Old U.S. Allies Are Hedging Their Strategic Bets

Leon T. HadarJournalist and foreign affairs analyst

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December 13, 2009 05:33 PM

Share Print CommentsMuch of the recent pre-occupation of foreign
policy wonks in Washington has been on whether the preeminent
geo-strategic status of the United States will be challenged by China,
India and other emerging economies and by assertive and antagonistic
regional powers like Russia and Iran. The conventional wisdom among
pundits and experts has been that the international system is moving
beyond America’s post-Cold War unipolar "moment" and that a new
multi-polar structure will eventually emerge under which the United
States will have to contend with economic and military competition
from rising and aggressive powers. But according to the same
conventional wisdom, no dramatic changes in the global balance of
power would not take place until these powers, and in particular,
China, will have both the will and the capability to undermine
American hegemonic position.

After all, with U.S. defense expenditure now accounting for just under
half of the world total, not even a coalition of global powers has the
capacity to counter-balance America’s dominant military standing. At
the same time, while the recent financial crisis has eroded U.S.
economic power, the United States still has the largest and most
advanced economy in the world.

>From that perspective, those analysts warning of American global
decline aka "declinists" have been criticized for overstating what has
been seen as their idee fixe — the notion that American military and
economic power has been eroding since the end of the Cold War; and
that it may be reaching bottom now, in the aftermath of Iraq War and
the financial meltdown in Wall Street. As the anti-declinists see it,
while America’s economic growth has been overtaken by other powers
since the 1950’s, the reports about the decline and fall of the United
States have always been exaggerated. It ain’t going to happen any time
soon. And in any case, U.S. decline is not inevitable.

It is true that the declinists may have been crying wolf for too many
times in the past. But then, recall that the wolf did show-up at the
end of that story. The pestering declinists, like those annoying
hypochondriacs, may prove to be right — sooner or later, as
suggested by that tragic-comic inscription on the tombstone located in
the cemetery in Key West, Florida, "I Told You I Was Sick!"

But while the United States will not collapse with a bang a la Soviet
Union, a process of gradual waning of American power has been taking
place for a while, with the notion of a U.S. monopoly in the
international system being replaced with the concept of oligopoly of
great powers. The United States will cease being Number One and will
start playing the role of first among equals — or primus inter pares
— for some years to come. In fact, that process is already taking
place, and some of the governments that are sensing that America is
starting to lose its mojo include two staunch U.S. allies, Japan and
Turkey, whose leaders have been trying to adjust their policies to the
realities of the changing balance of power, as they hedge their
strategic bets and diversify their global portfolio in response to the
waning Pax Americana.

In Japan, the election defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),
which had ruled Japan for more than four decades, and the landslide
victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) led by Yukio
Hatoyama,has marked a peaceful revolution in that nation’s politics as
well as the start of a transformation in the relationship between
Tokyo and Washington and their 50-year-old bilateral security alliance
that had been established at the beginning of the Cold War.

In a way, both LDP’s electoral dominance and the security agreement
with the United States were seen as integral part of the same
anachronistic order created after World War II and under which Japan’s
political and economic system was controlled by an iron triangle
consisting of the LDP, the bureaucracy and big business while its
foreign policy was based on the alliance with Washington which obliged
the Japanese to comply with U.S. strategic dictates in exchange for an
American nuclear umbrella.

Notwithstanding the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S.-Japan
alliance — not unlike the Energizer Bunny — kept going and going and
going, as the two sides focused on new common threats, including China
and North Korea; for Washington, the status-quo helped perpetuate its
hegemony in Northeast Asia by maintaining its military presence, while
for the Japanese it permitted continuing the free-riding on American
military protection against China’s strengthening military might and
North Korean nuclear arms.

