Fresh Perspectives Spotlight Interview: Ali Wyne Discusses U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy
Ali Wyne — an expert in the field of geopolitics and a rising voice in U.S. Foreign Policy circles — joined ITS’ Liam Kraft (Director, U.S. Foreign Policy Programme) to discuss U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, rising great power competition, and the U.S. debate over democratic values.
To listen to this article, click the playback audio below.
As the world continues to grapple with the spread and impact of COVID-19, geopolitical experts are paying close attention to the ways in which the global crisis affects the standing of both the United States and China in the international system. In a world with shifting political dynamics and an ever-more competitive global system, these questions are only natural. As many increasingly point to great power competition as an organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy as it faces growing contestation from the regimes in Beijing and Moscow, a robust set of open questions remains. What does it mean to compete with the likes of China and Russia going forward, and how much of a priority should such great power competition be for the United States? How are smaller and middle powers shaping the international environment in which these great powers operate? As the United States struggles with growing political dysfunction and the specter of democratic decline at home, what does this portend for U.S. foreign policy and the role of values amid tensions with anti-democratic great powers?
To glean insight on these issues from one particularly discerning analyst of U.S. foreign policy and great power competition, The International Scholar spoke to Ali Wyne, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group, serving on its Global Macro team. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute. Ali is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a David Rockefeller fellow with the Trilateral Commission, and a security fellow with the Truman National Security Project. A coauthor of Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World (2013), he has contracted with Polity to write a book on great-power competition.
Fresh Perspectives Spotlight Interview: Ali Wyne
Liam Kraft: So first off, thank you so much again for taking the time. I’m really looking forward to this.
Ali Wyne: Thank you for having me. My pleasure.
LK: So I want to start with COVID-19. Over the last nine months, many people have delivered their assessments of the pandemic, as it relates to affecting the power of the U.S. and China, mostly saying some variation of, “the pandemic reinforces or accelerates pre-existing trends.” You've said that the further the coronavirus spreads, the more long term health, economic and reputational damage each will suffer. Do you think that the pandemic thus far has negatively influenced the power of the U.S. or China -- noticeably or even unnoticeably -- more so than the other? If so, in what ways? And if not why?
AW: I think that it has undercut both the United States and China, albeit in different ways. For the United States, I think that the reputational damage is pretty self-evident. The United States accounts for roughly 4% of the world's population. But it accounts for roughly 20% of the world's COVID-19 infections, and also 20% of the world's COVID-19 fatalities. That disparity is quite striking. And intuitively, you would imagine that the United States, as the world's lone superpower with extraordinary resources – military, economic, diplomatic, and so forth – would be better prepared to deal with this type of emergency. And what we're finding is that the United States – not only among industrialized democracies, but also if we train our aperture more widely, globally, even beyond the realm of industrialized democracies, in terms of the entire set of countries – has responded quite poorly.
There have been a number of articles that I've seen in recent months that testify to the extent of the damage that America's reputation has suffered. There was an article that was published maybe two or three weeks ago in the New York Times. It quoted an observer from Myanmar, I think it was a legislator from Myanmar, who said that, and I’m paraphrasing, “we really take pity on what's going on in the United States. We feel sorry for Americans, but Myanmar is a small country, and there's not really much that we can do to help the United States.” That type of statement is quite striking. The lack of coordination between the national level response in the United States, state level response, city level responses, we really haven't put our best foot forward. And perceptions inform realities, particularly in an age of social media. If the United States is going to stake its claim to being an undergirder, or the central undergirder, of the postwar order, I think a lot of its— not only competitors, but even a lot of its allies and partners will say, “Well, first, let's make sure that you can manage your own domestic affairs properly.”
