Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order — John J. Mearsheimer

Abstract

The liberal international order, erected after the Cold War, was crumbling by 2019. It was flawed from the start and thus destined to fail. The spread of liberal democracy around the globe—essential for building that order—faced strong resistance because of nationalism, which emphasizes self-determination. Some targeted states also resisted U.S. efforts to promote liberal democracy for security-related reasons. Additionally, problems arose because a liberal order calls for states to delegate substantial decisionmaking authority to international institutions and to allow refugees and immigrants to move easily across borders. Modern nation-states privilege sovereignty and national identity, however, which guarantees trouble when institutions become powerful and borders porous. Furthermore, the hyperglobalization that is integral to the liberal order creates economic problems among the lower and middle classes within the liberal democracies, fueling a backlash against that order. Finally, the liberal order accelerated China's rise, which helped transform the system from unipolar to multipolar. A liberal international order is possible only in unipolarity. The new multipolar world will feature three realist orders: a thin international order that facilitates cooperation, and two bounded orders—one dominated by China, the other by the United States—poised for waging security competition between them.

John J. Mearsheimer is a foreign policy realist.

MIT Press
Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order
John J. Mearsheimer | R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago

See also

The Geopolitics
The Best of Both Worlds: Chinese Foreign Policy Through the Lens of Realism and Liberalism 

Shubham Swaroop

The Saker interviews A.B. Abrams about the geostrategic developments in Asia The Saker

I recently received a copy of a most interesting book, A.B. Abrams’ “Power and Primacy: the history of western intervention in Asia” and as soon as I started reading it I decided that I wanted to interview the author and ask him about what is taking place in Asia in our times. This was especially interesting to me since Putin has embarked on the Russian version of Obama’s “pivot to Asia“, with the big difference that Putin’s pivot has already proven to be a fantastic success, whereas Obama’s was a dismal failure. I am most grateful to A.B. Abrams for his time and expertise....

This is best article on the current state of geopolitics and geostrategy I have run across recently. Abrams provides a very objective assessment.

The Vineyard of the Saker
The Saker interviews A.B. Abrams about the geostrategic developments in Asia
The Saker
Crossposted at the Unz Review

See also

The Western powers have to acknowledge the rise of China and either include the country in the hegemonic core or be prepared for the emergence of a counter hegemonic power, writes David Lane, Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University....

Valdai Analytics
US-China Relations: Trade Wars or Countervailing Powers?
David Lane

Fareed Zakaria Woke Up? — Andrei Martyanov

Blowing a lead.

Reminiscence of the Future
Fareed Zakaria Woke Up?
Andrei Martyanov

See also

Checkpoint Asia
Trump Has Lost All Leverage With Iran

Marko Marjanović

Also at CA

Trump Remembers He’s the President, Tells Bolton, Pompeo to Dial It Back on Iran

Erin Banco

China’s State Media Tells Us It Picked the ‘Wrong Rival at the Wrong Time’

Teddy Ng

Pepe Escobar — The Eagle, the Bear and the Dragon

The eagle has conveniently forgotten that the original, Ancient Silk Road linked the dragon with the Roman empire for centuries – with no interlopers outside of Eurasia, muses Pepe Escobar.

Consortium News
PEPE ESCOBAR: The Eagle, the Bear and the Dragon

Alastair Crooke — It's Not Just A Trade War; And It's Not Just China...

So, what is going on? Well, the US military complex is ‘for real’ on this. They are gearing-up for the coming military-standoff with China. The constant harking on themes that China is stealing America’s technology, its knowhow and its data – and now the barrage of allegations about China ‘hacking’ and (shades of the Russiagate) interfering in US elections, essentially (but not wholly) is about shaping a casus belli versus China. The rude fact is that the US military were shocked to find how far they were falling behind Russia and China in high-tech weaponry....

Strategic Culture Foundation
It's Not Just A Trade War; And It's Not Just China...
Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy

Martin Sieff — Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

We are now in the dubious position of “celebrating” – if that is the word – the 100th anniversary of US President Woodrow Wilson’s departure on December 4, 1918 on the liner SS George Washington for the Versailles Peace Conference where he was confident he would dictate his brilliant solutions that would end war in the world for all time.

Historians and psychiatrists – including Dr. Sigmund Freud himself who co-authored a book on Wilson – have endlessly debated whether Wilson was sane and just deluded or raving mad. Freud clearly inclined to the latter view. And he had ample evidence to support him. What is most alarming is that, as Henry Kissinger – significantly not born an American at all – points out, all US presidents either share Wilson’s ridiculous messianic fantasies or feel they must pretend to....

