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The Disharmony of the Spheres The U.S. will endanger itself if it accedes to Russian and Chinese efforts to change the international system to their liking By Hal Brands and Charles Edel

AKING THE STAGE at Westmin- A “sphere of influence” is traditionally under- ster College in March 1946, Win- stood as a geographical zone within which the most ston Churchill told his audience he powerful actor can impose its will. And nearly three “felt bound to portray the shadow decades after the close of the struggle which…falls upon the .” The that Churchill’s speech heralded, spheres of influence former British prime minister fa- are back. At both ends of the Eurasian landmass, the mously declared that “from Stettin authoritarian regimes in and are carv- in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain ing out areas of privileged influence—geographic has T descended across the Continent.” He went on to ex- buffer zones in which they exercise diplomatic, eco- plain that “Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, nomic, and primacy. China and Russia are Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia all…lie in what I must seeking to coerce and overawe their neighbors. They call the Soviet sphere.” Though the Westminster ad- are endeavoring to weaken the international rules dress is best remembered for the phrase “iron curtain,” and norms—and the influence of opposing powers— the way it called attention to an emerging Soviet sphere that stand athwart their ambitions in their respective of influence is far more relevant to today’s world. “near abroads.” Chinese island-building and maritime expansionism in the South China Sea and Russian Hal Brands teaches at Johns Hopkins–SAIS and is aggression in Ukraine and intimidation of the Baltic the author of American Grand Strategy in the Age of states are part and parcel of the quasi-imperial proj- Trump. Charles Edel serves as senior fellow and ects these revisionist regional powers are now pursu- visiting scholar at the U.S. Studies Centre at the Uni- ing. versity of Sydney and is the author of Builder: Historically speaking, a world made up of ri- and the Grand Strategy of the val spheres is more the norm than the exception. Yet . such a world is in sharp tension with many of the key

20 January 2018 For more than two centuries, American leaders have opposed the idea of a world divided into rival spheres of influence and have worked hard to deny other powers their own. tenets of the American foreign-policy tradition—and fluence game. From the early-19th century onward, with the international order that the American officials strove for preeminence in the West- has labored to construct and maintain since the end ern Hemisphere—first by running other European of World II. powers off much of the North American continent and To be sure, Washington carved out its own then by pushing them out of . With the spheres of influence in the Western Hemisphere be- , first enunciated in 1823, America ginning in the 19th century, and America’s myriad staked its claim to geopolitical primacy from Canada blocs in key overseas regions are effectively to the Southern Cone. Over the succeeding genera- spheres by another name. And today, some interna- tions, Washington worked to achieve military domi- tional-relations observers have welcomed the return nance in that area, to tie the countries of the Western of what the foreign-policy analyst Michael Lind has Hemisphere to America geopolitically and economi- recently called “blocpolitik,” hoping that it might lead cally, and even to help pick the rulers of countries from to a more peaceful age of multilateral equilibrium. to . But for more than two centuries, American lead- If this wasn’t a sphere of influence, nothing was. ers have generally opposed the idea of a world divided In 1895, Secretary of Richard Olney declared that into rival spheres of influence and have worked hard “the United States is practically sovereign on this con- to deny other powers their own. And a reversion to a tinent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it world dominated by great powers and their spheres of confines its interposition.” After World War II, more- influence would thus undo some of the strongest tra- over, a globally predominant United States steadily ex- ditions in American foreign policy and take the inter- panded its influence into through NATO, into national system back to a darker, more dangerous era. East through various military , and into the Middle East through a web of defense, diplomatic, N AN EXTREME FORM, a sphere of influence can and political arrangements. The story of global poli- take the shape of direct imperial or colonial con- tics over the past 200 years has, in large part, been the I trol. Yet there are also versions in which a leading story of expanding U.S. influence. power forgoes direct military or administrative domi- Nonetheless, there has always been something nation of its neighbors but nonetheless exerts geopo- ambivalent—critics would say hypocritical—about litical, economic, and ideological influence. Whatever American views of this matter. For as energetic as their form, spheres of influence reflect two dominant Washington has been in constructing its geopolitical imperatives of great-power in an anarchic domain, a “spheres-of-influence world” is in perpetual world: the need for security vis-à-vis rival powers and tension with four strong intellectual traditions in U.S. the desire to shape a nation’s immediate environment strategy. These are , liberty, openness, and to its benefit. Indeed, great powers have throughout exceptionalism. history pursued spheres of influence to provide a buf- First, hegemony. The myth of America as an in- fer against the encroachment of other hostile actors nocent isolationist country during its first 170 years is and to