Hegemony
Since the beginning of the modern international system, a succession of bids have been made for hegemony: the Habsburg Empire under Charles V, Spain under Philip II, France under Louis XIV as well as Napoleon, and Germany under Hitler (and, arguably, Wilhelm II). None of these attempts to gain hegemony succeeded.
The threat posed to their security by a rising hegemon has served as the catalyst for these candidates to adopt the necessary policies to mobilize their resources and transform their latent power into actual great-power capabilities. When France under Louis XIV briefly attained hegemony in Europe, both England and Austria rose from candidate status to great-power status and used their newly acquired capabilities to end France’s geopolitical preeminence. Similarly, England’s mid-nineteenth-century global preponderance spurred the United States, Germany, and Japan to emerge as great powers, largely to offset British supremacy.
Hegemons are defeated because other states in the international system, frequently spearheaded by newly emerged great powers, form counterbalancing coalitions against them. Thus, the English and the Dutch defeated Philip II. Various coalitions anchored by Holland, the newly emerged great powers of England and Austria, and an established great power in Spain undid Louis the XIV. A coalition composed of England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia rebuffed Napoleon’s bid for hegemony. Instead of war, the enervating economic effects of trying to maintain primacy against the simultaneous challenges of the United States, Russia, France, and Germany undermined British hegemony in the nineteenth century. The wartime grand alliance of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union defeated Hitler.
The U.S. intervention in Kosovo crystallized fears of U.S. hegemony. As a result, an incipient anti-U.S. alliance comprising China, Russia, and India began to emerge. Each of these countries viewed the U.S.-led intervention in Kosovo as a dangerous precedent establishing Washington’s self-declared right to ignore the norm of international sovereignty and interfere in other states’ internal affairs. The three states increased their military cooperation, especially with respect to arms transfers and the sharing of military technology, and, like the Europeans, declared their support for a “multipolar” world.
With the onset of the Persian Gulf War, the United States began to manage the region’s security directly. The subsequent U.S. policy of “dual containment” — directed simultaneously against the region’s two strategic heavyweights, Iran and Iraq — underscored the U.S. commitment to maintaining its security interests through a hegemonic strategy. Because of its interest in oil, the U.S. is supporting regimes — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf emirates — whose domestic political legitimacy is contested. This makes the United States a lightning rod for those within these countries who are politically disaffected. Because these regimes are concerned about inflaming public opinion, both their loyalty and utility as U.S. allies are, to put it charitably, suspect.
Others have much greater intrinsic strategic interests in the Persian Gulf/Middle East than does the United States. For example, Western Europe, Japan, and, increasingly, China are far more dependent on the region’s oil than the United States. Because they live next door, Russia, China, Iran, and India have a much greater long-term security interest in regional stability in the Persian Gulf/Middle East than the United States. By passing the mantle of regional stabilizer to these great and regional powers, the United States could extricate itself from the messy and dangerous geopolitics of the Persian Gulf/Middle East and take itself out of radical Islam’s line of fire.
“Offshore Balancing Revisited” (pdf file) by Christopher Layne