End of Pax Americana

The chaos of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office have reinforced the impression that the U.S. can no longer wield power effectively. This means we are entering uncharted territory. What will happen if the world begins to believe America is withdrawing from the international stage? The answer is unlikely to be pleasing — not even for Russia and China.

In the aftermath of Trump’s shock victory, most pundits quickly assumed that if Washington’s global dominance began to slip, it would empower Moscow and Beijing. As the U.S. pulled back, so the argument went, these two established powers with vast security resources would step in and impose their hegemony over their immediate neighbors.

But geopolitical dynamics suggest the countries neighboring these great powers will not simply roll over and wave the white flag. In fact, the opposite is more likely. Every strategic advance that Russian President Vladimir Putin has landed has left Russia facing greater hostility from nearby states. Similarly, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s jingoistic forays in the South and East China Seas have fueled volatile anti-Chinese sentiment in Asian nations unwilling to submit to Beijing’s rules.

To be sure, there is a case to be made for the gradual winding down of American intervention in many parts of the world. Washington’s role can often hinder as much as it can help stabilize conflict zones. And the U.S. should arguably dedicate more resources to its own corrosive domestic issues, instead of spending so much of its budget on retaining its superpower status. But uncontrolled withdrawal before new norms and institutions are established to address geopolitical fault lines will create a dangerous vortex of instability.

If the U.S. retires as the global policeman, conflicts could start to spiral out of control all over the world.

Russia and China may at the moment be overjoyed at Trump’s farcical errors. But if the U.S. loses its ability restrain its allies and contain its opponents, the resulting Hobbesian conditions are likely to leave Russia and China facing local challengers far more unpredictable than Trump’s America.

* * *

For a hint of what can happen when smaller nations feel the pressure to assert their sovereignty against aggressive larger neighbors, look no further than the poisonous dynamic between Pakistan and India. Pakistan may be economically unstable, but rather than accept its larger rival’s dominance over South Asia, it has done everything in its power to match India militarily. This has created a culture of confrontation, and as a result the border between the two is one of the most world’s most volatile geopolitical flashpoints.

If the U.S. retires as the global policeman, similar conflicts could start to spiral out of control all over the world, pitting, for example, Vietnam against China, Ukraine against Russia or Saudi Arabia against Iran. Countries like Ukraine or Vietnam will quickly realize that only their own strength will grant them respect from larger aggressors.

Already Vietnam and Ukraine are reacting to intimidation by massively boosting their militaries. Russia’s shift from hybrid warfare to direct military aggression prompted Kiev to massively expand its army, a significant proportion of which is now combat ready at all times. Similarly, the Vietnamese have initiated huge naval procurement and island building programs to ensure China cannot assert dominance over the South China Sea.

By binding states like Japan, Ukraine or Vietnam into formal or informal alliances, the U.S. had been able to influence their behavior in moments of crisis. But as Washington withdraws, there is little left to restrain these powerful states from taking big risks to defend their sovereignty against Russian or Chinese encroachment.

For Beijing, the power vacuum left by Washington’s withdrawal could pose a threat if it is filled by Japan, India or Vietnam instead.

The nuclear game of chicken Pakistan and India played over the control of Kashmir is evidence of the speed at which such confrontations can escalate to grave threats to global peace. If conflicts over the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine or the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea develop similar dynamics, the world may be too slow to react. A resurgence in American power post-Trump would likely come too late to de-escalate entrenched rivalries between heavily armed neighbors.

Trump’s brand of isolationism presents Moscow with a paradox. If it can strike a grand bargain with a weakened Washington, it will come under even greater pressure from paranoid and aggressive neighbors. For Beijing, the power vacuum left by Washington’s withdrawal could pose a threat if it is filled by Japan, India or Vietnam instead.

For decades Russian and Chinese elites have looked forward to a multipolar world, believing that they would naturally replace their American rivals — at least in their neighborhoods. But now that one is upon us, it may turn out to be too multipolar even for them.

Alexander Clarkson is a lecturer in European studies at King’s College London and the author of “Fragmented Fatherland: Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1980” (Berghahn Books, 2013).