But China’s economic and military ascent at a time when United States
seemed be shifting its attention from East Asia, coupled with American
military blunders in the Middle East and the U.S.-made financial
crisis, has ignited a debate in Japan about whether the time may have
come to replace that nation’s traditional dependency on Washington
with a more Asian-oriented strategy that would place a new emphasis on
the relationship with China and the rest of Asia and help create the
foundations for an EU-type regional system (which may not include the
United States as a member). That view seemed to be shared by Hatoyama
and some of his advisors who decided to suspend an earlier agreement
to relocate American Marine bases on the island of Okinawa, a move
that ignited an angry response from the Pentagon and created a sense
that the special relationship between Washington and Tokyo may be
over.

Like Japan, Turkey was a leading strategic ally of the United States
during the Cold War. Turkey was not only an important member of NATO
but it also helped the Americans contain the threat from the Soviet
Union and its allies in the Middle East while maintaining close
military ties with Israel. And like in the case of U.S.-Japan
relationship, both Ankara and Washington seemed to be interested in
maintaining their alliance after the Cold War had ended. While the
Americans promised to assist Turkey in its efforts to join the
European Union (EU), Turkey expressed its willingness to cooperate
with the United States in containing the Islamic Republic of Iran and
other radical Islamist forces in the Middle East.

But dramatic political changes in Turkey in the form of the growing
influence of political Islamic movement that challenged Turkey’s
traditional secular and pro-Western orientation, and in particular,
the 2002 electoral victory of the Justice and Development Party
(AKP)that is committed to an Islamist ideology, seemed to be raising
doubts about the continuing viability of the U.S.-Turkey alliance
while the failure of Washington to help bring Turkey into the EU
played into the hands of those Turks who were questioning their
nation’s ties to the West.

But it was the Turkish decision not to support the American invasion
Iraq in 2003 and its refusal to allow U.S. forces to cross Turkish
territory on their way to Iraq that marked a turning point in the
relationship between the two countries. The AKP-led government headed
by Prime Minister Recep Erdogan insisted that the ousting of Iraq’s
Saddam Hussein and the Americans attempts to ‘remake" the Middle East
ran contrary to Turkish interests by creating political instability
and leading to new military conflicts in the Persian Gulf and the
Levant (that prediction proved to be on target).

Indeed, the collapse of the U.S. hegemonic project in the Middle East
and the rise of Iran as the new regional power, has created incentives
Turkey to fill the strategic vacuum by strengthening its political and
economic ties with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and other Arab
governments as well as with Iran (Erdogan has defended that country’s
nuclear program) and even with old-time foes like the Armenians and
the Kurds, while distancing itself from Israel. In a way, not unlike
Japan, Turkey seems to be in the process of reorienting its
relationship from the United States as it attempts to re-establish
itself as a regional power.

But the new foreign policy direction that seems to be embraced by
Turkey and Japan is not an indication that these two governments are
pursuing an anti-American agenda or are embarking on a civilizational
confrontation with a U.S.-led. Turkey is not about to join Iran or
anti-American governments and groups to force the U.S. out of the
Middle East. Instead, it is responding the erosion in the power of the
U.S. there by creating new partnerships that could help stabilize the
region: helping other Sunni governments to counter-balance the rising
power of Shiite Iran’s; trying to serve as a peace mediator (between
Syria and Israel, for example); preventing the disintegration of Iraq
by strengthening ties with the Kurds; and facilitating trade and
investment.

Similarly, there is clearly no support in Japan for becoming part of a
Sinic-dominated regional system or for ejecting America from East
Asia. Like Turkey, Japan does not want to put all its strategic and
economic eggs in an American basket that seems to be full of so many
holes. It has no interest in being perceived as an American proxy
intent on containing China. And it wants to benefit in terms of trade
and investment from the economic rise of China and the integration of
the region.

Hence, Washington should welcome these steps towards strategic
adjustment being pursued by its allies and refrain from any attempt to
force them to re-embrace to the old subservient approach towards the
United States. The United States lacks the power to impose its agenda
on these allies. And if it insists on doing that, it could turn them
from partners into rivals.