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Disinherited and Dispossessed: Relative Deprivation and the Rise of the Far-Right in the U.S.A

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By Gideon Jones

Pixabay/Geralt, 2021.

The unforgettable images of a mob of Trump supporters invading the United States Capitol in January 2021 caused widespread horror and repulsion. Since then, there has been a scramble to explain the sieges’ immediate causes and its participants motivations. Undeniably behind each of these is the rise of the Far-Right in the United States. 

So, who do we mean when we talk about the Far-Right? To define the Far-Right is no small feat, but at its most basic it can be thought of as an umbrella term for the Radical and extremist Right. Though the two are related, they are by no means the same. 

For our purposes, it will be most useful to think about the Radical-Right as being defined by ‘ethno-nationalist xenophobia and anti-establishment populism’, as well as nativism, extreme-nationalism and authoritarianism. What differentiates the Extremist-right from the Radical-Right are their attitudes towards democracy and violence: generally speaking, we can view the radical-right as being willing to operate within the democratic system, whilst the Extreme-Right reject the democratic process and are more likely to undertake violence as a means of achieving their political aims. The great fear about the Capitol Siege was that the MAGA movement , being a Radical-Right grouping , was seeming to shift towards Extremist-Right methods to pursue their political ambitions.

Though there has been a great deal of theorising about the ascendance of the Radical and Extremist-right within the United States, one concept that has received little attention is relative deprivation. 

Though there have been attempts to link a rise in extremism to absolute deprivation, the results have been mixed at best. For example, it is well established that a university degree and economic security are no barriers to radicalisation and extremism. 

However, the same cannot be said of relative deprivation. So, what is Relative Deprivation, and what role does it play in fuelling radical and extremist-right movements? 

Relative deprivation, contrary to absolute deprivation, is not necessarily based upon one’s objective socio-economic position within society. One can feasibly be relatively well off and still feel deprived. As the psychologists Kunst and Obaidi argue, since humans ascertain their position in society through comparing themselves to one another, and ‘relative deprivation involves the perception that oneself or one’s group does not receive valued resources, goals, ways or standards of living, which others possess and one feels entitled to’. This is what we need to understand when we begin to think about the rise of Far-Right in the United States – many Americans are feeling that their communities are worse off now relative to the past, that they have been robbed of what they considered to be theirs and are looking for someone to blame. 

This can have some interesting implications when applied to the rise of the Far-Right in the United States. One theory behind the rise of Trump, and the Far-Right more generally, was the ‘left behind’ thesis: that it was those who were feeling the greatest level of economic hardship that fuelled his ascendancy to the presidency and made up the bulk of the MAGA movement. Whilst it has been observed that upward mobility was low and life expectancy was shorter in areas that leaned most towards Trump, there are several issues with this explanation. Firstly, when Trump won the 2016 election  the United States was in the middle of an economic recovery, and manufacturing jobs were on the rise . Secondly, Trump supporters were generally not poor. In 2016, roughly two thirds of his supporter base had an average household income of above $50,000. Whilst economic factors undoubtedly played a role in the rise of the MAGA movement, the picture is more complicated than expected, and something more is needed to explain the populist rage that fuelled Trump’s rise in 2016 and which sustains the Far-Right today.

This is where relative deprivation enters the picture. The rise of the Far-Right was not about deprivation per se, but the perception that many in White America felt deprived relative to others, and thus that their status was diminished. This is especially true of White Supremacist organisations in the United States, who view the country as uniquely ‘theirs’. White America felt that for much of the United States’ history they had been justly dominant, and that this was something that should continue. With America’s growing racial diversity and the continued effects of globalisation, many white Americans felt, and feel, ‘ under siege by these engines of change’ . Understanding this, it is unsurprising that these anxieties and their political expression are finding increasing mainstream support, with many feeling that that their communities will face utter marginalisation unless the hierarchies of the past are re-established. 

This feeling is no doubt partially responsible for the rise of the populist MAGA movement- that the elites, illegal immigrants, liberals and many more were to be held responsible for their plight, and to be opposed in order to ‘make America great again’. Far more concerning is the rise of those that are willing to attack the groups and forces that they see as taking away what they see as their rightful position in society. Events like Charlottesville and the Capitol Siege are now part of a worrying trend of Extreme-Right violence in the United States.