foster the conditions conducive to their own powerful and enduring; it’s also wrong. From the out- security and well-being. set, American statesmen understood that the country’s The Persian , Athens and Sparta, and favorable , expanding population, and envi- all carved out domains of dominance. The Chi- able resource endowments gave it the potential to ri- nese tribute system—which combined geopolitical val, and ultimately overtake, the European states that control with the spread of Chinese norms and ideas— dominated world politics. America might be a fledg- profoundly shaped the trajectory of for ling republic, George Washington said, but it would hundreds of years. The 19th and 20th centuries saw one day attain “the strength of a giant.” From the revo- the , ’s East Asian Co-Prosperity lution onward, American officials worried, with good Sphere, and the Soviet bloc. reason, that , Spain, and the America, too, has played the spheres-of-in- would use their North American territories to strangle

Commentary 21 The United States has repeatedly acted on the belief that it could be neither as secure nor influential as it desired in a world divided up and dominated by rival . or contain the young republic. Much of early Ameri- that America’s liberal was “destined to cover can was therefore geared toward depriving the surface of the globe.” Here, too, the new nation was the European powers of their North American pos- not cursed with excessive modesty—and here, too, the sessions, using measures from coercive diplomacy to existence of rival spheres of influence threatened this outright of conquest. “The world shall have to be ambition. familiarized with the idea of considering our proper Rival spheres of influence—particularly within to be the continent of ,” wrote the Western Hemisphere—imperiled the survival of John Quincy Adams in 1819. The only regional sphere liberty at home. If the United States were merely one of influence that Americans would accept as legitimate among many on the North American con- was their own. tinent, the founding generation worried, it would be By the late-19th century, the same consider- forced to maintain a large standing military estab- ations were pushing Americans to target spheres of lishment and erect a sort of 18th-century “garrison influence further abroad. As the industrial revolu- state.” Living in perpetual conflict and vigilance, in tion progressed, it became clear that geography alone turn, would corrode the very freedoms for which the might not protect the nation. Aggressive powers could revolution had been fought. “No nation,” wrote James now generate sufficient military strength to domi- Madison, “can preserve its freedom in the midst of nate large swaths of Europe or East Asia and then continual warfare.” Just as Madison argued, in Federal- harness the accumulated resources to threaten the ist No. 10, that “extending the sphere”—expanding the United States. Moreover, as America itself became an republic—was a way of safeguarding at increasingly mighty country that sought to project home, expanding America’s geopolitical domain was its influence overseas, its leaders naturally objected essential to providing the external security that a lib- to its rivals’ efforts to establish their own preserves eral polity required to survive. from which Washington would be excluded. If much Rival spheres of influence also constrained the of America’s 19th-century diplomacy was dedicated prospects for liberty abroad. Although the question to denying other powers spheres of influence in the of whether the United States should actively support Western Hemisphere, much of the country’s 20th-cen- democratic revolutions overseas has been a source of tury diplomacy was an effort to break up or deny rival unending controversy, virtually all American strate- spheres of influence in Europe and East Asia. gists have agreed that the country would be more se- From the , which sought to pre- cure and influential in a world where was vent imperial powers from carving up China, to U.S. in- widespread. Given this mindset, Americans could tervention in the world wars, to the confrontation with hardly be desirous of foreign powers—particularly au- the in the , the United States thoritarian powers—establishing formidable spheres repeatedly acted on the belief that it could be neither of influence that would allow them to dominate the as secure nor influential as it desired in a world divid- international system or suppress liberal ideals. The ed up and dominated by rival nations. The American Monroe Doctrine was a response to the geopolitical geopolitical tradition, in other words, has long con- dangers inherent in renewed imperial control of South tained a built-in hostility to other countries’ spheres America; it was also a response to the ideological dan- of influence. ger posed by European nations that would “extend The American ideological tradition shares this the political system to any portion” of the Western sense of preeminence, as reflected in the second key Hemisphere. Similar concerns have been at the heart tenet: liberty. America’s founding generation did not of American opposition to the British Empire and the see the revolution merely as the birth of a future su- Soviet bloc. perpower; they saw it as a catalyst for spreading po- Economic openness, the third core dynamic litical liberty far and wide. Thomas Paine proclaimed of American policy, has long served as a commercial in 1775 that Americans could “begin the world anew”; counterpart to America’s ideological proselytism. In- John Quincy Adams predicted, several decades later, fluenced as much by Adam Smith as by Alexander

22 The Disharmony of the Spheres : January 2018 Americans have long believed that their nation was created not simply to replicate the practices of the Old World, but to revolutionize how states and peoples interact with one another.

