The Unipolar Moment Author(s): Charles Krauthammer Source

The Unipolar Moment
Author(s): Charles Krauthammer
Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 1, America and the World 1990/91 (1990/1991), pp. 23-33
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20044692
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Charles Krauthammer
THE UNIPOLARMOMENT
E
-* ver since it became clear that an exhausted Soviet Union
was calling off the Cold War, the quest has been on for a new
role in the world. Roles, however, are not invented in
American
the abstract; they are a response to a perceived world structure.
thinking about post-Cold War American
foreign
Accordingly,
as
been
framed
several
has
by
conventionally
accepted
policy
sumptions about the shape of the post-Cold War environment.
that the old bipolar world would
First, it has been assumed
a
to new centers
world
with
power dispersed
beget
multipolar
in Japan, Germany
(and/or "Europe"), China and a dimin
that the domestic Ameri
ished Soviet Union/Russia.
Second,
can consensus
for an internationalist
foreign policy, a consen
sus radically weakened
in Vietnam, would
the
by
experience
substantially be restored now that policies and debates inspired
could be safely retired.
by "an inordinate fear of communism"
new
in
that
the
the
Third,
post-Soviet
strategic environment
war
would be dramatically
threat of
diminished.
are mistaken. The immediate
All three of these assumptions
It is unipolar. The
is not multipolar.
post-Cold War world
center of world power is the unchallenged
the
superpower,
United
allies. Second,
the
States, attended
by its Western
m
consensus
internationalist
sault
this
time
post-Vietnam
a resurgence
third,
the
is under
renewed
assault.
The
as
comes not only from the usual
pockets of
liberal isolationism
the
churches) but from
(e.g.,
of 1930s-style
conservative
isolationism.
And
emergence
of
a new
strategic
environment,
marked
states armed with weapons
of
by the rise of small aggressive
mass destruction
to deliver
and possessing
the means
them
be called Weapon
the coming
(what might
States), makes
a
not
decades
time of heightened,
threat of war.
diminished,
ii
The most
unipolarity.
striking feature of the post-Cold War world is its
No doubt, multipolarity
will come in time. In
Charles Krauthammer
is a syndicated
M. Jackson
from
the author's
Henry
D.C., Sept. 18, 1990.
Washington,
columnist.
Memorial
This article is adapted
Lecture
delivered
in
24
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
or so there will be great powers
perhaps another generation
coequal with the United States, and the world will, in structure,
resemble
the pre-World War I era. But we are not there yet,
nor will we be for decades. Now is the unipolar moment.
is today no lack of second-rank powers. Germany
There
and
are
can
economic dynamos. Britain and France
Japan
deploy
assets. The
and to some extent military
Soviet
diplomatic
Union
several
elements
of
possesses
power?military,
diplo
matic and political?but
all are in rapid decline. There
is but
one first-rate power and no prospect
in the immediate future
of any power to rival it.
wisdom
that the
ago it was conventional
Only a few months
new rivals, the great pillars of the new multipolar
world, would
How
be Japan and Germany
(and/or Europe).
quickly a myth
can explode.
notion
that economic
The
power
inevitably
into geopolitical
influence
is a materialist
translates
illusion.
a
is
condition
Economic
for great power
necessary
power
status. But it certainly is not sufficient, as has been made clear
of Germany
and Japan, which have
by the recent behavior
hidden
under
the
table
since
the first shots rang out
generally
a
in Kuwait. And while
unified Europe may sometime
in the
next century act as a single power,
its initial disarray
and
to
in
the
crisis
the
national
Persian
Gulf
responses
disjointed
again illustrate that "Europe" does not yet qualify even as a
player
on
the world
stage.
structure of the
leaves us with the true geopolitical
focus
War
into
world, brought
sharply
by the gulf
post-Cold
crisis: a single pole of world power that consists of the United
States at the apex of the industrial West. Perhaps
it is more
to say the United
accurate
States and behind
it the West,
States does not tread, the alliance
the United
because where
of Kuwaiti
does not follow. That was true for the reflagging
more
true
of the world's
vessels in 1987. It has been all the
to
the
invasion
of
Kuwait.