The rise of xenophobic, anti-establishment, and discriminatory politics is the end product of this anxiety, and like Donald Trump, it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. It may in fact become worse over time as the anxiety of white America only increases and the winds of change continue to blow.

Whether the narratives provided by the various Far-Right groups in the United States are factual or not is of little importance to their continued rise. They offer a narrative to explain world change, to frame and understand one’s anxieties and to offer a remedy. The great failure of modern liberal politics (in the US and beyond), as many are increasingly coming to realise, is that it’s narratives about the world have been ringing more and more hollow . To fail to tackle this fear head on, or to even mock it, is to allow it to grow ever more rampant, and allow extremism in the United States to grow.

The Capitol Siege should be a wake-up call to liberals the world over. There needs to be a counter-narrative, an equally compelling story that can be told that doesn’t lead people down the paths of racism, xenophobia, and violence. With the election of Joe Biden and the return of business-as-usual politics to Washington D.C, there is a fear that nothing will fundamentally change, on both the left and the right. If nothing is done to address these underlying anxieties, the worst may still be yet to come. Instead of denouncing the far-right’s supporters as being morally beyond the pale, more should be done to understand why people would even support that kind of politics in the first place.

 

Gideon Jones is a MA student in Terrorism, Security & Society at the War Studies Department, King’s College London, and completed his BA in History at the University of Warwick. Coming from Northern Ireland, he has been brought up in a country scarred by the issues of terrorism, conflict, sectarianism, and extremist ideology. Through this experience, he has been given valuable insight into how the legacies of such problems can continue to divide a society decades after the fighting has stopped, and how the issues left unresolved can threaten to upend a fragile peace. Gideon is a Staff Writer at Strife.

On a battlefield of narratives, insurrectionist propaganda prevails

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By Willem La Tulip-Troost & Katherine Nichols

Insurrectionists swarm the Capitol (Leah Millis/ Reuters)

‘This is a PR war’, a rioter yelled to his comrades as they ransacked the Senate floor, ‘this is an [information operation] war… we can’t lose it.’ Out of all the lies that went into the making of the US Capitol attacks, this is one of the few truths to emerge. 

On 6 January, far-right conspiracy theorists, convinced that the 2020 election was stolen from then-President Trump, attacked the United States government. The immediate goal was to prevent the certification of the election results in which Joe Biden triumphed. The long-term goals, and the extent to which the rioters had intended to escalate violence (such as alleged plans to kidnap or harm US lawmakers), are still being parsed out. One thing is certain though — the attacks were part of a calculated performative act, one designed to legitimise and promote the alternate reality in which the rioters live. 

It does not take an expert to see that, although they did not prevent a President Joe Biden, the attack on the Capitol was not a complete loss for the rioters. It is because the battle they fought was not over electoral due process; instead, it was a counterintuitive ideological campaign to, in their eyes, save democracy by ‘Stop[ping] the steal’. As insurgents in an increasingly visual world, their battles are fought in the narrative domain. The rioters at the Capitol didn’t have to overturn election results to walk away victorious, they just needed to control the narrative. That is not to diminish the violence at the Capitol and the lives lost that day. Rather, a reminder that to fully understand the attackers, we need to understand the messages they were sending both overtly and in the subtext. 

Today’s insurgencies are fought on an ideological battlefield, which broadens the arsenal of weapons and strategies. Where guns and tanks once conquered territory, words and images now command hearts and minds. Everything an actor does or says has communicative value; strategic communications theory posits that every word, deed, action, or non-action sends a message that can feed into the larger narrative. Initial assessments of the Capitol riots analyse the attacks in terms of political violence or explain the static symbols present, such as flags and tattoos. However, to fully understand the attacks we need to go beyond the purely material assessment and instead address the messages sent and narratives evoked.

We can understand the Capitol Riots through a phenomenon called Propaganda of the Deed (POTD). POTD refers to ‘an act of violence whose signal and/or extreme nature is intended to create an ideological impact disproportionate to the act itself’. Propaganda of the Deed employs symbols, which can be words or actions, to amplify the message of the deed beyond the act itself, thereby contributing to a broader narrative.  In their symbolic attacks on the Capitol, the rioters sent a message that will have longer-lasting impacts than any physical damage to the building. 

Ultimately POTD is a tool of legitimation, used to market the insurgents’ ideals and encourage sympathetic communities. The rioters ensured their narrative would be broadcast worldwide by breaking into and desecrating institutions of democracy that once seemed untouchable. Indeed, shortly after the riots, 74% of Americans believed US democracy was under threat. Thus in the context of this narrative battlefield, we should be analysing the weaponization of symbols – the Propaganda of the Deed.  