Hamilton, early American statecraft promoted free pean allies during the Cold War—the extent to which , neutral rights, and open markets, both to safe- NATO rested on the authentic consent of its members, guard liberty and enrich a growing nation. This mis- the way the United States consistently sought to em- sion has depended on access to the world’s seas and power rather than dominate its partners—with how markets. When that access was circumscribed—by the Moscow managed its empire in . In British in 1812 and by the Germans in 1917—Americans the same way, Americans have often recoiled from ar- went to war to preserve it. It is unsurprising, then, that rangements that reeked of the old diplomacy. Franklin Americans also looked askance at efforts by other pow- Roosevelt might have tolerated a Soviet-dominated ers to establish areas that might be walled off from U.S. Eastern Europe after World War II, for instance, but trade and investment—and from the spread of Ameri- he knew he could not admit this publicly. Likewise, the ca’s capitalist ideology. of 1975, which required Washington A brief list of robust policy endeavors under- to acknowledge the diplomatic legitimacy of the Soviet scores the persistent U.S. hostility to an economically sphere, proved controversial inside the United States closed, spheres-of-influence world: the Model because they seemed to represent just the sort of cyni- of 1776, designed to promote free and reciprocal trade; cal, old-school that American exceptional- ’s Open Door policy of 1899, designed to pre- ism abhors. vent any outside power from dominating trade with To be clear, U.S. hostility to a spheres-of-influ- China; ’s advocacy in his “14 Points” ence world has always been leavened with a dose of speech of 1918 for the removal “of all economic bar- pragmatism; American leaders have pursued that hos- riers and the establishment of an equality of trade tility only so far as power and prudence allowed. The conditions among all nations”; and the focus of the Monroe Doctrine warned European powers to stay 1941 Atlantic Charter on reducing trade restrictions out of the , but the quid pro quo was that a while promoting international economic cooperation young and relatively weak United States would accept, (assuming the allies would emerge triumphant from for a time, a sphere of monarchical dominance within World War II). Europe. Even during the Cold War, U.S. policymakers Fourth and finally, there’s exceptionalism. Amer- generally accepted that Washington could not break icans have long believed that their nation was created up the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe without risking not simply to replicate the practices of the Old World, nuclear war. but to revolutionize how states and peoples interact But these were concessions to expediency. As with one another. The United States, in this view, was America gained greater global power, it more actively not merely another great power out for its own self- resisted the acquisition or preservation of spheres by interest. It was a country that, by virtue of its repub- others. From gradually pushing the Old World out of lican ideals, stood for the advancement of universal the New, to helping vanquish the German and Japa- rights, and one that rejected the back-alley methods of nese by force of arms, to assisting the liquida- monarchical diplomacy in favor of a more principled tion of the British Empire after World War II, to con- statecraft. When Abraham Lincoln said America rep- taining and ultimately defeating the Soviet bloc, the resented “the last best hope of earth,” or when Wood- United States was present at the destruction of spheres row Wilson scorned secret agreements in favor of of influence possessed by adversaries and allies alike. “open covenants arrived at openly,” they demonstrated The acme of this project came in the quarter- this exceptionalist strain in American thinking. There century that followed the Cold War. With the collapse is some hypocrisy here, of course, for the United States of the and the itself, it was has often acted in precisely the self-interested, cut- possible to envision a world in which what Thomas throat manner its statesmen deplored. Nonetheless, Jefferson called America’s “empire of liberty” could American exceptionalism has had a pronounced effect attain global dimensions, and traditional spheres of on American conduct. influence would be consigned to history. The goal, Compare how Washington led its Western Euro- as George W. Bush’s 2002 National Security Strategy