response
subsequent
is based on the fact that it is the only
American
preeminence
country with the military,
diplomatic,
political and economic
assets to be a decisive player in any conflict in whatever part of
the world it chooses to involve itself. In the Persian Gulf, for
and with
it was the United States, acting unilaterally
example,
in
1990
August
Iraq from
extraordinary
prevented
speed, that
the
Arabian
control
of
entire
Peninsula.
effective
taking
structure
revealed
the unipolar
inadvertently
Iraq, having
about it. It looks at
of today's world, cannot stop complaining
Which
THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT
25
action in the gulf and
allied and Soviet support for American
a conspiracy of North against South. Although
it is
of
speaks
to
to
claim
Saddam
Hussein
leader
for
repre
perverse
Iraqi
some truth. The
sent the South, his analysis does contain
means
that with the close of the century's
unipolar moment
civil wars (World War I,World War II
three great Northern
an ideologically
seeks
and the Cold War)
pacified North
its
behind
that
of
and
order
by aligning
foreign policy
security
now
in
is what is taking shape
the
States. That
the United
Persian Gulf. And for the near future, it is the shape of things
to come.
the much
The
Iraqis are equally acute in demystifying
new
world
of this
order. They
multilateralism
celebrated
entire
multilateral
that
the
(United Nations
apparatus
charge
Arab
resolutions,
pronounce
troops, European
Community
in the gulf by the United States
ments, and so on) established
cover for what is essentially an American
is but a transparent
to
Iraqi regional hegemony.
challenge
is much
But of course. There
talk about a new
pious
as
world and the promise of the United Nations
multilateral
guarantor of a new post-Cold War order. But this is to mistake
cause and effect, the United
States and the United Nations.
of nothing.
in a
is guarantor
The United
Nations
Except
formal sense, it can hardly be said to exist. Collective
security?
In the gulf, without
the United States leading and prodding,
no one would have stirred.
bribing and blackmailing,
Nothing
would have been done: no embargo, no "Desert Shield," no
threat of force. The world would have written off Kuwait the
to collective security, the League of
way the last body pledged
wrote
off
Nations,
Abyssinia.
to be drawn between
is a sharp distinction
real and
There
a gen
True
multilateralism.
multilateralism
involves
apparent
uine coalition of coequal partners of comparable
strength and
stature?the
World War II Big Three coalition, for example.
a dominant
What we have today is pseudo-multilateralism:
acts
at the idea
great power
essentially alone, but, embarrassed
at the shrine of collective security, recruits
and still worshiping
a
a
ship here,
brigade there, and blessings all around to give its
unilateral actions a multilateral
sheen. The gulf is no more a
was
collective operation
than
Korea, still the classic case study
in
pseudo-multilateralism.
Why
opinion
the pretense? Because
doubts the legitimacy
a
large segment of American
of unilateral American
action
26
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
but
accepts quite readily actions undertaken
by the "world
concert.
matter
in
to Amer
it
should
community"
Why
acting
icans that their actions get a Security Council nod from, say,
and the butchers
of Tiananmen
is
Deng Xiaoping
Square
me.
to
matters.
But
it
It
Americans
is
for
many
beyond
largely
domestic
that American
leaders
reasons,
therefore,
political
sure to dress unilateral
make
action in multilateral
clothing.
The danger, of course, is that they might come to believe their
own
pretense.
But can America
long sustain its unipolar
preeminence?