In this article, we outline particularly striking moments of POTD at the Capitol riots which will reverberate for a long time to come. Though they feature symbols with strong connotations in American culture, the POTD value is the context in which they are used. The emotional, cultural, and political impact of such moments should not be overlooked. These symbolic instances represent not the first gunshots in a new battle, but powerful ideological weapons in an ongoing narrative war raging at the heart of American society.

Guns were drawn in the House Chamber as insurrectionists breach the Capitol entrance (Drew Angerer/Getty)

This image symbolises the severity of the day in which American institutions of democracy all of a sudden seemed all too impermanent. It is a sobering sight, United States Capitol Police brandishing their guns at rioters threatening to break into the House Chamber as representatives hide underneath seats. This is a symbol of how fragile political order can be. To some, this serves as a reminder of the existential threats American democracy faces; to others, this serves as a call to action, evidence that they can affect change through violence. In this imagery, the threat of far-right groups in the US is legitimized and the weakness of US democratic security is publicized. The imagery of armed civilian groups breaching the Capitol — with relative ease — will not soon be forgotten by US allies or adversaries, domestic and foreign.

The Confederate flag paraded through the Capitol halls for the first time Mike Theiler / Reuters

While the Confederate army got within six miles of the Capitol during the US Civil War, no confederate flag raised in revolt ever flew within it; that was, until 6 January. The image of a man flaunting the Confederate flag, a racist emblem, through congressional hallways is a powerful symbol of the white supremacy that persists in America generations after the Civil War. This particular image of abolitionist Charles Sumner watching over the deed is especially haunting. The action as a whole underlines Trumpite glorification of an imagined past and can be mobilized for the rioters’ greater narrative of sedition. This bears an unwelcome resemblance to the cult of tradition that Umberto Eco identifies as a core feature of fascism.

 

A noose made from commandeered media equipment Paul McLeod / Twitter

The hangman’s noose is a chilling symbol of fear and hatred in the US after it was used for decades to control, intimidate, and kill primarily African Americans. The noose made multiple appearances at the riots, including a massive gallows erected in front of the Capitol steps. In this image rioters had stolen abandoned AP news equipment, fashioned a noose from cable wire, and chanted ‘We are the news now’. The fear that this symbol incites is heightened not only by the image of the noose but also by the pre-existing hatred for the media. The rioters present that day, by and large, view the media as their adversary. Some of the most extreme groups subscribe to the white supremacist idea of a Day of the Rope in which they lynch ‘race traitors’ such as journalists and politicians. The symbolism of rioters using one of the more insidious symbols of hatred in US history to threaten the free press – a core tenant of American democracy – should not be lost on us.

Conspiracy theorists stand their ground in the Capitol (Saul Loeb/Getty)

The unforgettable image of a shirtless man standing in the Capitol donning a horned fur helmet represents more than an unusually dressed insurrectionist. Calling himself ‘Q Shaman’, the man is an esoteric supporter of the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, which alleges Trump is the saviour destined to defeat a ‘deep-state cabal’ of paedophiles. The image is symbolic of how a conspiracy theory that began on 4chan, a notorious alt-right message board, has infiltrated the US government; not only with the Capitol breach on 6 January but through elected officials including President Trump, who amplify, mirror, and feed into the conspiracy with baseless voter-fraud allegations. The symbolism of this moment illustrates the palpable impacts of online disinformation and conspiracy when it jumps off the pages of the internet and into the real world. This is another example of an image that can be interpreted in two ways: evidence of an existential threat to America, or as a call to action. 

Much ink has since been spilt explaining the implications of political violence in one of the world’s oldest constitutional democracies. The ensuing debates have revolved around curbing online incitement and countering right-wing extremism, but not as much effort has gone into understanding the rhetorical significance of the riots themselves — the Propaganda of the Deed. The riots were not the endgame, rather a physical outburst of an ongoing narrative conflict. In addition to the questions about political violence and online disinformation, we should also be asking what symbols the extremists are welding into their narrative. Countering extremist propaganda relies on developing effective and compelling counter-narratives. Without understanding the narratives the rioters evoked, and how and why they did so, attempts to counter their propaganda will be ineffective.