Commentary 23 China is working, first, to create a power vacuum by driving the United States out of the Western Pacific, and second, to fill that vacuum with its own influence. proclaimed, was to “create a balance of power that and planes operating in international waters and air- favors freedom.” This meant an international space. The Chinese have warned U.S. allies they may environment in which the United States and its val- be caught in the crossfire of a Sino-American war un- ues were dominant and there was no balance of power less Washington accommodates China or the allies whatsoever. cut loose from the United States. China has simulta- Under presidents from George H.W. Bush to neously worked to undermine the credibility of U.S. Barack Obama, this project entailed working to spread alliance guarantees by using strategies designed to democracy and economic farther than ever shift the regional status quo in ways even the mighty before. It involved pushing American influence and U.S. finds difficult to counter. Through a mixture U.S.-led institutions into regions—such as Eastern Eu- of economic aid and diplomatic coercion, Beijing has rope—that were previously dominated by other pow- also successfully divided international bodies, such as ers. It meant maintaining the military primacy nec- the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, through essary to stop regional powers from establishing new which the United States has sought to rally opposition spheres of influence, as Washington did by rolling back to Chinese assertiveness. And in the background, Chi- Saddam Hussein’s conquest of Kuwait in 1990 and by na has been steadily building, over the course of more deterring China from coercing in 1995–96. Not than two decades, formidable military tools designed least, this American project involved seeking to inte- to keep the United States out of the region and give Bei- grate potential rivals—foremost Russia and China— jing a free hand in dealing with its weaker neighbors. into the post–Cold War order, in hopes of depriving As America’s sun sets in the Asia-Pacific, Chinese lead- them of even the desire to challenge it. This multi- ers calculate, the shadow China casts over the region faceted effort reflected the optimism of the post-Cold will only grow longer. War era, as well as the influence of tendencies with To that end, China has claimed, dubiously, nearly deep roots in the American past. Yet try as Washington all of the South China Sea as its own and constructed might to permanently leave behind a spheres-of-influ- artificial islands as staging points for the projection ence world, that prospect is once again upon us. of military power. Military and paramilitary forces have teased, confronted, and violated the sovereignty EGIN WITH China’s actions in the Asia-Pacific of countries from to the Philippines; China region. The sources of Chinese conduct are is likewise intensifying the pressure on Japan in the B diverse, ranging from domestic insecurity East China Sea. Economically, Beijing uses its muscle to the country’s confidence as a rising power to its to reward those who comply with China’s policies and sense of historical destiny as “the Middle Kingdom.” punish those not willing to bow to its demands. It is All these influences animate China’s bid to establish simultaneously advancing geoeconomic projects, such regional mastery. China is working, first, to create a as the , Asian Infrastructure power vacuum by driving the United States out of the Investment Bank, and Regional Comprehensive Eco- Western Pacific, and second, to fill that vacuum with its nomic Project (RCEP) that are designed to bring the own influence. A Chinese admiral made this ambition region into its orbit. clear when he remarked—supposedly in jest—to an Strikingly, China has also moved away from its American counterpart that, in the future, the two pow- long-professed principle of noninterference in other ers should simply split the Pacific with Hawaii as the countries’ domestic politics by extending the reach dividing line. Yang Jiechi, then China’s foreign minis- of Chinese organs and using investment ter, echoed this sentiment in a moment of frustration and even bribery to co-opt regional elites. Payoffs to by lecturing the nations of . “China is Australian politicians are as critical to China’s re- a big country,” he said, “and other countries are small gional project as development of “carrier-killer” mis- countries, and that’s just a fact.” siles. Finally, far from subscribing to liberal concepts Policy has followed rhetoric. To undercut Amer- of democracy and human rights, Beijing emphasizes ica’s position, Beijing has harassed American ships its rejection of these values and its desire to create

24 The Disharmony of the Spheres : January 2018 China and Russia are not liberal ; they are illiberal that see the spread of democratic values as profoundly corrosive to their own authority and security.

