Exit from Hegemony

Subtitled 'the unravelling of the American global order', this as an astute and timely analysis of the decline of the US-led liberal international order, 'the American-led system of alliances, institutions, global governance that was developed after the Second World War.' In this context, a hegemony is a political community that uses its 'superior economic and military capabilities to exercise leadership.' The book argues that the liberal international order has in fact been unravelling for the last 15 years, and that the Trump presidency has simply seen an acceleration of this process in actually repudiating this order and fraternising with authoritarian leaders. The authors consider the American hegemonic system from a theoretical and historical perspective, highlighting the foreign policy tension between supporting democracy and free markets: this has quite frequently led to CIA-sponsored regime change interventions that undermine democracy but also support free-market dictators, all underpinned by the myth of manifest destiny.

The book provides a good model of the ecology of the international order in terms of architecture (rules, norms and values), and infrastructure (practices and relationships), which are bridged by international institutions with responsibility for economics, security and political relations - all this has given the US a significant geopolitical advantage, along with the US dollar as reserve currency. The following chapters analyse the ways in which hegemonic orders unravel, considering specifically what the authors call 'exit from above' where Russia and China are seeking to transform the international order, then 'exit from below' with the rise of new external patrons – think of China's Belt and Road Initiative as well as their investment in land in Africa; and finally 'exit from within' through right-wing trans-nationalism and counter-order movements.

The overall trend is towards a multipolar order, with China and Russia both promoting new institutions and undermining the liberal international order with their reassertion of state control over information and criticism of human and political rights. Putin even wrote a long article in the FT last summer on the decline of liberalism. Now Trump himself is aiding and abetting the unravelling process by disrupting the architecture and infrastructure of US leadership, pitting allies against US interests in a zero-sum analysis. This the authors call 'exit made in America', based on narrow self-interest and representing 'geopolitical suicide' in terms of the existing order. The authors envisage a number of possible future orders, including the rise of China and a new Cold War, multipolarity based on sovereignty and non-interference without American liberal ordering, and globalised oligarchy and kleptocracy. Whatever the mix/outcome, there is certainly a major transformation underway in international order and the US 'will need to accommodate other powers to a much greater extent than it used to' in the absence of 'mystical American exceptionalism', which every president has tacitly assumed and used to justify US interventions, overt and covert. Missing from this power- and policy-centred analysis are the implications of localisation as a counter-move to globalisation, and also the political implications of environmental decline and climate instability; the first gives rise to small-scale decentralised ecologies of order, while the second is likely to intensify political instability, as we have already seen with the European refugee crisis.