 

Katherine Nichols recently completed her MA in Strategic Communications from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Her research focuses on influence and diplomacy. You can find her on Twitter at @kat_nichols_.

Willem La Tulip-Troost recently completed his MA in Strategic Communications from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. His research focuses on diplomacy, influence, narrative, and disinformation. You can find him on Twitter at @LaTroost

Book Review: ‘In Defence of America’

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by Antonia Marie Sheppard

Bronwen Maddox. In Defence of America. Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, London, 2009. ISBN  978-0715637920 Pp. 208. Paperback. 

In Defence of America: Amazon.co.uk: Bronwen Maddox: Books

In 2013, a parody Twitter account of the American actor Bill Murray (@BillMurray) caused global confusion, after tweeting:

I’m sick of people saying America is ‘the stupidest country in the world’. Personally, I think Europe is the stupidest country in the world.

Perhaps a comment on the American education system; this confusion twinned with frustration offers an amusing illustration of just one internationally recognised stereotype of the United States.

It is precisely this stereotypical, ‘unfair’ portrayal of the United States which Bronwen Maddox, former Foreign Editor of The Times, seeks to challenge in her book, In Defence of America. Her central charge is that the global perception of the United States as a neoimperialist hegemon, characterised by the breath-taking arrogance and misjudgements of its leaders is a misrepresentation deserving of a retrial. While acknowledging that the US is ‘comically’ bad at making a case for itself, Maddox attempts to re-caricature these ‘fat, trigger-happy, Christian fundamentalists’ into more appealing allies. Through an analysis of shared values, capitalist successes, the promotion of democratic principles, and the invasion of Iraq, Maddox argues that anti-Americanism is ill-founded and outdated in our globalised world. However, plagued by illogical methodology, sweeping generalisations, and a by-product of audience alienation, Maddox’s myopic perspective does not withstand scrutiny.

Hailing from an Anglo-American background, Maddox presents herself as an objective commentator. Unfortunately, this does not translate in practice. Portraying the United States as a victim, Maddox adopts the position of attorney, presumably in a case regarding defamation of character. The legitimacy of this stance is questionable. The United States does not need an apologist when it has chosen to exert its power on the global stage, nor does it have any evidence for victimisation, following its position as the predominant author of Western geopolitics. Furthermore, the employment of the English definition of the term ‘liberal’ is paradoxical. By imposing British language etic upon a study of America, does erroneous methodology not mark this interpretation void? The case would likely be thrown out in court.

Despite this, Maddox’s argument that anti-Americanism was inevitable following the fall of the Soviet Union is commendable. After half a century of Cold War animosity, the bipolar nature of the international system collapsed, and the Eastern power bloc that the West had united against disappeared. The primal urge to ‘know your enemy’ meant that this void needed to be filled. Who better to unite against than arguably the most powerful hegemon in history? Fuelled by a combination of American triumphalism and a reignition of nationalism, Western Europeans were free to vocally criticise the United States, without having to depend upon them for defence against the Soviet Union. It was from this freedom that anti-Americanism flourished. However, the United States has not helped its case. The growth of anti-Americanism is not surprising after George W. Bush’s reduction of global politics to a contest of good versus evil; the ‘good’ guys have since perpetrated around 1,000 civilian deaths in Pakistan alone. Defence of the International Liberal Order by illiberal means (see D. Stokes, American hegemony and the future of the Liberal International Order) has undermined America’s virtuous persona on the international stage, and preceded its retreat to isolationism.

Moreover, the charge that America is essentially benevolent is an unpopular opinion. Simply reaffirming that idealism is a ‘guiding inspiration’ of all American policy is an idealistic and distorted representation of the land of the free’s foreign interventions, which lacks a basic foundation in history. The argument that the United States should be applauded for ‘three decades of democracy spreading’ fundamentally ignores the nationalist aims for global hegemony that dictated the Cold War. More recently, the Bush doctrine’s call to impose democracy on the Middle East was not only a selfish pursuit of national security, but disregarded the national interests of the occupied countries. It is these national interests, under the guise of idealism, that continue to define the foreign policy of the United States today.

While America might have been the victim of anti-Americanism in 1991, their conduct in Iraq, and more recently under the Trump administration, continues to alienate international perception. Much like European opinion of America, the perspective of this book has not aged well.