“Asia for Asians.” In sum, China is pursuing a classic cessfully in Syria in 2015 to prop up Bashar al-Assad, spheres-of-influence project. By blending intimidation preserve access to warm-water ports on the Mediter- with inducement, Beijing aims to sunder its neighbors’ ranean, and demonstrate the improved accuracy and bonds with America and force them to accept a Sino- lethality of Russian arms. Moscow continues to make centric order—a new Chinese tribute system for the inroads in the Middle East, often in cooperation with . another American adversary: . To be sure, the projects that China and Russia T THE OTHER END of Eurasia, Russia is are pursuing today are vastly different from each oth- playing geopolitical hardball of a different er, but the core logic is indisputably the same. Authori- A sort. The idea that Moscow should dominate tarian powers are re-staking their claim to privileged its “near abroad” is as natural to many as influence in key geostrategic areas. American regional primacy is to Americans. The loss of the Kremlin’s traditional buffer zone was, therefore, O WHAT DOES THIS mean for American in- one of the most painful legacies of the Cold War’s terests? Some observers have argued that the end. And so it is hardly surprising that, as Russia has S United States should make a virtue of necessity regained a degree of strength in recent years, it has and accept the return of such arrangements. By this sought to reassert its supremacy. logic, spheres of influence create buffer zones between It has done so, in fact, through more overtly ag- contending great powers; they diffuse responsibility gressive means than those employed by China. Mos- for enforcing order in key areas. Indeed, for those who cow has twice seized opportunities to humiliate and think that U.S. policy has left the country exhausted dismember former Soviet that committed and overextended, a return to a world in which Amer- the sin of tilting toward the West or throwing out pro- ica no longer has the burden of being the dominant Russian leaders, first in Georgia in 2008 and then in power in every region may seem attractive. The great Ukraine in 2014. It has regularly reminded its neigh- sin of American policy after the Cold War, many realist bors that they live on Russia’s doorstep, through co- scholars argue, was the failure to recognize that even a ercive activities such as conducting cyberattacks on weakened Russia would demand privileged influence in 2007 and holding aggressive military exer- along its frontiers and thus be unalterably opposed to cises on the frontiers of the Baltic states. In the same NATO expansion. Similarly, they lament the failure vein, the Kremlin has essentially claimed a veto over to understand that China would not forever toler- the geopolitical alignments of neighbors from the Cau- ate U.S. dominance along its own periphery. It is not casus to Scandinavia, whether by creating frozen con- surprising, then, to hear analysts such as Australia’s flicts on their territory or threatening to target them Hugh White or America’s argue militarily—perhaps with nuclear weapons—should that the United States should learn to “share power” they join NATO. with China in the Pacific, or that it must yield ground Military muscle is not Moscow’s only tool. Russia in Eastern Europe in order to avoid war with Russia. has simultaneously used energy exports to keep the Such claims are not meritless; there are instanc- states on its periphery economically dependent, and es in which spheres of influence led to a degree of sta- it has exported corruption and illiberalism to non- bility. The division of Europe into rival blocs fostered aligned states in the former Warsaw Pact area to pre- an ugly sort of stasis during the Cold War; closer to vent further encroachment of liberal values. Not least, home, America’s dominance in the Western Hemi- the Kremlin has worked to undermine NATO and the sphere has long muted geopolitical competition in our through political subversion and in- own neighborhood. For all the problems associated tervention in Western electoral processes. And while with European empires, they often partially succeed- Russia’s activities are most concentrated in Eastern ed in limiting scourges such as communal violence. Europe and , it’s also projecting its influ- And yet the allure of a spheres-of-influence ence farther afield. Russian forces intervened suc- world is largely an illusion, for such a world would