Wilson is the father of liberal internationalism in international relations, and it's progeny, liberal interventionism and US global hegemony because American exceptionalism. I am not sure that delusion madness is the only factor, although it is a chief factor. The other chief factor is tying this madness to neo-imperialism and neocolonialism as concomitants of capitalism American-style.

Liberal internationalism is also called liberal idealism in foreign policy, and both liberal internationalism and liberal idealism are called Wilsonianism.

Wilsonianism is opposed by foreign policy realism, which sometimes equated with Realpolitik, although foreign policy realism is a broader category than Realpolitik. Realism focuses on national interest as the criterion in foreign policy and international relations. It is conservative in the political tradition of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli. Its chief proponent recently is Henry Kissinger. Of course, in speaking of "national interest" the question arises over exactly whose interests, since nationals are not homogenous.

Martin Sieff offers an appraisal of the insanity of some US Wilsonian presidents.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

Martin Sieff, senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, former chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Times, and former managing editor, international affairs, for United Press International

Paul Robinson — The Inability To See

I spend most of my time on this blog mocking all the exaggerated nonsense which passes for political commentary nowadays. It’s a rare day that I come across something which is both stimulating and well-written. Fortunately, this is one of those days. Via Facebook (which has its uses), I was pointed in the direction of an excellent article by Patrick Lawrence in this summer’s edition of the magazine Raritan Quarterly, of which I had not previously been aware. I can recommend it to you all, and you can find it here....

This criticism also applies to American commentary on China and most other things foreign. It is a consequence of the "context" issue that Paul Robinson discusses in this post. There are different cultural worldviews that imply group preference for institutional arrangements that are different among groups, especially nations with long traditions. Human understanding and appreciation are context-dependent.

The only overarching context globally is provided by formal logic, mathematics, and science. Most of the rest is culturally relative. Hence, understanding the world system requires taking this into account. This means determining where others are coming from, as well as as knowing where one's own culture and its biases came from and how they were shaped by historical circumstances.

From this standpoint it is clear why trying to export "American democracy and values" even to Great Britain is folly, or assuming that the British system and the American system are essentially the same. This being the case, how silly is it to presume that "the American way" can be exported, let alone imposed on alien cultures.

It is also interesting seeing a former diplomat and a professor agreeing on this point. Unfortunately, at this point such people have no voice and therefore no influence in US policy or the American corporate media. Without the Internet and social media, they would be unavailable, as long as the Internet and social media escape censorship, that is.

Irrussianality

The Inability To See

Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

See also
Raritan (Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2018)

Putin: From Soulmate to Archenemy

David S. Foglesong

See also

Valdai Club
Tradition and Future: National Identity in a Changing World
Alexey Kasprzhak

John J. Mearsheimer — The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities

Great powers are rarely in a position to pursue a full­-scale liberal foreign policy. As long as two or more of them exist on the planet, they have little choice but to pay close attention to their position in the global balance of power and act according to the dictates of realism. Great powers of all persuasions care deeply about their survival, and there is always the danger in a bipolar or multipolar system that they will be attacked by another great power. In these circumstances, liberal great powers regularly dress up their hard­-nosed behavior with liberal rhe­toric. They talk like liberals and act like realists. Should they adopt liberal policies that are at odds with realist logic, they invariably come to regret it. But occasionally a liberal democracy encounters such a favorable balance of power that it is able to embrace liberal hegemony. That situation is most likely to arise in a unipolar world, where the single great power does not have to worry about being attacked by another great power since there is none. Then the liberal sole pole will almost always abandon realism and adopt a liberal foreign policy. Liberal states have a crusader mentality hard­-wired into them that is hard to restrain.…

The key to understanding liberalism’s limits is to recognize its relation­ship with nationalism and realism. This book is ultimately all about these three isms and how they interact to affect international politics....

John Mearsheimer is an influential voice in international relations and a foreign policy realist. He is worth paying attention to.

In this excerpt from his book, he fails to recognize that what the West calls "terrorism" is viewed by the so-called terrorists and those that support then in terms of national liberation from Western dominance and endless war to impose Western standards on traditional cultures.

Mearsheimer also fails to mention that Western liberalism is neoliberalism joined with neo-imperialism and neocolonialism, so that so-called liberal internationalism and liberal interventionism are in service of imperial interests.

Of course, if he did mention that, no one would pay any attention to him, other than to demonize him. As it is, foreign policy realism has been marginalized in the US, and Professor Mearsheimer is out of the loop.