So just as an analogy, imagine if I were training for a marathon. And I go to a personal trainer and say, “I want to run a marathon.” Well, I think a sensible physical trainer would say, “Well, let's see how you do first. Can you run a mile, then let's do maybe a 5K, then maybe we do 10 miles and then if you can sort of pass those incremental tests, then…” And the reason I give that analogy is I suspect that a number of observers are saying, “if the United States can't manage its own domestic affairs, if it can’t assure the health of its own population, if it's so riven by domestic crises, how can it credibly take on the much larger task of undergirding global order?” So, I think that America's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has really undercut its reputation not only for managing domestic crises, but also by extension, its ability to mobilize coalitions to address transnational challenges. And the United States typically has a very distinguished and I think a very storied track record for most of its postwar history in mobilizing coalitions to address transnational challenges, if you look at its efforts, for example, to assemble a coalition to deal with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, its erstwhile leadership in mobilizing coalitions to tackle climate change.
Turning to China, I find China's record over this roughly nine-month period you mentioned to have been quite striking. So let's rewind to the first quarter of 2020. If you remember circa March, April; by this time China had apparently successfully contained the first wave of the coronavirus. Its economy was recovering, and it was training its sights outwards. It was dispatching teams of doctors to countries in distress. It was sending personal protective equipment kits abroad. The United States was flailing and there were many observers at that time who said, “goodness, if China is responding this quickly, and America is flailing, this is a pretty stark contrast.” I think that China at that time had a really, remarkably favorable opportunity. Given that disparity between its own performance, and that of its principal strategic competitor – namely the United States – it had a really remarkable opportunity to advance its signature geo-economic initiative – namely the Belt and Road – to advance its diplomatic standing, to cast itself however disingenuously as the responsible stakeholder, as opposed to the United States, which is flailing at home, withdrawing from international institutions, and not mobilizing collective action.
So China had an extraordinary set of opportunities. And I think that it has squandered a number of those opportunities, particularly with its so called “wolf warrior diplomacy.” Just in recent months, China has engaged in quite a dramatic act of self-sabotage. It has torpedoed a number of its relationships in the Indo-Pacific. It has hardened attitudes in Washington, it's hardened attitudes in Brussels. It has compelled a number of countries that were initially somewhat receptive to incorporating Huawei into their 5G networks to reverse course. Look at the decision by the United Kingdom; the United Kingdom had said at the beginning of this year that “We're going to give Huawei a limited role. We're going to give Huawei up to a 35% role in the non-core components of our 5G networks.” The UK reversed course, and now France has enacted decrees that will effectively phase out Huawei from its 5G networks by 2028. There are many more countries that are now engaging in comparable calculus, or a comparable set of decisions. So I think China has undercut its own diplomacy and that China has engendered a lot of distrust. If you look at some polling that has recently come out, China's standing and that of Xi Jinping has fallen quite precipitously.
Now, what I would say is, in terms of some of the outlooks for both countries, I think that one advantage that China does have is, at least for the time being coming out of this pandemic, China's economy is the only major one, as far as I know, that is recovering. Its share of exports has reached a record high, in part because China is the principal manufacturer of many of the goods that are even more needed in a time of crisis like a pandemic. So China's economy is the only major one that's recovering. Its share of exports has reached an all time high. And another story to follow is whether RCEP passes. So if RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, passes – and it's been going through a lot of glitches, a lot of bumps (India's pulled out of negotiations, and negotiations have kind of been stalling.) They seem to be inching forward. And so if RCEP passes, especially now that the United States is no longer part of TPP, which is going to be the major Indo-Pacific trade agreement, I think that'll further consolidate China's economic perch in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The reason I give those examples is that I'm struck by this imbalance between China's growing diplomatic isolation, at least among industrialized democracies, and its relatively growing economic perch.
A big question will be, to the extent that even those countries that have grave apprehensions about China's strategic course are going to depend more, at least for the short- to medium-term, on China's recovery for their own recovery, will China be able to overcome some of the suspicions that are engendered in the distrust just on the basis of its sheer economic heft, undergirded by technological progress? And I think that the United States does have a number of enduring structural advantages that it can bring to bear in restoring its traditional role as a mobilizer of collective action. But it's going to have to do a lot of work first at home: one, it's going to have to do a lot of work to get its own domestic house in order before it is welcomed back with open arms as a mobilizer of collective action. And I think that it's also going to have to demonstrate to its allies and partners that this kind of “America First” orientation of foreign policy is more an aberration than a harbinger. If America's allies and partners believe that “America First” is an aberration, they might be more willing to give it a pass and say, sort of, “okay we would like you to resume a traditional role.” If they believe, however, that “America First” is likely to leave an enduring imprint on American foreign policy and could actually be symptomatic of broader undercurrents and the way that America conceptualizes its role in the world, then they might hedge a little bit more.