The spectacle of secretaries of state and treasury flying around
the world rattling tin cups to support America's
Persian Gulf
imbalance
the
between
America's
geopo
deployment
exposed
litical reach and its resources. Does that not imply that the
are
decline and "imperial overstretch"
theorists of American
is unsustainable?
right and that unipolarity
It is, of course, true that if America
succeeds in running
its
to
not
will
be
into
the
it
able
its
retain
economy
ground,
case
the unipolar moment will
unipolar role for long. In which
rather than, say, three
be brief indeed (one decade, perhaps,
or four). But if the economy
is run into the ground
it will not
because
America
has
be because of imperial overstretch,
i.e.,
entan
abroad and drained itself with geopolitical
overreached
5.4
The
States
United
percent of its
today spends
glements.
GNP on defense. Under John F. Kennedy,
when
the United
it spent almost
States was at its economic and political apogee,
twice
as much.
Administration
plans
have
U.S.
defense
spend
ing on a trajectory down to four percent by 1995, the lowest
since Pearl Harbor.
status will be not for
An American
collapse to second-rank
reasons.
This
is not the place to
foreign but for domestic
about the cause of America's
in extended
debate
engage
But the notion
that we have spent
difficulties.
economic
not
is
abroad
sustainable. Amer
into
ourselves
penury
simply
ica's
low
savings
rate,
poor
educational
system,
stagnant
pro
for welfare
ductivity,
declining work habits, rising demand
state entitlements
luxuries have
and new taste for ecological
in Europe,
at all to do with engagement
Central
nothing
or the Middle East. Over the last thirty years, while
America
taxes remained almost fixed (rising from 18.3 percent to 19.6
domestic
entitle
and defense
declined,
spending
percent)
an
ments
of
debt
created
economy
nearly doubled. What
not
is
in American
adventures
but
unrivaled
history
foreign
THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT
27
the low tax ideology of the 1980s, coupled with America's
standards of living without
insatiable desire for yet higher
cost.
the
of
paying any
can debate whether
is in true economic
America
One
it has
of world gnp is roughly where
Its percentage
decline.
the twentieth century (between 22 and 26
been throughout
of the immediate
the aberration
post
excepting
percent),
era
when its competitors were digging out from
World War II
is
the rubble of war. But even if one does argue that America
it is simply absurd to imply that the road
in economic decline,
evacuate
El Salvador,
the
to solvency
is to, say, abandon
or get out of the gulf. There may be other good
Philippines
to suggest
reasons for doing all of these. But it is nonsense
as a way to get at the root of America's
economic
them
doing
problems.
It is, moreover,
a mistake
to view
America's
exertions
abroad
as nothing but a drain on its economy. As can be seen in the
abroad is in many ways an essen
involvement
gulf, America's
tial pillar of the American
economy. The United States is, like
Britain before it, a commercial, maritime,
trading nation that
in which to thrive. In
needs an open, stable world environment
a world of Saddams,
if the United
States were to shed its
unique superpower role, its economy would be gravely wounded.
Insecure sea lanes, impoverished
trading partners, exorbitant oil
are only the more obvious
prices, explosive regional instability
are
an
American
risks of
abdication. Foreign entanglements
indeed a burden. But they are also a necessity. The cost of
ensuring
percent
an open
and
safe world
of gnp and falling?is
for American
commerce?5.4
hardly exorbitant.
in
its unipolar
status? Yes. But will
Can America
support
status?
is a more
That
Americans
such
support
unipolar
a
For
but
small
chorus of
growing
question.
problematic
a
a
Americans
led by
this vision of
unipolar world
dynamic
the second major element of
is a nightmare. Hence
America
isolation
the post-Cold War reality: the revival of American
ism.
I have great respect for American
isolationism.
First, be
cause of its popular appeal and, second, because of its natural
seems the logical,
the face of it, isolationism
appeal. On
States. It is not just
foreign policy for the United
God-given
that inclines us to it?we are an island continent
geography
28
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
that
protected by two vast oceans, bordered by two neighbors
was
could hardly be friendlier?but
America
founded
history.
on the idea of cleansing
itself of the intrigues and irrationali
ties, the dynastic
squabbles and religious wars, of the Old
for a strain of American
World.
