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Kennan and Multipolarity

Christopher Layne reviewed John Lewis Gaddis’ George F. Kennan: An American Life for the new issue of The National Interest. The entire review is excellent, but I wanted to draw attention to Layne’s discussion of Kennan and multipolarity: Here, Kennan understood that what international-relations scholars call polarity—the number of great powers in the international system—is […]

Christopher Layne reviewed John Lewis Gaddis’ George F. Kennan: An American Life for the new issue of The National Interest. The entire review is excellent, but I wanted to draw attention to Layne’s discussion of Kennan and multipolarity:

Here, Kennan understood that what international-relations scholars call polarity—the number of great powers in the international system—is a crucial factor for grand strategy. He realized that in the post–World War II bipolar system of two superpowers, there were no other independent poles of power to which the United States could devolve the responsibility for containing the Soviet Union, which meant that it would have to bear the lion’s share of the burden. Nor, in fact, did most policy makers in Washington wish it to be otherwise because they preferred a subordinate Western Europe to one that was a geopolitical equal of the United States. Simply put, most of them abhorred and opposed multipolarity. This, of course, is still U.S. policy even in today’s—rapidly waning—unipolar world.

Kennan was a rarity among U.S. policy makers and grand strategists during the last seventy years. He appreciated that multipolarity favored the United States because, in a world of several great powers, others could assume many of the strategic burdens that otherwise would weigh on the dominant power [bold mine-DL]. Although Kennan was unusual in seeing the advantages of restoring multipolarity, he was not alone. John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower’s secretary of state, also championed a united Europe that no longer would need to rely on U.S. forces for its security. As Dulles said, “We want Europe to stand on its own two feet.” He added the United States provided Western Europe with perverse incentives to avoid the necessary steps to achieve political unity. The Marshall Plan and NATO, said Dulles, “were the two things which prevented a unity in Europe which in the long run may be more valuable” than continuing subservience to the United States.

In the absence of a threat that justifies bearing the lion’s share of the burden, Americans are often told that the U.S. must remain a global hegemon for the sake of the “global commons” and to facilitate international trade, but these are more excuses than reasons for why so many politicians and policymakers recoil from the idea of real multipolarity in the world. The emergence of multiple centers of power in the world can reduce the burdens that the U.S. bears mostly on its own right now, which will allow the U.S. to focus more of its attention and resources on specifically American interests. The maintenance of global hegemony is detrimental to the interests of the United States.

Providing perverse incentives to allies in Europe has never stopped. It will continue for as long as NATO exists. Even though the alliance has long since outlived its only proper purpose, it remains an institution that prevents Europe from taking full responsibility for its own security by keeping European governments dependent on U.S. protection against a threat that no longer exists. As Doug Bandow recently argued, it is long past time that the alliance should be dissolved and Europeans made responsible for their own collective security. Over the last twenty years, NATO has served as a vehicle for pulling European states into U.S. wars and launching wars against states that have not attacked NATO, and it perpetuates European subservience that is neither desirable for Europe nor needed by the U.S.

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