I'll make one last comment. I would say that there's been a lot of discussion about whether the pandemic will usher in a power transition or accelerate a power transition between the United States and China, or will it usher in an era of Chinese preeminence? I think what's more likely, at least for the time being – because the United States and China for different reasons have undercut their stock of reputational capital – is that the United States and China are both, relatively, going to decline. I see more evidence of a growing number of middle powers who are saying, “we can't trust China. But we also can't trust the United States. We can't trust China, because we see a China that is becoming more assertive, more coercive. It's trying to use its economic and technological heft for bilateral coercive purposes. And we are concerned by what it's doing abroad. I mean, look at what it's done vis-a-vis Hong Kong, vis-a-vis Taiwan, in the South China Sea, vis-a-vis India.” So I think that a number of middle powers in the Indo-Pacific, but also in Europe, are saying, “we're very concerned by the direction that China is taking externally, but also internally: if you look at its actions to build this AI-powered surveillance state, its actions in Xinjiang, the expansion of this coerced labor program in Tibet.” So there's a growing disquiet about China. But I think that there's also a growing disquiet that's occurring in parallel about, as I mentioned earlier, the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy. A lot of allies and partners are asking themselves again, “if America is having this much difficulty managing its own domestic affairs, can we trust it for larger affairs? Can we count on there to be a baseline level of continuity in American foreign policy?”
And so what I see evidence of is, on issues of building up pandemic disease preparedness, mitigating climate change, avoiding the worst fallouts from trade and technological decoupling – I think the middle powers individually and in concert with one another are increasingly rejecting this putative choice between Washington and Beijing and saying, “we have to take matters into our own hands. If we can’t rely on China, we can't rely on the United States, we can't rely on the so-called G2 condominium to assure stability in world affairs, we have to exercise greater agency.” I think one of the really interesting storylines to watch going forward will be looking at the Indo Pacific, looking at what actions Japan, India, Australia, South Korea – strong powers in the Indo Pacific – take, and then in Europe, looking at France, Germany, the United Kingdom; and looking at what middle powers in Europe and Asia do to escape this G2 trap and really leave their own imprint in defining norms, defining rules, and defining institutions to manage major transnational challenges.
LK: So I want to come back to the latter point that you're talking about in terms of the role of smaller and middle powers. I find that discussions about great power competition and U.S.-China relations often focus really heavily on questions like, “What does China want? What will our world look like if that happens? How do we stop that or prevent that from happening?” and much less on the kind of imperatives facing some of those mid-sized and smaller countries. So, based on what you said about the posture that those countries increasingly are needing to take, what are some of the concrete implications that the U.S. should take away for its strategy and for competing with China effectively internationally, if it is the case that a lot of those smaller and middle sized countries are not feeling compelled by some of the messaging coming from both the U.S. and China?
AW: I would say that there are two main implications. The first, which I think I broached in my initial answer, but I'll flesh out. The first is that the United States can't credibly expect that it will just be automatically welcomed back into the fold, as a mobilizer of collective action. I think it's going to have to work considerably harder to burnish, or rather to restore its credentials as a credible mobilizer of collective action. And, in parallel, to be seen as a credible, competent manager of its domestic affairs. I keep bringing up the two elements because the two go hand-in-hand, as I said going back to that analogy that I gave a few minutes ago, if you're seen as taking off more than you can chew, you're not credible. So first, domestic renewal is not ancillary to external competitiveness. Domestic renewal, domestic restoration, domestic competence, they are essential to broader external competitiveness. So I think the United States is going to have to work much harder to restore that reputation at home and abroad. It can't expect that it will just be readily welcomed back into the fold as if its response to COVID-19 hasn't been on display to the rest of the world. It's going to have to acknowledge that the rest of the world doesn't sit idly by, and can't afford to sit idly by, while the United States is dealing with its own issues.