The National Interest
The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities
John J. Mearsheimer | R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

See also

President Trump’s second nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, was confirmed by the Senate 50 to 48. Kavanaugh is the fourth ‘minority justice,’ meaning that the senators who voted to confirm him got fewer votes in their last election than did the senators who opposed him. The other three such justices were Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s other choice, Samuel Alito, selected by George W. Bush, and Clarence Thomas, selected by George H. W. Bush. Of course, George W. Bush and Trump are minority presidents having received fewer votes than their Democratic opponents, but assuming the presidency thanks to the Electoral College.

In the cases of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh the senators who opposed him got almost 20 million more votes than his supporters. Such an anti-democratic outcome is the result of two factors. First, each American state gets two senators whether their population is California’s 39 million or Wyoming’s 580,000. The smaller states are mainly rural and vote Republican while the most populous states are mainly urban and, except for Texas, vote Democratic. Second, those four minority justices were highly contentious choices and aroused massive opposition that ensured they would be confirmed with narrow majorities composed of almost only Republicans....

Valdai Club (Russia)
What Does Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation to the Supreme Court Mean?Richard Lachmann | Professor of Sociology Department, University at Albany, New York

Also
LobeLog
Trump’s Unprincipled “Principled Realism” Benefits Trump, Not the World

Daniel Brumberg | Non-resident Senior Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC

RT — Serbia's president tells RT a 'Pandora's box' was opened when EU recognized Kosovo, not by attempt to mend ties

"How can we open a Pandora’s Box?! Who opened this Pandora’s Box in 2008 having accepted, acknowledged and recognized the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo?!" Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze.

This has been as influential in influencing the world order as the expansion of NATO toward the borders of Russia and the coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine, a coup that was immediately ratified by the West. But Kosovo was arguably the beginning of the break down of the post-WWII (neo)liberal world order. 

The world has been witnessing the only beginning stages of the turmoil involved in the unfolding of a new world order that reduces the influence of the West to its proportional size, replacing the outsized role it has played for half a millennium. The drums of war are beating louder.

RT
Serbia's president tells RT a 'Pandora's box' was opened when EU recognized Kosovo, not by attempt to mend ties

Ryan Zielonka — The World According to Realism

Useful backgrounder on international relations and the different schools of thought in the US, particuarly liberal internationalism, neoconservatism and realism. 

Quillette
The World According to Realism
Ryan Zielonka is an independent consultant and incoming PhD student at the University of Washington

Brad DeLong — Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev to John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Brad DeLong pulls up couple of letters from the files that are relevant now.

Grasping Reality
Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev to John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Patrick Porter — Donald Trump hasn’t changed America’s grand global strategy – and he won’t

The bottom line about this presidency so far is that even though candidate Trump threatened to govern as an “isolationist”, President Trump is doing no such thing. For all that he threatened to tear up alliances, wind up nation-building wars, and tolerate or even encourage nuclear proliferation, his administration is fundamentally doubling down on “primacy” – the idea that the US should secure a position of global dominance. And as a brief tour through theatres long classed as critical power centres by American governments reveals, the same old pattern is holding....

The upshot is that Trump has not altered the general architecture of America’s power position. Change is possible, but only through the combination of shocks severe enough to challenge the status quo, and only with a president willing to bear the costs of overhauling it. Until then, the fundamental principle of American primacy is here to stay. Trump has not deviated from America’s commitment to primacy. Rather, in brazen terms, he offers primacy without euphemism.

Judging by increases in military spending, I'd say that DJT is doubling down on global dominance.
The Conversation
Donald Trump hasn’t changed America’s grand global strategy – and he won’t
Patrick Porter | Professor of International Security and Strategy, University of Birmingham

Paul Robinson — Strategy Or Improvisation? Predictability Or Unpredictability?

If I had to recommend a single article for foreign policy decision makers to read, it would be Robert Jervis’s 1968 essay ‘Hypotheses on Misperception.’ As I’ve written before, many of the tensions between states derive from misperceptions. People misperceive others; misperceive themselves; and misperceive how they are seen by others. In his article, Jervis hypothesizes 14 misperceptions which are commonly encountered in international politics. Hypothesis number 9 is the following: ‘actors tend to see the behavior of others as more centralized, disciplined, and coordinated than it is.’ Jervis adds that, ‘Further, actors see others as more internally united than they in fact are and generally overestimate the degree to which others are following a coherent policy.’ In my opinion, this is absolutely correct, and we can see a lot of this going on in contemporary analyses of Russia.…

Explaining the "Putin did it" syndrome.

While I think Paul Robinson is correct here, I also think that there is more to it than misperception. There is also the persuasion factor, a key tool in which is creating a focus by demonizing a person or an ideology.