One must have respect
so
that
four
months
before Pearl Harbor
thinking
powerful
the House
the vote to extend draft enlistments
of
passed
a
by
single vote.
Representatives
Isolationists
rather
that America
should
say
unobjectionably
in the world to defending
vital national
confine its attentions
isolationists define vital na
interests. But the more extreme
mean
the physical
tional interests to
security of the United
take care never to
States, and the more elusive isolationists
define them at all.
Isolationists will, of course, say that this is unfair, that they
in defending
vital national
interests beyond
do believe
the
a
case.
test
States.
We
of
the
United
have
security
physical
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and hegemonic
designs on Arabia
as
posed
imagine?a
clear
a
threat
threat
to American
to America's
oil-based
interests
economy,
as
one
can
to its close
to American
allies in the region, and ultimately
security itself.
The
rise of a hostile power, fueled by endless oil income,
and the means to deliver
building weapons of mass destruction
them regionally and eventually
(Saddam has
intercontinentally
can
a matter of
a
be
tested
rocket)
already
hardly
three-stage
to the United
States.
indifference
If under these conditions a cadre of influential
liberals and
finds that upon reflection
conservatives
(and in contradiction
to the doctrine enunciated
by the most dovish president of the
postwar era, Jimmy Carter) the Persian Gulf is not, after all, a
then it is hard to see what "vital
vital American
interest,
If the Persian Gulf is not a vital interest,
interest" can mean.
an invasion of the
then nothing
is. All that is left is preventing
do
Florida Keys. And for that you need a Coast Guard?you
a
not
not need a Pentagon
State
need
and you certainly do
Department.
is the most extreme expression of the American
Isolationism
desire to return to tend its vineyards. But that desire finds
far more
and serious
in another
sophisticated
expression
not
isolationism
but
the school
school:
realism,
foreign policy
be
that insists that American
foreign policy
guided
solely by
interests and that generally defines these interests in a narrow
and
national
manner.
THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT
Many
of realism's
struggles
against
were
practitioners
and
fascism
heroic
communism.
29
in the heroic
Now,
however,
some argue that the time for heroism
is passed. For example,
to be sure before
the gulf crisis,
wrote,
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
that "It is time to give up the dubious benefits of superpower
status," time to give up the "unusual burdens" of the past and
"return
to
'normal'
times."
means
That
taking
"care
of
press
family, industry and technology" at
ing problems of education,
home. That means that we should not try to be the balancer of
or in Asia, nor try to shape the
in Europe
power
political
evolution of the Soviet Union. We should aspire instead to be
"a normal
country
in a normal
time."1
vision of American
This is a rather compelling
purpose. But
I am not sure there is such a thing as normal times. If a normal
time is a time when there is no evil world empire on the loose,
when the world is in ideological repose, then even such a time
Saddam has made
is not necessarily
this point
peacetime.
If a normal time is a time when the world
rather emphatically.
sorts itself out on its own,
leaving America
relatively
for America,
unmolested?say,
the
nineteenth
century?then
I would
suggest that there are no normal times. The world
does not sort itself out on its own. In the nineteenth
century,
for example,
international
stability was not achieved on its own
of Britain's unrelenting
but, in large part, as the product
exertions on behalf of the balance of power. America
tended
her vineyards, but only behind two great ocean walls patrolled
by the British navy. Alas, the British navy is gone.
International
stability
is never
a
given.
the norm.
It is never
it is the product of self-conscious
action by the
achieved,
most
and
of the greatest power,
great powers,
particularly
which now and for the foreseeable
future is the United States.
If America wants stability, itwill have to create it. Communism
the last of the messianic
is indeed finished;
creeds that have
haunted
this century is quite dead. But there will constantly be
new threats
our peace.
disturbing
When
IV
What threats? Everyone
recognizes one great change in the
international
the collapse of communism.