My sense with many small and middle powers is that on balance, between the United States and China, they would certainly prefer the United States to be playing a leading role in mobilizing collective action, in articulating norms to govern, to govern open trade, to govern the fight against climate change, so on and so forth. But again, they are concerned by what they believe are discontinuities in American foreign policy, unpredictability in American foreign policy, and increasingly acute domestic challenges, whether that is growing income and wealth inequality, which has compelled many Americans to ask whether they are accruing the returns from engagement in globalization that they've been promised, or increasingly toxic political polarization, which makes it difficult to establish a sense of strategic cohesion and national purpose. So that would be one sort of takeaway: that we're going to have to work a lot harder. And we shouldn't reflexively assume that distrust of China will automatically redound to America's strategic benefit.
And then the second question is that the United States, to the extent that it pushes back against China, whether it's in the military domain, the economic domain, or the diplomatic domain, I think that the United States needs to think less about assembling a grand coalition of countries to counterbalance China, and instead will have to think about, on given issues assembling ad hoc coalitions. There may be countries that feel comfortable making common cause with the United States on certain issues, but might not want to participate in a broader, perhaps ideological crusade against China. Or they may feel comfortable bolstering their intelligence sharing cooperation with the United States, or their maritime cooperation with the United States, but perhaps they don't want to decouple in trade and technology at the same pace and at the same level as the United States.
The reason I bring that up is that I often encounter this statement in conversations and in analyses that says: “the United States alone only accounts for about a quarter of the world's global economy. And so if it's the United States versus China, the United States unilaterally won't be able to compete with China over the long haul. But if you incorporate America's treaty allies and if you incorporate its long standing partners, then their collective share of the world's economy is something like 60% or 70%.” But implicit in those types of formulations is that the United States and all of the countries in that envisioned coalition have identical threat perceptions, identical policy priorities, strategic consonance, and they are going to act with strategic unity. And I think that expectation is unrealistic.
Here's a good example: the D10. So the D10, which I believe is a UK proposal, basically says that we're going to get together 10 of the world's largest democracies, and between the 10 of us, we are going to try to reduce our reliance on Huawei, we're going to try to reduce our reliance on 5G equipment and infrastructure norms from China. And I think the D10 is an example of kind of an ad hoc, but nonetheless potentially quite powerful grouping on a certain issue. The Quad. The Quad is the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, and they are focused principally on maritime cooperation. They are focused primarily on thinking about how they can strengthen freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. Then you take the Five Eyes network. So the Five Eyes network is focused primarily on expanding intelligence sharing efforts. And so whether you look at the Quad, the Five Eyes network, the D10, and other such groups, they don't necessarily add up to a grand coalition, but that doesn't mean that we should diminish their significance. It's thinking about issue by issue, which countries would be willing to make common cause with the United States? To what extent would they be willing to make common cause with the United States and for what duration? So that second implication is: rather than thinking in terms of assembling a grand coalition against China, which I think is quite unrealistic, on an issue-by-issue basis, assembling ad hoc coalitions.
And also just appreciating that, and this is perhaps a third point, one of the reasons that it's important for the United States to think in terms of ad hoc coalitions on an issue-by-issue basis is that when you look at China, there's a lot of talk about decoupling, trying to isolate China economically, or detach China from the global economy. But when you think about reconfiguring supply chains to reduce China's role, that's not an overnight process. That's maybe a 15-year process, a 20-year process, a 25-year process. So reconfiguring your supply chains to reduce China's role, thinking about how you reduce China's role in your economy more generally, those are medium- to long-term processes. And again, even those countries that are U.S. allies and partners that have very grave apprehensions about China's conduct, they may not have the economic wherewithal to decouple themselves at the pace that the United States might like. If you just look at China’s numbers, the Soviet Union at its peak had a GDP that was roughly 40% the level of the United States. China's GDP I think last year was something like 66% or 67% the level of the United States. So China's GDP, both in absolute terms, but also in relative terms, is far beyond where the Soviet Union was. I think China is the largest trading partner for something like 130 other countries.
