Thirty-years on, the high expectations that accompanied the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet communism have been largely confounded by the emergence of the autocratic Putin regime and the rekindling of Great Power rivalry between Russia and the United States. In this chapter, we argue that these outcomes were not inevitable, but rather were significantly the result of failures in Western, and particularly American, statecraft during the 1990s. First, the democratic transition was undermined by the type of economic transition, which Western policy networks promoted in post-Soviet Russia. Had Western influencers promoted a New Deal or social democratic model of economic transition, the distributional effects which undermined the legitimacy of the Yeltsin regime would have been far less severe. Second, the American failure to devise and pursue a strategy to effectively integrate Russia into a post-NATO European security architecture made it almost certain that “left out” Russia would react negatively to NATO expansion to the East. Had the United States followed up on Gorbachev’s vision of security architecture for a “Common European Home,” the ongoing clash between Russia and the West might well have been averted.

This chapter explores how liberal internationalism, the order’s animating 'regime of thought and action', has addressed the question of cultural diversity. It argues that liberal internationalism evinces no simple or singular theory about cultural diversity, and that since the nineteenth century four different approaches are apparent, combining, at distinct moments in time, to form what we see here as distinctive liberal diversity regimes. These approaches are to build a liberal order on the pluralism of Westphalian sovereignty; to confine issues of culture within domestic civil societies; to foster ideas of modernization that would in time erase global cultural differences; and to construct institutions of 'exclusion,' manifest in political hierarchies and, at the extreme, formal empire. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, civilizational and racial prejudices informed how these approaches were interwoven, but by the end of the Cold War these had been replaced with more universalistic conceptions of human rights, multiculturalism, and civic nationalism. It was at this very moment, however, that the now-globalized liberal international order revealed its limits.

Introduction

Michael Mann's fourth volume surveys the rise of the post-1945 global order. In these decades, American power holds center stage. In Mann's account, the world wars of the first half of the twentieth century bring the European era to an end. The great European empires and the “segmented” global system built around them are swept away. Out of the rubble emerges the United States. Unrivaled in power, it seizes the opportunity to reorganize the world. America's interest in an open world economy and the threat of rising Soviet power trigger an ambitious world order-building project. What emerges is a new type of empire – built not around colonies but client states and a global system of alliances. This American-style imperial system thrives, backed by the sword and the bible – that is, backed by military power with global reach and a sense of mission. It is, as Mann argues, “the only global empire there has ever been.” Despite its novelty, the American empire is nonetheless an empire, a global order built and maintained by American power and self-regard. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the end of the Cold War, the United States now stands alone as a global power – the last empire.

This American-style empire plays a leading role in Mann's world-historical narrative. It is one of three pillars of the global system, together with transnational capitalism and the nation-state. It is a protean force as Mann tells the story. Under American auspices, the world economy entered a “golden age,” non-Western states gained independence and stable geopolitical relations were “cemented” among most of the advanced countries of the world. But despite these wider advances in the global order, Mann insists that America runs an informal empire. Mann notes that most Americans “deny they ever had an empire,” but with this volume he intends to “prove them wrong.” By insisting on this label, Mann is emphasizing that the postwar global order is built on an organized system of American domination. The implication is that it is – like the empires of the past – an imposed system of hierarchical rule. Like past empires, American military force stands ready to enforce the terms of order.

Introduction

The global system is in the midst of a great transformation. The distribution of power is shifting. Great powers are rising and declining. For almost a century, the United States dominated world politics. But today, China and other rising non-Western states, such as India and Brazil, are growing in wealth, power, influence, and ambition. The old order – led by the United States and its allies – is still a commanding presence in the global system. But the power once concentrated in the hands of the United States is diffusing outward and, as a result, new struggles are emerging over global rules and institutions. In the midst of these changes, scholars have been asking basic questions about the logic and character of contemporary international order. How profound is the change that is underway in global order? If the United States is losing its position of preeminence, will the order that it created weaken and break apart, giving way to a new type of global order? Or will non-Western rising states ultimately become stakeholders in the existing order? Do rising states want great authority and privileges in the existing international order or do they want to use their growing power to reorganize the basic principles and norms of the system?

The struggles underway today over international order are, of course, not new. The rise and decline of great powers and convulsive shifts in international order have played out many times over the centuries. In past eras, states have risen up, fought wars, and built international order. Spain, France, Great Britain, Germany – each of these states grew in power in a past century and made a bid to dominate Europe and the wider world. In turn, each declined or was defeated in war, triggering a renewal of geopolitical struggle over leadership and the organizing rules and arrangements of global order. Over the centuries, the actors on the global stage have changed but the scripts and plot lines of struggle over order have appeared and reappeared many times. As a result, scholars are asking questions about the past. Are there recurring historical dynamics and patterns that can help us understand today’s power transitions and struggles over international order? What can we learn from the past? Is the past prolog?

Introduction

In War and Change in World Politics, Robert Gilpin offers a sweeping account of the rise and decline of states and international order. It is a cyclical theory of war and order building. Wars create winners and losers, opening up opportunities for a leading state to emerge hegemonic and organize the system. Over time, power and wealth eventually diffuse, new challengers emerge, and hegemonic war follows – and a new order is forged in its wake. States rise up and build international order – and they rule over that order until they grow weak and are challenged by a newly powerful state. This is a strikingly evocative vision of power, order, and change in world politics. But the character of order and the logic of change remain sketchy in Gilpin’s vision. What precisely are the sources of international order and its persistence? If order is based on more than material capabilities, what role do ideology and legitimate authority play? There has also been a wide variation in the types of international order that have made appearances across the centuries and within various regions. What accounts for the variations in the types of orders that major states have built? In the last two centuries, liberal capitalist states have risen to global dominance. How has this liberal ascendency shaped or influenced the logic and character of great-power rise and decline and international order building?

Introduction

The United States emerged from the end of the Cold War as the world's first unipolar state. The global distribution of power was new and distinctive. The collapse of the Soviet Union had resulted in an international system dominated by a single state. In previous eras, the global distribution of power tended to be multipolar – that is, shared among several major states. During the Cold War, the global distribution of power was bipolar. Material capabilities were concentrated in the hands of the two superpowers. But beginning in the 1990s, the global system suddenly became unipolar. An international system is unipolar if it “contains one state whose overall share of capabilities places it unambiguously in a class by itself compared to all other states.” Over the last two decades, the United States has stood above other states with unrivaled and unprecedented material capabilities – military, technological, economic, political.

This volume probes the “effects” of unipolarity on world politics. That is, it begins with an observation about the distribution of material capabilities and explores its “impact” on the relations among states. Power is defined in terms of material capabilities rather than in terms of influence or outcomes. As such, we are interested in how a unipolar distribution of power affects the grand strategies of the unipolar state, the responses of weaker and secondary states, and the overall patterns of the global system. Specific chapters look at the impact of unipolarity on alliances, grand strategy, the world economy, and patterns of conflict and cooperation. Contrasts are drawn with patterns and outcomes that emerge under conditions of multipolarity and bipolarity.