This is much more persuasive that nuanced analysis, since emotion always trumps reason in mass persuasion. So the rhetorical targets are "Putin," "Russia," and "authoritarianism" in whipping up Russophobia.

Irrussianality
Strategy Or Improvisation? Predictability Or Unpredictability?
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Here is an example of this type of thinking applied to China to "explain" why Trump is right that the US will win a trade war with China, so it is not a big gamble.

INVESTING IN CHINESE STOCKS

China Enters The Trade Trap

Paul Grenier — America’s Men Without Chests

America’s way of acting in the world, the violence it often does to the truth while asserting its will, cannot be explained simply through its alleged “interests.” The U.S. acts the way it does because of the peculiar American way of understanding what gives life and action meaning.

At the core of the American philosophy is voluntarism, the justification of action based purely and simply on the will. The distinguishing characteristic of voluntarism is that it gives pride of place to the will as such, to the will as power, the will abstracted from everything else, but especially abstracted from the good. The notion of the good is necessarily inclusive of the whole, of all sides. Concern exclusively for oneself goes by a different name.

The clearest and perhaps the best expression of American voluntarism come of age was expressed by Karl Rove during the George W. Bush administration, as reported by Ron Suskind in New York Times Magazine on October 17, 2004:

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

This oft-quoted statement is naively assumed to have been the expression of a single moment in American politics, rather than a summation of its ethos by one of its shrewder and more self-aware practitioners. The point of the voluntarist order is to act, to impose one’s will on global reality by any means necessary. The truth is not something to be understood, or grasped, still less something that should condition one’s own actions and limit them in any way. Truth is reducible to whatever is useful for imposing one’s will....

The American Conservative

America’s Men Without Chests

Paul Grenier, founder of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy

Pepe Escobar — Syria, Iran and ‘chaos in international relations’

Update on the situation in the Middle East. The backstory is the effect of US policy on Europe.

Asia Times
Syria, Iran and ‘chaos in international relations’

Pepe Escobar

Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial — US Hypocrisy Marks Descent Into Barbarism

The war of words over American trade tariffs on Chinese exports and the expulsion of Russian diplomats may seem unrelated issues. But there is a connecting theme: the staggering US hypocrisy over its own aggressive behaviour.

This blatant American hypocrisy – beyond reason and respect for international law – marks a fatal descent into barbarism towards foreign relations. Dialogue and diplomacy are repudiated with a “might is right” attitude.…

Harsh.

 Strategic Culture Foundation — Editorial
US Hypocrisy Marks Descent Into Barbarism

Reuters — China warns U.S. not to open Pandora's Box, unleash trade ills on world

The take-away: "Negotiations must be equal, and China will not accept any consultation under unilateral coercion,” Gao said."

China (and Russia) demand to be treated as equals, which would mean the US accepting multipolarity. 

Is the US willing to go to the mat to maintain unipolarity?

Stay tuned.

Reuters
China warns U.S. not to open Pandora's Box, unleash trade ills on world
Se Young Lee and Yawen Chen

The world just changed. "Putin did it."

Sunday reading.

LobeLog
Unipolar Strategy in a Multipolar World
Paul Pillar

Une parole franche
Missile-gate
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

Russian and Eurasian Politics
Putin’s ‘Missile Speech’: Butter, Guns, and Security Discourse
Gordon M. Hahn, Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, www.cetisresearch.org.

The Vineyard of the Saker

Putin’s stunning revelations about new Russian weapons systems

The Saker

Moon of Alabama
Russia Shows Off New Weapons - Tells U.S. To "Come Down To Earth"

b

RussiaFeed
Worth a thousand words: Diagrams and charts of new developments in Russia’s defense systems
Seraphim Hanisch

RT
Russia ‘threatens our ability to dominate’ – US general to Congress

Asia Times
The US must harden its response to Putin’s new Cold War

Richard N. Haass | President of the Council on Foreign Relations

The National Interest
Russia's Big Military Buildup: Why Is America So Shocked?

Dave Majumdar | defense editor for The National Interest

 Irrussianality
Artificial conflict
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

The Vineyard of the Saker
How far can the Americans be pushed?

Ghassan Kadi

Matias Vernengo — Talk of military intervention in Venezuela is absurd

Gunboat diplomacy.

Naked Keynesianism
Talk of military intervention in Venezuela is absurdMatias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference — official English transcript

The President’s news conference was broadcast live by Rossiya 1, Rossiya 24 and Channel One, as well as Mayak, Vesti FM and Radio Rossii radio stations.

The President of Russia (official English translation)
Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference
December 14, 2017,  Moscow