The US is becoming a selective superpower

 
By Philip Stephens
 

US presidential elections rarely turn on foreign policy. This one less than most. When Mitt Romney spoke to the Republican convention, he made no mention of the young Americans fighting and dying in the nation’s longest war. At the Democratic party convention Barack Obama gave Afghanistan a glancing reference – but only to underline that he would soon be bringing the troops home.
 
On the campaign trail, the world struggles to gain a mention. Mr Romney offered Republican delegates a brief, boilerplate criticism of the president as soft on adversaries and neglectful of allies, particularly Israel. Mr Obama, in an only slightly fuller account of abroad, claimed credit for the reassertion of US power in the Pacific and for the death of Osama bin Laden.
 
The killing this week of American diplomats in Benghazi and spreading violence against US embassies in the Middle East in response to a film mocking Islam have put the world back on the front pages. The US cannot escape the consequences of its unrivalled global reach. The real election battlegrounds, though, are the economy and the plight of the middle classes.
 
Future historians may well look back and see this as the harbinger of an important shift in America’s role in the world. Not long ago, many in Washington imagined a permanent US hegemony. Wars were waged and plans laid for a generational project to bring democracy to the Middle East. Then there was talk of deploying soft alongside hard power to refurbish and revive the postwar international order and embrace the rising states of the east and south as responsible stakeholders.
 
Whether led by Mr Obama or Mr Romney, the US will continue to see itself as the most powerful nation on the international block. But the focus and ambition of its world view have narrowed. Leading from behind in the toppling of Muammer Gaddafi in Libya and the extreme reluctance to intervene in Syria have been signposts to the future. So too the eagerness to quit Afghanistan and Mr Obama’s “rebalancing” to Asia.
 
The US image of itself as permanent guarantor of the global commons is being replaced by a sharper assessment of national interests. Grandiose talk of building a new international system has made way for a strategic outlook that sees the US at the centre of a return to a world of great power balancing and coalition-building. America, you could say, is fast becoming the selective superpower.
 
In some respects, this is simply owning up to the facts. The rest, particularly China, have risen faster than anyone expected. After the sorry experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, voters have lost enthusiasm for foreign adventurism. A national balance sheet soaked in red ink says the US can anyway no longer afford such entanglements.

Mr Romney may promise otherwise, but the defence budget faces a long squeeze to deal with high deficits and accumulated debt. If the navy must have ships to reassert US power in Asia, the army will be left with fewer troops to deploy in Europe or the Middle East.

Retrenchment, though, is unlikely to be driven only by “needs must”. The case for stepping back is made just as powerfully by America’s good fortune. Secure geography, an abundance of natural resources, excellent universities, advanced technology, economic dynamism and climatic resilience already bestow on the US unrivalled self-sufficiency. The explosion in output of oil as well as gas from shale deposits promises energy independence and more.
 
The 17m barrels of oil passing daily through the Strait of Hormuz will matter for many years yet. But how much blood and treasure will the US be ready to expend when its own oil exports rival those of Saudi Arabia? By contrast, China is at once hemmed in by suspicious neighbours and heavily dependent on imported resources. Beijing may soon have the bigger stake in Saudi stability.
 
These are among the issues shaping an analysis of America’s long-term security outlook, which is due to be presented to Mr Obama or Mr Romney soon after polling day in November. The US National Intelligence Council is finalising its latest, quadrennial, exercise in strategic crystal ball-gazing. The aim of the Global Trends report is to give the incoming administration, Democrat or Republican, a sense of how the world might look in 2030.

This week the authors of the report tested some of their initial conclusions at a meeting hosted by London’s Chatham House. Among other things, they homed in on the importance of US energy self-sufficiency in reshaping the domestic politics of American foreign policy. The wider discussion pointed to a world in which the slow dissolution of the existing postwar order gives way to the return of great power competition, albeit probably framed by patchwork multilateralism. In such a world, the US may continue to police those regions where its interests are readily identifiable, but it will be left to others to keep the peace elsewhere.
 
Geopolitics, of course, is never quite that simple. The latest attacks on US missions are a reminder that the scope of US interests will demand it remains present more often than it is absent. Even as it seeks to loosen entanglements in the Middle East, its alliance with Israel and Iran’s nuclear ambitions promise to pull it back. Even now Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is doing his very best to blackmail the US into waging another war of choice.
 
But a world in which the US abandons the role of convener and guarantor of international order in favour of that of selective superpower will transfer to allies and potential rivals alike responsibilities that they are reluctant to shoulder. The flip side of more competition will be increased instability and insecurity. The Pax Americana had its flaws, but its critics may well be among those who lament its passing.
 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.