All the talk about decoupling has actually placed into sharper relief how difficult it is to actually meaningfully detach yourself from China's economy. So I think the United States needs to appreciate that as much as we might be sort of itching for other countries and for allies and partners to come on board, and to partner with us in counterbalancing certain Chinese practices that we dislike, we might be more capable of moving faster, and we might want to move faster than some of the countries that would form that coalition.
LK: In light of China’s rise, as well as continued challenges with Russia, this idea of great power competition is increasingly occupying the focus of many foreign policy and geopolitics experts. The Foreign Affairs magazine just released a survey on whether U.S. foreign policy should focus on great power competition. What does great power competition mean to you in practical terms? Is it a goal? Is it a strategy? A tactic? And do you think that the U.S. is prepared to engage in whatever that means to the extent that it needs to?
AW: It’s a really important question. And I myself have been wrestling very actively with that question you just posed. I guess what I would say is, since my own thoughts are somewhat in flux, based on what I've read and based on the conversations I've had, most conceptualizations of great power competition that I've seen begin with some version of the notion that China and Russia in particular (not exclusively, but China and Russia in particular) are increasingly contesting U.S. national interests, and are increasingly attempting to revise certain aspects of the postwar order, or the U.S.-led postwar order. And so that's proposition number one.
And underlying proposition one, proposition two is that, in the aftermath of the Cold War, the United States succumbed to a kind of hubris, succumbed to a kind of triumphalism. And felt, misguidedly in retrospect, that it had defeated the final “-ism”, it had defeated communism emanating from the Soviet Union, that democracy, capitalism, and Western norms would be, if not inexorably ascendant, they would be confidently ascendant, and that the United States essentially discounted the extent to which many other countries didn't buy into the contours of the post-Cold War settlement. The difference between China and Russia in 2020, versus China and Russia in 1990: China and Russia in 1991-1992 weren't satisfied, obviously, with the contours of the post Cold War settlement, but they – just in terms of their aggregate material capabilities – didn't have the overall wherewithal to translate their quite fierce opposition to the contours of that settlement into tangible, enduring opposition to the extent that they do now. So great power competition, as far as I understand it, is referring to this increasingly multifaceted, systemic, multi-domain competition being posed by China and Russia.
But I do have a few concerns about the way that it's been conceptualized, or maybe not conceptualized as granularly as it should be. The first is that great power competition strikes me as positioning the United States to be more reactive than proactive, and it's essentially ceding a certain level of strategic initiative to China and Russia. And so if your foreign policy is premised around repelling what China and Russia are doing, then you are somewhat beholden to what they do and what they don't do. And so what I would prefer, what I think would be more tenable, and what I think would also have a better chance of enlisting allied and partner support, as I was talking about earlier, is rather than making great power competition the principle to organize U.S. foreign policy, it's to think first about: where is it that the United States would like to go?
I think having an affirmative agenda for what type of post-COVID-19, or post-pandemic order, the United States would like to help bring about, and having established that affirmative or forward-looking vector, then determining where selective contestation of China and Russia would fit into and advance that broader vector. I think that when we go to allies and partners and signal, or at least appear to signal, that our foreign policy is just focused on repelling what China and Russia do, you're more likely to attract others when you sell them on a vision that says, “here's where we would like to go, and here's what we stand for,” rather than “here's what we would like to repel and here's what we stand against.” Because even if you were able to convince many other countries that they share in your concerns and anxieties, they then say, “okay, but then what is it that you would like to do?” So, one, I would like to see the management of our competitive relations with China and Russia embedded in, rather than subsuming, a broader vector, a more affirmative looking vector about where we would like to go.
I think we also need to make a much more compelling case to the American public. I think that the American public especially in the age of COVID-19 is going to be much more focused on domestic restoration. And I think it's going to be asking much more pointed questions about how contestation of China, and contestation of Russia, advances the welfare of the middle class, makes America more safe in face of pandemics to come, in face of climate change, how external competition is going to help bolster the middle class at a time of growing income and wealth inequality and growing political polarization.