If that
environment,
were the only change, then this
a normal time and
be
might
1
"A Normal
Country
in a Normal
Time,"
National
Interest,
Fall
1990,
pp.
40-44.
30
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
the unipolar
vision
and
unnecessary
I have
outlined
would
seem
at once
dangerous.
But there is another great change in international
relations.
And here we come to the third and most crucial new element
in the post-Cold War world: the emergence
of a new strategic
environment
marked by the proliferation
of weapons
of mass
It is a certainty that in the near future there will be
destruction.
a dramatic
in the number
increase
of states armed with
to
chemical
and
nuclear
and the means
weapons
biological,
on
deliver them anywhere
earth. "By the year 2000," estimates
Dick
"more than two dozen devel
Defense
Secretary
Cheney,
will
have
15 of those countries
nations
ballistic
missiles,
oping
to
will have the scientific skills
make
their own, and half of
them either have or are near to getting nuclear capability, as
well. Thirty countries will have chemical weapons
and ten will
to
be able
deploy biological weapons."2
It is of course banal to say that modern
has
technology
a
But
the world.
the obvious
in
shrunk
that
corollary,
shrunken world the divide between regional superpowers
and
is
is
drawn.
Missiles
narrowed,
great powers
radically
rarely
shrink distance. Nuclear
devices
(or chemical or biological)
can
at
be bought
market. Consequently
power. Both
multiply
the geopolitical
is
altered.
map
irrevocably
Fifty years ago,
industrial
and heavily
located, highly
Germany?centrally
a
to
threat
world
pose
populated?could
security and to the
other great powers. It was inconceivable
that a relatively small
indus
Middle Eastern state with an almost entirely imported
trial base could do anything more than threaten its neighbors.
The central truth of the coming era is that this is no longer the
case: relatively
states will be
and backward
small, peripheral
able to emerge rapidly as threats not only to regional, but to
world,
security.
Iraq, which (unless disarmed by Desert Storm) will likely be
of intercontinental
in possession
missiles within the decade,
is
the prototype of this new strategic threat, what might be called
State is an unusual
interna
the "Weapon State." The Weapon
several
characteristics:
tional creature marked
by
is not much
?It
of
state.
Iraq,
for
example,
is a state
recent
party
2
Address
of a nation
vintage with arbitrary borders whose
ruling
(It refers to
explicitly denies that Iraq is a nation.
to the Conservative
Leadership
Conference,
Washington,
D.C,
Nov.
9,
1990.
THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT
Iraq and Syria as regions, part of the larger Arab
for which it reserves the term.)
?In
the Weapon
State,
the
state
31
nation
is extraordinar
apparatus
civil society.
and completely dominates
ily well developed
most
States to sustain
The factor that permits
Weapon
a state needs some kind of
such a structure is oil. Normally
tacit social contract with the civil society because ultimately
the state must rely on society to support itwith taxes. The
oil states are in an anomalous position: they do not need a
social contract because national wealth comes from oil and
are pecu
oil is wholly controlled
by the state. Oil states
states.
Government
distributes goods to
liarly distributive
It is therefore
society rather than the other way around.
the source not only of power but of wealth. This makes
an extraordinary
degree of social control exer
possible
cised
by
a
powerful,
often
repressive
state
apparatus.
current Weapon
States have deep grievances
?The
against
the West and the world order that it has established
and
subversive of the interna
enforces. They are therefore
tional status quo, which they see as a residue of colonial
resentments
fuel an obsessive drive to high
ism. These
as the only way to
tech military
development
leapfrog
on a
to
to
and
themselves
from
which
history
place
footing
aWestern-imposed
order.
challenge
State need not be an oil state. North Korea,
The Weapon
is a candidate Weapon
hard at work on nuclear
technology,
as
a nation-state
as the
State: it has about as much
legitimacy
German Democratic
its state apparatus
Republic;
totally dom
inates civil society by virtue not of oil but of an exquisitely
run deep.
