deals with the depleted and/or defeated European states, and Japan, which established it as the nexus of international trade. This gifted the United States with cheap and seamless international trade and helped increase--and calcify--global demand for the dollar.
U.S. Foreign Policy of protecting its position:
Though, the international clout the United States advantageously gained from their victory of WW2, and the Cold War that followed with the Soviet Union, has begun to peter. On the international stage, the United States remains the supreme power and has for the past six decades, but the margins are closing and its shadow is shortening. States have begun to emerge and tug on the feet of the United States, aiming to pull it from the top.
This has placed the United States in a novel situation where its foreign policy and national security sentiment must evolve, again. The product of this evolution is an amalgamation of the two aforementioned foreign policy sentiments: i.e., protection and projection, then the pursuit of power through opportunity.
As all international observers know, China has emerged as a global power. A power that has begun to challenge and, even, rival the United States. Regarding both state’s military prowess, in comparison, the United States remains the dominant military state--by a comfortable margin. Though, when comparing both China and the United States’ economic position in the global hierarchy, both are nearly equal at the top: China has a national GDP of 14.4 trillion USD and the United States has a national GDP of 21.4 trillion USD (the next two largest national GDPs are Japan at 5 trillion USD and Germany at 3.8 trillion USD).
The increase in China’s international ambitions has been coupled with their economic rise. They have already begun to poke and challenge the United States' grip on the world stage. One matter that China looks to replicate the United States-- and eventually replace—is the its currency hegemony.
China had immensely benefited from its weak floating currency and cheap labor, but it is no longer advantageous. The population is beginning to age and demand a higher standard of living (i.e., wages). Furthermore, recent trade conflicts with the United States and the advent of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic slowed economic growth. China requires strong economic growth to continue their public spending on infrastructure (domestic and abroad) and the coming increase of social spending for their aged population.
Where their weak currency once helped with exports, it’s disadvantageous for exorbitant public spending and growing public debt. Therefore, China aims to replicate the United States monetary hegemony, to gain all the auspicious benefits that follow--e.g., increase public spending and public debt without flirting with hyperinflation (Rapoza, 2016).
China has been attempting the increase the demand for their currency, the Yuan, by emulating what the United States did after WWII. They are using their ‘Belt and Road” initiative to dominate maritime trade and establish international unilateral-trade deals (commodities like oil included) where transactions take place in Yuan’s; hence, increasing its demand to create a strong equilibrium to its supply (Rapoza, 2016).
This monetary ambition by China alters the United States' foreign policy position. Now, the United States has adopted a foreign policy position of protection and projection: it is now projecting its ideals of freedom and democracy, while acting to protect the supremacy it gained from past opportunities. The United States and its allies reprimand the Chinas as an authoritarian state devoid of freedom and democracy, to impede the spread of its global clout. Since both nations are enormously tethered to each other—both states are essentially the fabric of the international order and economics—and the existence of nuclear weapons, neither state is willing to risk a direct conflict. So, each state indirectly tiptoes around the other to achieve its ambitions or protect its position (like the Greek Peloponnesian Wars).
Conclusion:
When John Quincy Adams delivered those remarks, The United States was an isolated and maturing nation. An infant nation that required growth if it was to fulfill the role its founders aspired it would. If it was to act as the hallmark example of a free and democratic government. The nation's foreign policy was predicated on this original aim; all national security matters were predicated on domestic strength and preservation of the republic.
Then the United Stated exited its policy of isolation and value projection to one of pushing international power through the opportunities the Second World War afforded.
Now, the United States has implemented a revised version of its original foreign policy, set by statesmen like John Quincy Adams. It champions its freedoms and democracy as a contrast to authoritarianism regimes (I.e., China and Russia) in order to achieve its objectives abroad and protect the power it had grasped through the past opportunities. To protect its current international supremacy.
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References:
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Bernanke, B. S. (2016, July 29). The dollar's international role: An "exorbitant privilege"? Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/.
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VisualPolitik. (2019, May 16). PETROYUAN, CHINA’s strategy to DEFEAT the DOLLAR. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCkXtMAeP5o.
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, January 22). Exorbitant privilege. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:49, December 11, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exorbitant_privilege&oldid=879669398
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