So one, we need a foreign policy that recognizes the importance of great power competition, but doesn't allow it to sort of subsume and wholly determine the direction of U.S. foreign policy; there needs to be a more affirmative component. And that affirmative component is also essential to bringing allies and partners on board who want to be part of a more affirmative-looking agenda. We have to make a more credible case to the American public about what our role is in the world. And we also need to ensure that in deciding when, where, and how to compete with China and Russia, that we also rightsize the challenge. And I think that rightsizing the challenge is particularly important when it comes to China; between China and Russia, China is widely seen as a more formidable, systemic, long-term competitor.
There's a distinction to be made between intentions and capabilities. Even if we stipulate – and there's a very vigorous debate amongst scholars of China as to what the substance, the content of China's long term objectives is – that China has the most maximalist of strategic objectives, let's say for argument's sake, that you believe that China intends not only to overtake the United States as the world's preeminent power, but that China intends to establish a Sino-centric hierarchy, kind of a world order with Chinese characteristics as it were. You then have to ask, “is there a plausible path towards achieving those objectives?” And I think that we don't want to be complacent. We have to strike a balance between complacency and consternation. China is obviously a very potent economic and technological competitor. It is far further along in 2020 than I suspect even China's own leaders would have imagined at the turn of the century.
But China faces critical competitive liabilities as well. Internally, it faces quite a grim demographic outlook. Its primarily state-run economic model is exhibiting signs of growing inefficiency. I think that China, largely on account of its own behavior, is contributing to its own encirclement in the Indo-Pacific. It's hardening attitudes in Washington, it's hardening attitudes in Brussels. And so what I feel more and more is that, in terms of rightsizing the China challenge, we are dealing with a very potent economic and technological competitor that is deeply embedded in the world economy, but it's a competitor that is diplomatically throwing one obstacle after another in its own path. I think that a lot of the influence that China has accrued in recent years, has been the result not of sophisticated grand strategy, but rather as a result of American own goals. So when the United States derogates long-standing alliances, withdraws from core international institutions, and abandons core multilateral agreements, it essentially is handing China an opportunity to entrench its influence, or deepen its influence, without having to invest much of an effort.
I think that if the United States hews to or resumes – and again, it's not going to be just, “let's go back to a sort of pre-2016” – a more traditional foreign policy orientation that focuses on mobilizing collective action, reinserting itself in international institutions, reinserting itself to the extent possible in multilateral agreements, and not with an eye towards dominating, but with an eye towards exercising power and influence with others, then I think that there's a lot that it can do to make up lost ground. It obviously has to supplement that diplomatic restoration with economic restoration or greater economic competitiveness and technological competitiveness. But I think that we have to rightsize the challenge. If you believe that China is this kind of inexorably resurgent juggernaut, the more you believe that conclusion, the more likely you are to believe that you should design a foreign policy that is premised largely, if not entirely, upon repelling what China does. And, again, that type of strategy cedes the strategic initiative to China. I think that we should have the confidence to acknowledge China's competitive liabilities, to recognize our own enduring structural advantages, not to dismiss China as a competitor but to rightsize the challenge.
I know that I went from point A to point B to point Z, and I broached a number of points, but basically: having a competitive strategy that is more proactive rather than reactionary; having a competitive strategy that recognizes the competitive strengths but also the competitive liabilities confronting both Russia and China; making sure that as much as possible we avoid taking steps that bring China and Russia closer together; also thinking about ways that we can develop a vision for a post-pandemic order that brings allies and partners on board so that they feel they are part of a broader undertaking for managing transnational challenges rather than just repelling what China and Russia are doing; bringing the American public on board, because I think the American public feels that there’s a lot of domestic work that needs to be done.
And then the last point that I’ll make is: recognizing that even in dealing with fierce competitors, it’s imperative, and I think that COVID-19 has made this point clear, that as much as possible, great powers not only just avoid armed confrontation, but that they maintain some breathing room, some space for cooperative possibilities. I know it’s something of a cliche or a trope, but the United States will not be able to ensure its own vital national interests – whether it’s in restoring the health of its own citizens, dealing with climate change, preventing a new era of arms proliferation, we can go on and on – without preserving some sort of breathing room with Russia and China. So those are a number of elements. Do they necessarily add up to some sort of coherent grand strategy? Maybe not, but I think that those are some elements that we should think about in the United States as we think about this newly competitive age, as we think about how to relate to China and Russia, and how to both enlist domestic public support, allied support, and to move forward in a way that is affirmative rather than reactive.