Commentary 25 The empires of the 19th century—spheres of influence in their own right—continually jostled one another, leading to wars and near-wars over the course of decades. threaten U.S. interests, traditions, and values in sev- of commerce and investment are subject to heavy Chi- eral ways. nese influence. First, basic human rights and democratic val- Third, as spheres of influence reemerge, the ues would be less respected. China and Russia are United States will be less able to shape critical geo- not liberal democracies; they are illiberal autocracies political events in crucial regions. The reason Wash- that see the spread of democratic values as profoundly ington has long taken an interest in events in faraway corrosive to their own authority and security. Just as places is that East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East the United States has long sought to create a world are the areas from which major security challenges congenial to its own ideological predilections, Beijing have emerged in the past. Since World War II, Amer- and Moscow would certainly do likewise within their ica’s forward military presence has been intended to spheres of dominance. suppress incipient threats and instability; that pres- They would, presumably, bring their influence ence has gone hand in glove with energetic diplomacy to bear in support of friendly authoritarian regimes. that amplifies America’s voice and protects U.S. in- And they would surely undermine democratic govern- terests. In a spheres-of-influence world, Washington ments seen to pose a threat of ideological contagion or would no longer enjoy the ability to act with decisive insubordination to Russian or Chinese prerogatives. effect in these regions; it would find itself reacting to Russia has taken steps to prevent the emergence of a global events rather than molding them. Western-facing democracy in Ukraine and to under- This leads to a final, and crucial, issue. America mine liberal democracies in Europe and elsewhere; would be more likely to find its core security inter- China is snuffing out political freedoms in Hong Kong. ests challenged because world orders based on rival Such actions offer a preview of what we will see when spheres of influence have rarely been as peaceful and these countries are indisputably dominant along their settled as one might imagine. peripheries. Further aggressions, in turn, would not To see this, just work backward from the pres- simply be offensive to America’s ideological sensi- ent. During the Cold War, a bipolar balance did help bilities. For given that the spread of democracy has avert actual war between Moscow and Washington. been central to the absence of major interstate war in But even in Europe—where the spheres of influence recent decades, and that the spread of American val- were best defined—there were continual tensions and ues has made the U.S. more secure and influential, a crises as Moscow tested the . And out- less democratic world will also be a more dangerous side Europe, violence and proxy wars were common world. as the competed to extend their reach Second, a spheres-of-influence world would be into the Third World. In the 1930s, the emergence of less open to American commerce and investment. German and Japanese spheres of influence led to the After all, the United States itself saw geoeconomic most catastrophic war in global history. The empires dominance in Latin America as the necessary coun- of the 19th century—spheres of influence in their own terpart to geopolitical dominance. Why would China right—continually jostled one another, leading to take a less self-interested approach? China already wars and near-wars over the course of decades; the reaps the advantages of an open global even Peace of Amiens between England and Napoleonic as it embraces protectionism and mercantilism. In a France lasted a mere 14 months. And looking back to Chinese-dominated East Asia, all economic roads will the ancient world, there were not one, but three Punic surely lead to Beijing, as Chinese officials will be able Wars fought between Rome and Carthage as two ex- to use their leverage to ensure that trade and invest- panding empires came into conflict. A world defined ment flows are oriented toward China and geopoliti- by spheres of influence is often a world characterized cal competitors like the United States are left on the by tensions, wars, and competition. outside. Beijing’s current geoeconomic projects— The reasons for this are simple. As the politi- namely, RCEP and the Belt and Road Initiative—offer cal scientist William Wohlforth observed, unipolar insight into a regional economic future in which flows systems—such as the U.S.-dominated post–Cold War