Furthermore, the characterisation of the European powers as the ‘losers’ from American dominance does little to serve Maddox’s argument that America does not deserve misrepresentation, but rather perpetuates her hypocritical perception of European stereotypes. Any Englishmen and women reading this will likely relish in the French-bashing of the book, sticking two fingers up at the French, as though on the fields of Agincourt. Maddox’s argument that any political affinity with the United States in France is like signing your own warrant for the guillotine reads as ill-informed prejudice. With American ratings of France reaching a record-high of 87 per cent in 2016, and Obama’s paralleling of himself and Francois Hollande as the ‘Jefferson and Lafayette’ of our time (a duo portrayed as the personification of Franco-American amity, despite the two men having no contact during the Revolutionary years (see Tom Chaffin’s Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship That Helped Forge Two Nations)), it is difficult to defend this projection of anti-Americanism against reality. While the French may be angry about Trump’s lack of common decency, following his cancelation of a centenary visit to the French battlefields due to a spot of rain, it is hardly likely that this antipathy, as Maddox argues, originates from the Treaty of Versailles.

Maddox’s incapability to garner sympathy from her target audience continues. The implication that Britain’s lack of a constitution is due to the recognition that ‘the best words have already been taken’, is not only a matter of opinion, but functions counterproductively to further alienate those she attempts to ‘defend’ America against. Additionally, while attempting to challenge the Anglican perception of the United States’ role as the world’s policeman, Maddox does not just succeed in undermining its legitimacy, but accidentally illustrates (rather effectively) the destructive authority that the ‘world’s policeman’ has exercised this side of the millennium. One is provoked to wonder why US armed forces are rarely subject to scrutiny for their actions, with accountability being an ‘orphan’, to paraphrase JFK. Who gave them license to kill? Therefore, by recognising the position of Europeans as mere agents, under the authority of this stand-alone superpower, one is ironically left to stomach the bitter taste of American exceptionalism.

Littered with generalisations and double-standards, In Defence of America ironically struggles to defend its central argument throughout. If this book was three pages, or three volumes, it could have the potential to do the central argument some justice. Ultimately, this book would be suitable for the general readership, due to its accessibility of language and concise length. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to have an intelligent debate regarding America’s changing relationship with Europe within global politics. Nevertheless, readers of this book should take every sentence with a pinch of salt. It would be wrong to suggest that it is not worth reading – it is – but purely as an exercise in futility, or for the sole function of criticism. Moreover, a word of warning to any fellow Europeans who wish to read this book, a catch-22 presents itself: if this book is not agreeable with yourself, is this as a result of your own anti-American bias?

Antonia Marie Sheppard is an MA Intelligence and International Security student at King’s College London. Specialising in counter-terrorism and deradicalisation, Antonia is a member of the ‘MPOWER Project (NY), conducting research into radicalisation and prevention through intervention. Her research focuses on the UK-USA presence in Cyprus and more specifically at Ayios Nikolaos, the largest GCHQ base outside of the UK.

Tactical Instability on the South China Sea and Sino-American Decoupling

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By Axel Dessein
30 October 2018

The USS Decatur finds itself seconds from disaster during an unsafe encounter with a Chinese destroyer in September 2018. (Image Credit: US Navy)

In late September 2018, a Chinese Luyang-class destroyer nearly collided with the American destroyer U.S.S. Decatur during a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea. These operations are essentially aimed at signalling a commitment to keeping the sea lanes open, the near-collision demonstrates that such commitments are to be upheld. Following the unsafe encounter at sea, several commentators pointed out that this atypical event may be a reflection of the broader deterioration in relations between the two countries. Indeed, we may now be witnessing the effects of the trade war spilling over into the military and security domain. This shift in behaviour is a crucial development, as the Trump Administration seems to have declared a new Cold War on China.

Winning Control

At the strategic level, China’s acquisitions in the South China Sea are its answer to the First and Second Island Chains, which caused the country’s claustrophobic vision of its surrounding seascape. Indeed, while the American interpretation of these island chains was aimed at keeping the country in, China itself views this enduring element of the region’s geostrategic outlook as benchmarks for its naval ambitions, as Andrew S. Erickson and Joel Wuthnow demonstrate.

In the 1970s, China took control of the Paracel Islands and their surrounding waters after a military standoff with the Vietnamese Navy. It is on those islands that China eventually established Sansha City, the administrative basis for control over the “Three Sands:” the Paracels (or Xisha, West Sand), the Spratlys (or Nansha, South Sand), and the Macclesfield Bank and Scarborough Shoal (commonly grouped under the name Zhongsha, Central Sand).