LK: So, in talking about an affirmative vision for the world, as well as an affirmative vision for what U.S. foreign policy should stand for, I’m curious what role you think values and democracy and human rights should play in that effort, especially as you look at what recently happened with Navalny in Russia as well as the Uyghur situation in China. What role should those elements play in the U.S. approach to great power competition with those countries, and is there a difference between how the U.S. should approach Russia versus China or do you think there’s more of a commonality in terms of what role values should play in our competition?
AW: Well they play an essential role. I often think back to and often mention an article that Tom Malinowski wrote for The Atlantic, and this gets to your question, it was shortly after he had stepped down from the Obama Administration but it was before he joined Congress. And he was reflecting on his time in the Obama Administration and he said, “I travel across the world and whenever I travel across the world I have individuals in different countries who come up to me and say the United States is departing from its values. How could the United States be engaged in this, that, or the other foreign policy action. Why did the United States do this? It’s not living up to its values.” And what now Congressman Malinowski said is that, “when I would hear those criticisms, they would sting and sometimes I would disagree and some I would agree.” But he said that underlying those critiques for him was a silver lining.
Underlying those critiques was a belief that the United States does stand for something more than its hard power and/or should stand for something more than its hard power. You mentioned Xinjiang. When China engages in mass internment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, when China expands it coerced labor camps in Tibet, when it silences dissidents, when it attempts to silence critics of China’s conduct abroad, or when China engages in coercive wolf-warrior diplomacy, China elicits condemnation but you very rarely hear, I certainly don’t often encounter the sentiment where other countries say “We’re disappointed in the way China’s behaving.” Because there isn’t that baseline expectation that China would behave in a more normatively dignified, or more normatively enlightened, way. So, similarly with Russia, when Russia silences dissidents, when it annexes a territory, when it’s helping to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, again, Russia elicits condemnation but it doesn’t elicit disappointment. And I think that distinction highlights the power of values and the importance of values.
One of, I think, America’s greatest competitive advantages is that the rest of the world wants it to behave in a certain way, expects that it will behave in a certain way that adheres to certain values. And I think that it’s quite notable, and a testament to the great importance and enduring importance of soft power, that even as the United States has been criticized very, very harshly abroad for its issues of systemic racial injustice, issues of income and wealth inequality, on and on and on, nonetheless many of those same critics are looking to see what the United States does. How does the United States reckon with racial justice? What steps will it take to address income and wealth inequality? And so, the United States even when its moral failings are on display for the rest of the world, it’s still a source of normative guidance, it’s still a source of normative inspiration.
And I think one of America’s greatest advantages, both domestically and abroad, is that America has a very long standing tradition of engaging in introspection and reckoning as an instrument of renewal, as an instrument of narrowing the gap between its self-professed ideals and its actual conduct. And so I think that a United States that continues to reckon haltingly imperfectly, it’s essential. A United States that rejects entirely, or that were to dispense with norms, values, principles, it’s not a United States that would be reduced to the status of a not great power. It would still have a formidable economy and a formidable military, but I don't think that it would inspire in the same way. I don’t think that it would be able to mobilize coalitions in the same way.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the United States has to be, and I think actually the United States would probably be better served by being more judicious in the manner in which it attempts to promulgate those values. I believe that there’s a statement attributed, I think to President Clinton, and I think that there have been variations of this statement or this sentiment where President Clinton famously said that the United States derives more enduring influence from the power of its example than the example of its power. And so, I think that the United States has to strike a balance between living those values at home and actively, in a missionary, evangelical style, promoting those values. It has to be careful but I think a United States that is doing a better job every day, or trying to do a better job every day, of living up to its self-professed ideals. A United States that is championing certain values, not imposing them, but demonstrating again the power of its example.