its anti-Western
Stalinism;
developed
grievances
The danger from the Weapon
State is posed today by Iraq,
tomorrow
by North Korea or Libya. In the next
perhaps
the proliferation
of strategic weapons will
century, however,
not be restricted toWeapon
States. Windfall
wealth allows oil
states to import high-technology
in
the absence of a
weapons
not
mature
industrial base. However,
it is
hard to imagine
maturer
states?say,
Argentina,
Pakistan,
Iran,
South
Africa?
same level of weapons
reaching the
development
by means of
most
are
industrialization.
of
these
countries
ordinary
(Today
hostile.)
friendly, but some are unstable and potentially
The post-Cold War era is thus perhaps better called the era
of weapons
of mass destruction. The proliferation
of weapons
mass
means
of
destruction
and their
of delivery will constitute
32
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
the greatest single threat to world security for the rest of our
a new international
is what makes
order not an
lives. That
or
a
a
matter
Wilsonian
but
of the
dream
fantasy
imperial
on
It is slowly dawning
the West that there
sheerest prudence.
is a need to establish some new regime to police these weapons
them.
and those who brandish
In parliamentary
debate on the gulf crisis even British
that it is not
Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock has emphasized
out
to
Kuwait.
chemical
of
stocks, he
get Iraq
Iraq's
enough
must
be
its
nuclear
internation
and
said,
program
destroyed
the
Labour
controlled.
When
Party,
hardly a home'for
ally
the beginnings,
of a
hawks, speaks thus, we have the makings,
new
consensus.
Western
is no definitive
To do what exactly? There
answer, but any
to
include
three
elements:
will
have
solution
denying, disarm
a new
First, we will have to develop
ing, and defending.
on
cocom
to
Committee
similar
Export
(Coordinating
regime,
to such states.
to deny yet more high technology
Controls)
those states that acquire such weapons
Second,
anyway will
have to submit to strict outside control or risk being physically
of antibal
disarmed. A final element must be the development
to
defend
and air defense
listic missile
systems
against those
weapons
that
do
escape
Western
control
or
preemption.
be better tactics, but the overall
There might
strategy is
no
there
is
alternative
clear. With the rise of the Weapon
State,
states
to confronting,
and, if necessary,
disarming
deterring
mass
use
And
there
of
destruction.
that brandish and
weapons
as
is no one to do that but the United
States, backed by
many
allies as will join the endeavor.
to such robust and difficult
intervention
The alternative
ism?the
alternative
to
unipolarity?is
not
a
stable,
static
in
world
It is not an eighteenth-century
world.
multipolar
like
which mature
America,
Russia,
China,
powers
Europe,
in the game of nations. The
and Japan jockey for position
to
is chaos.
alternative
unipolarity
are
I do not mean to imply that weapons of mass destruction
the only threat facing the post-Cold War world. They are only
threats exist, but they are more
obvious. Other
the most
can be seen today only in outline: the rise, for
speculative and
in a disintegrat
of
intolerant
aggressive nationalism
example,
one
extreme
the emer
bloc
communist
formulation,
(in
ing
a
and
resentful
but
reduced
of
resurgent,
gence
xenophobic
some
to
threats
the peace of the 21st
"Weimar" Russia). And
THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT
33
century are as invisible today as was, say, Nazism in 1920. They
will make
themselves
known soon enough. Only a hopeless
Utopian
can
believe
otherwise.
We are in for abnormal
times. Our best hope for safety in
such times, as in difficult times past, is in American
strength
and will?the
world,
strength and will to lead a unipolar
down
the
rules
of
world
order
and
unashamedly
laying
being
to enforce them. Compared
to the task of
prepared
defeating
fascism
to
and
greatness.
communism,
It is not
a
chaos
averting
are
task we
is a rather
any
more
subtle
eager
undertake
than the great twilight struggle just concluded.
it is just as noble and just as necessary.
call
to
But