Undoubtedly, heaps of sand abound. Satellite imagery reveals that since 2014, China has engaged in massive land reclamation and construction activities on many of the islands and submerged features. This island-building enterprise is a clear expression of the intent to establish a military foothold in the region, thereby securing relative control of the sea. If for instance, one draws a line between the different island groups, a triangle becomes visible within the Nine-Dash Line, a series of dashes that trace China’s maritime demarcation line.

The Science of Military Strategy (Zhanlüe xue), an informative study released by the Chinese Academy of Military Science is especially enlightening as to what these advancements mean for China. According to the study, China’s strategic thinking is increasingly looking towards the South China Sea to attain a form of effective control (youxiao kongzhi) over the area to establish a forward-deployed position (qianyan fangwei) away from the mainland. However, it remains unclear what exactly China is claiming: the sea itself or the many features within the Nine-Dash Line.

This ambiguity fits perfectly within the nature of the country’s approach towards asserting its claims. In fact, China seems to be moving within the so-called grey zone, a form of strategy “at the low end of the conflict spectrum in which […] military coercion is occurring to alter the status quo,” according to James J. Wirtz. Whether conflict in the grey zone is an entirely new domain is of course an interesting debate, as Toshi Yoshihara demonstrated an earlier variation of such behaviour in his appraisal of the Paracel Sea Battle between China and Vietnam. Whatever the answer may be, such short-of-war behaviour has clearly demonstrated its effectiveness time and again.

Manning the Great Wall at Sea

Ambiguity and non-military coercion appear to be essential elements in China’s toolbox for the South China Sea. Conor M. Kennedy and Andrew S. Erickson have written extensively on this topic. Most importantly, one has to recognise that there are essentially three Chinese sea forces: the grey-hulled navy, the white-hulled coast guard and its fishermen. Aptly called a maritime militia, these fishing boats are the vanguard involved in promoting and defending China’s sovereignty at sea. That is not to say, however, that China has come up with a recipe for success.

The 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff demonstrates the fallibility of Chinese strategy. Special attention can be drawn to the Philippines which in 2013 filed a case against China’s territorial claims at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. After a ruling in favour of the Philippines that thereby denied the Chinese claims, China rejected the validity of the PCA and insisted on resolving the disputes bilaterally. In this instance, China failed to win control, and the shoal remains a major source of tension between the two countries.

The South China Sea is sometimes referred to as “Asia’s powder keg” because of its precarious position between China and several ASEAN states. (Image Credit: Global Security, CSIS, DW)

Other attempts have been made to quell China’s expansionist activities in the South China Sea. After sixteen years of negotiations China and the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) recently made some progress on drafting the framework of a proposed Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, which is a slow albeit necessary process. However, the conflict is not limited to Asia. Because of the growing economic and political relationship between China and countries like Greece, the European Union has come short of wording a clear statement on the issue. Here, we see attempts at preserving international law in a key trading region like the South China Sea increasingly being trumped by other economic interests.

One commentator suggests that the Scarborough Shoal standoff reveals much about China’s intent. The country demonstrated non-military assertiveness with the aim of becoming a great power at sea (haiyang qiangguo). Another commentator sees an analogy between China’s sea power endeavours and those of the German navy under Admiral Tirpitz. Broader historical parallels are also drawn with the Anglo-German conflict of the nineteenth century. However, while the clash between the world’s most powerful states is primarily about their desire for great-power status, diverging ideologies are shaping how this conflict plays out. Here, Alfred W. McCoy writes: “Treat the South China Sea as central, not peripheral, and the Cold War not as bounded by a specific ideological conflict but as the midpoint in a century-long clash of empires.” Today, the empires in question are of course, China and the U.S.

A Relationship Adrift

Amid growing trade tensions, the countries put a halt to their Diplomatic and Security Dialogue (D&SD). The U.S. Secretary of Defence James Mattis also skipped China during his October 2018 trip to Asia, but did meet with his Chinese counterpart in Singapore. In light of such events, it is but a small surprise that Chinese academics and political groups are discussing a “decoupling” (tuogou), a process which describes a potential rupture in the economic and security relationships between China and the U.S. The risks associated with such an unravelling of the ties between China and the U.S. are manifold, with increased tactical instability demonstrated by the recent near-collision as an example.