26 The Disharmony of the Spheres : January 2018 The idea that spheres of influence are stabilizing holds only if one assumes that the major powers are motivated by insecurity and that concessions to the revisionists will lead to peace. order—are anchored by a hegemonic power that can democratic values are less prominent, authoritarian act decisively to maintain the peace. In a unipolar sys- models are ascendant, and mercantilism advances tem, Wohlforth writes, there are few incentives for re- as economic openness recedes. And rather than lead- visionist powers to incur the “focused enmity” of the ing to multipolar stability, this change could simply leading state. Truly multipolar systems, by contrast, encourage greater revisionism on the part of powers have often been volatile. When the major powers are whose appetite grows with the eating. This would lead more evenly matched, there is a greater temptation to the world away from the relative stability of the post– aggression by those who seek to change the existing Cold War era and back into the darker environment it order of things. And seek to change things they un- seemed to have relegated to history a quarter-century doubtedly will. ago. The phrase “spheres of influence” may sound The idea that spheres of influence are stabilizing vaguely theoretical and benign, but its real-world ef- holds only if one assumes that the major powers are fects are likely to be tangible and pernicious. motivated only by insecurity and that concessions to Fortunately, the return of a spheres-of-influence the revisionists will therefore lead to peace. Churchill world is not yet inevitable. Even as some nations will described this as the idea that if one “feeds the croco- accept incorporation into a Chinese or Russian sphere dile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.” of influence as the price of avoiding conflict, or main- Unfortunately, today’s rising or resurgent pow- taining access to critical markets and resources, oth- ers are also motivated—as is America—by honor, am- ers will resist because they see their own well-being bition, and the timeless desire to make their interna- as dependent on the preservation of the world order tional habitats reflect their own interests and ideals. that Washington has long worked to create. The Phil- It is a risky gamble indeed, then, to think that ceding ippines and Cambodia seem increasingly to fall into Russia or China an uncontested sphere of influence the former group; Poland and Japan, among many would turn a revisionist authoritarian regime into a others, make up the latter. The willingness of even this satisfied power. The result, as Robert Kagan has noted, latter group to take actions that risk incurring Beijing might be to embolden those actors all the more, by giv- and Moscow’s wrath, however, will be constantly cali- ing them freer rein to bring their near-abroads under brated against an assessment of America’s own abil- control, greater latitude and resources to pursue their ity to continue leading the resistance to a spheres-of- ambitions, and enhanced confidence that the U.S.-led influence world. Averting that outcome is becoming order is fracturing at its foundations. For China, domi- steadily harder, as the relative power and ambition of nance over the first island chain might simply inten- America’s authoritarian rivals rise and U.S. leadership sify desires to achieve primacy in the second island seems to falter. chain and beyond; for Russia, renewed mastery in the Harder, but not impossible. The United States former Soviet space could lead to desires to bring parts and its allies still command a significant preponder- of the former Warsaw Pact to heel, as well. To observe ance of global wealth and power. And the political, eco- how China is developing ever longer-range anti-ac- nomic, and military weaknesses of its challengers are cess/area denial capabilities, or how Russia has been legion. It is far from fated, then, that the Western Pa- projecting military power ever farther afield, is to see cific and Eastern Europe will slip into China’s and Rus- this process in action. sia’s respective orbits. With sufficient creativity and determination, Washington and its partners might HE REEMERGENCE OF a spheres-of-influ- still be able to resist the return of a dangerous global ence world would thus undercut one of the system. Doing so will require difficult policy work in T great historical achievements of U.S. foreign the military, economic, and diplomatic realms. But policy: the creation of a system in which America is ideas precede policy, and so simply rediscovering the the dominant power in each major geopolitical region venerable tradition of American hostility to spheres and can act decisively to shape events and protect its of influence—and no less, the powerful logic on which interests. It would foster an environment in which that tradition is based—would be a good start.q

Commentary 27