In the Cold War, for example, when the United States was undergoing a very very trying racial reckoning in the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union was very fond of needling the United States and saying look, “You criticize our behavior but look at how you treat African Americans at home,” and one of the most potent sort of counter-offensives in terms of soft power, in terms of diplomacy, was when the United States responded by saying, “Yeah there are issues that we need to address. But look at some of the landmark Supreme Court cases that were passed in the 1950s and 60s. Look at some of the landmark Civil Rights legislation that was passed in the 1960s that helped elevate the role of African Americans, that helped to accord dignity to African Americans, extended civil rights and voting rights.” And again, we still obviously have a very, very long way to go, but by acknowledging those critiques and then taking actions, we were able to really rebut and quiet a lot of that criticism. And so, I think continuing to champion our values, living our values, demonstrating why those values matter, is really essential to who we are.
It’s essential not only to what we do here at home, it’s essential to our external competitiveness. And as I said going back to a point I made earlier, before you take on bigger shoes and say “we have pretenses to undergirding a global order” you have to first demonstrate the virtues of your model at home, the competence of your model at home. And so values are integral to those undertakings, and so I think that we need to be careful about the manner in which we promulgate, but we should never shy away from championing those values, upholding those values, and demonstrating why they do matter, and why they should matter.
LK: Very interesting perspectives. Would love to do it again sometime, thanks so much for your time!
AW: Absolutely. Thank you! It was really a pleasure to do this.
Out of the many fascinating perspectives that Wyne provided, I would suggest a few possible takeaways.
First off, a key assumption that underpins Wyne’s arguments is that perceptions of domestic stagnation or sclerosis influence perceptions of U.S. capabilities in foreign affairs. In that sense, domestic renewal is central to the conversation of how the U.S. can most effectively compete with China and Russia on the world stage. Despite the fact that U.S. governance at home has deteriorated and the country continues to be imperfect in putting democratic values into practice, the United States’ long history of reckoning with and trying to make right on its flaws is actually a competitive advantage. That countries seem to hold the United States to a higher standard than the likes of authoritarian countries like China and Russia demonstrates the enduring, albeit not presumptive, role of U.S. soft power.
Even as the United States has made mistakes and blunders in recent years, ranging from pulling out of international coalitions to failing to respond effectively to COVID-19, so has China over the last year. Both have created opportunities for the other through their own mistakes, and both stand to lose “reputational capital” through the COVID-19 crisis and other failings. In this environment, middle powers can be expected to play an even greater role in shaping the trajectory of global governance and international relations, as dissatisfaction with both the U.S. and China grows. Recognizing this reality, and some of China’s stickier advantages such as its economic weight, the U.S. must shift to thinking in terms of fostering ad hoc, issue-based coalitions rather than expecting allies and partners to align on every single issue or solution.
Accurately assessing the challenges represented by China and Russia, respectively, is key. What are their competitive advantages and liabilities? Where do capabilities match intentions, and where do they not line up? Looking at competitiveness within the international system, both the U.S. and China have retained structural advantages that are not going away anytime soon. In accurately appraising the degree to which China poses a threat to U.S. interests, it is important to recognize the staying power of those advantages and devise strategies that appreciate, rather than eschew, that fact.
What’s more, it is not enough to simply oppose China, nor is it advantageous or desirable to construct a U.S. foreign policy around the premise of opposition. For one, that implies a fundamentally reactive, rather than proactive, posture for U.S. engagement abroad. Second, the lack of affirmative vision or goals limits the United States’ ability to recruit like-minded partners to support its preferences and alternative vision for global order.
Finally, Wyne importantly notes that at a time when COVID-19 lays bare the sharp need to address domestic issues like healthcare disparities, racial inequity, political polarization, income and wealth inequality, and more, it is essential that U.S. leaders better connect foreign policy objectives to these domestic imperatives. In the face of domestic crises, the American public will require it.
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The U.S. Foreign Policy Programme at The International Scholar is dedicated to fostering conversation and creative thought, analyzing issues and challenges, and ideating and postulating innovative approaches to the role of the United States in the world.
Edited by: Cameron Vaské
All views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of The International Scholar or any other organization.
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