Strategic competition with China is back on the American agenda. As a result, the two giants are increasingly stepping on each other’s toes. In this scenario, the destroyer’s sortie could indeed be a display of greater confidence and boldness on the Chinese part, showcasing a broader shift in the relationship. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that an article by a think tank affiliated with China’s State Council still urges restraint in face of “long-term strategic competition” with the United States. While it is unclear how long such moderation will last, our understanding of the Chinese decision-making process clearly suffers from large information gaps. Simply talking about a new Cold War will not be the answer, learning from Chinese words and actions will be.

Axel Dessein is a doctoral candidate at King’s College London and a Senior Editor at Strife. His research focuses on the implications of China’s rise on the current world order. Axel completed his BA and MA in Oriental Languages and Cultures at Ghent University. You can follow him on Twitter @AxelDessein.

Banner image source: https://www.stripes.com/news/photos-show-how-close-chinese-warship-came-to-colliding-with-us-navy-destroyer-1.550153

Book Review: Bremmer, Ian (2015), Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World

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Reviewed by: Alexandria Reid

Bremmer, I. Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World, ( London: Portfolio Penguin), 2015. ISBN:978 0 24121 677 4

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In his latest book, written with America’s 2016 election in mind, policy pundit and LinkedIn favourite Ian Bremmer laid out three competing visions of America’s future role in the world. Deliberately written in layman’s terms, he asked Americans to consider foreign policy when casting their vote. To aid this process, he included what one reviewer dubbed the kind of multiple choice quiz that belongs in an issue of Cosmo at the start of the book. [1] It is the kind of quiz that might be used to assess your personality and tell you which moisturiser to buy accordingly, except instead of your star sign, he wants to know your views on China’s threat to America, the concept of American leadership and ‘America’s biggest problem in the Middle East’. [2]

Offering an unforgiving portrait of Obama’s foreign policy strategy – or lack thereof – Bremmer argues that today’s ‘Question Mark America’ is causing allies and enemies alike to take unnecessary and destabilising geopolitical risks. America is not yet fully in decline, he diagnoses, but Obama’s foreign policy improvisation threatened to change that. Published before anyone had seriously toyed with the previously unfathomable rise of Donald Trump, Bremmer wanted the electorate to put an end to the indecision of America’s post-Cold War presidents by demanding a clear foreign policy strategy from the 2016 candidates. With Trump’s populist foreign policy revealed, perhaps now he regrets ever asking?

Bremmer’s diagnosis of a declining America is deceptively simple, instinctively appealing and therefore utterly convincing at first glance. Whether addressing an elusive threshold for intervention in Syria in 2013, or a once-sovereign border in Crimea and Ukraine, the ambiguous nature of U.S. intentions leaves other players unsure where to locate America’s increasingly retrenched line in the sand. Simultaneously, he projects an America that is overstretched, burdened with leadership and receiving none of the benefits that justify taking the risk. Bremmer’s overarching message is that American foreign policy today jeopardises both domestic and international security. Worse still, it’s leading to America’s preventable decline. The prognosis almost goads people to demand not just an outline of a foreign policy strategy, but one which will Make America Great Again.

The remedy for American decline is an informed choice on foreign policy. Once you’ve completed your quiz, Bremmer handily lays out three options to choose from: ‘Indispensable America’, ‘Moneyball America’ and ‘Independent America’.

Indispensable, the most familiar of the three, is in essence a proposal for the reclamation of the post-1945 American leadership role that has been half-abandoned in America’s recent incertitude. Embodying Neoconservative ideals, but deliberately avoiding the pejorative connotations that come with the use of the label, Indispensable America continues to police world order whilst exporting its liberal values. Why should America bear the burden of making the world safe for democracy? Here, Bremmer could have easily answered in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt; isolationism would lead America to become ‘a lone island in a world dominated by the philosophy of force.’ [3]

Moneyball, by contrast, sees this approach to world affairs as prohibitively expensive in both blood and treasure, and instead advocates ‘a cold-blooded, interest-driven’ strategy akin to that of the Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane after whom Michael Lewis wrote the book ‘Moneyball’. Moneyball America’s interests are defined narrowly, epitomised by the key phrase ‘America’s value, not its values’. Accordingly, its finite resources must be efficiently invested in strategic partnerships, predominantly with China, even at the expense of failing to support democracy abroad or relationship commitments in regions including Europe and the Middle East.

Independent America’s world outlook differs from both alternatives. In one of the more memorable lines of the book Bremmer suggests that ‘[i]t’s time for a new declaration of independence—a proclamation of emancipation from the responsibility to solve everyone else’s problems.’ [4] Much effort is expended to assure the reader that this is not a return to the disastrous isolationism of the 1930s, rather, it is about adopting an unambiguous stance of non-interventionism and leading by example. By making others take responsibility for their own security at last, America can focus on its own values by ‘perfecting democracy at home’, rebuilding American infrastructure and keeping more money in the taxpayers’ pockets. America cannot afford the exceptional role of policing the world, nor should it, because it forces the nation to compromise the liberal constitutional values that made it exceptional in the first place.

Only at the very end does Bremmer reveal that he prefers a foreign policy strategy that delivers an Independent America. Employing the Goldilocks method of decision-making, Bremmer infers that if Indispensable is too expensive and can no longer attract domestic support, and if Moneyball is too secular for a society which still believes in their own exceptionalism, then, in his eyes, Independent America is just right. Picking the option that most resembles a dangerous isolationism might come as a surprise to those who know Bremmer as the founder and President of the Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk consultancy.

Bremmer’s personal choice aside, it is the way in which he approaches the debate that should concern anyone reading Superpower. The debate the book hopes to incite is an important one, and candidate and voter alike would benefit from a meaningful and accessible discussion about foreign policy in America today. Yet, this is not what Bremmer offers. Instead, he provides a deeply flawed book which infantilises the reader under the guise of accessibility. This does the reader a disservice because it fails to provide them with the tools of analysis to judge whether Trump or Clinton are capable of actually delivering an Independent or Indispensable America with their outlined policies.

Bremmer’s book might help you decide what you want if you were not sure in the first place, but it will not help you make a reasonable choice about how to get it. By offering three mutually exclusive and easily recognisable categories, Bremmer seeks to eliminate the essence of the grand strategic conundrum that has seen America oscillate between policy characteristic of both Indispensable and Independent America since the end of the Cold War. It is the same conundrum that has left many people to wonder if there has been an ‘Obama Doctrine’, or merely a series of post-hoc rationalisations for a reactionary foreign policy. [5] Yet to an unrealistic degree, Bremmer’s discussion mutes the importance of feasible policy in American grand strategy. This is where Trump’s politics triumph. They promise the unattainable in the pursuit of ‘America first’, exercising flagrant disregard for the constraints of domestic and international politics. [6] Both Trump and Bremmer’s vision of the American domestic project is built on the foundations of a liberal international order that demands American proactivity in ways that contradict their foreign policy analysis. Bremmer’s book encourages the reader to demand what they rightly consider to be their national interests, but offers no roadmap for how to reasonably achieve them in a dynamic and multipolar context.

 

 

Alexandria Reid is a recent graduate of War Studies at King’s College London and recipient of the Sir Michael Howard Award for Best Graduate in BA War Studies. Alex currently works for Strife as a Social Media Coordinator, and as a research assistant for Dr. John Bew. In September she will begin her Master’s education as a Conflict, Security and Development student at KCL. Twitter: @AlexHREID.

 

 

 

Notes:

[1]  Boyes, Roger (27 June 2015), ‘Superpower Three Choices for America’s Role in the World by Ian Bremmer’, The Times, Accessed 5/08/2016, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/non-fiction/article4479814.ece

[2] Bremmer, Ian (2015), Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World (Penguin), pp.1-4

[3] Franklin D. Roosevelt (10 June 1940), ‘Address at the University of Virginia’, Accessed 5/08/2016: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15965

[4] Bremmer (2015), p.50

[5] See, McCoy, Alfred (15 September 2015), ‘The Quiet Grand Strategy of Barack Obama’, The American Conservative, available at: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-quiet-grand-strategy-of-barack-obama/ and Drezner, Daniel (2011), ‘Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 4, pp.57-68, available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2011-06-17/does-obama-have-grand-strategy

[6] McCurry, Justin (21 July 2016), ‘Trump says US may not automatically defend Nato allies under attack’, The Guardian, Accessed 5/08/2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/21/donald-trump-america-automatically-nato-allies-under-attack

Image Credit: http://www.wsj.com/video/ian-bremmer-geopolitics-in-an-unstable-world/6FA80445-CFF1-4437-B7BC-E6AE2A9A028D.html