Abstract
Within the last two decades, China has been the most seriously debated emerging power seen by academics, politicians and large parts of the public alike to be able to effectively challenge the dominant position of the United States of America (US) in global as well as Asian-Pacific affairs. Indeed, after having enjoyed a brief moment of global unipolarity following the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Washington’s current situation has changed remarkably. Some points are particularly worthy to be mentioned. To begin with, the world’s former hyperpuissance (Hubert Védrine) has to recover from the worst global economic crisis since 1929. The US unemployment rate is up to almost 10% (far away from the 4% in 2000), its federal budget deficit is estimated to reach 1.4 trillion USD in 2011 (Younglai 2011) and total outstanding public debt skyrocketed to 14.7 trillion USD in September 2011 (US Treasury 2011). Secondly, the US continues to be heavily engaged in large military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military missions in these two war-torn countries do not only continue to cost US tax payers much money and account for the death of hundreds of US soldiers and local civilians, but – more important from a strategic perspective – have bogged down the US military for some years to come. Finally, Washington is confronted with an increasingly assertive and economically rising China in Asia-Pacific, a region that according to high-ranking US politicians has “become more closely interlinked than ever before” (Obama 2009) with the fortune of America, “is a key driver for global economic growth” (Kirk 2009) and a place, “where much of the history of the 21st century will be written” (Clinton 2010).
I am grateful to Robert Ayson, Hugh White, Frans-Paul van der Putten, Yusuke Ishihara, Jared Sonnicksen, Gudrun Wacker and Maximilian Mayer for earlier discussions on this topic. All remaining errors are my own. This chapter is based on a paper presented at the 52nd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in Montreal (Canada) on March 16th 2011. See Fels 2011a.
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Notes
- 1.
See for instance: Abeysinghe and Lu 2003; Vaughn and Morrison 2006; Christensen 2006; Deng and Moore 2004; Friedberg 2005 and Wagener 2011.
Although being frequently referred to in academic and popular debates, Asia-Pacific is not a fixed region but comprises around 42 states from East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania in the Western Pacific Ocean. Often (though not always) the US, Russia and India are – due to their respective strategic relevance – also included as regional actors. This paper follows that understanding.
- 2.
According to the liberal think-tank National Priorities Project the costs for both wars have summed up since 2001 to more than 1.27 trillion USD until September 2011. See National Priorities Project 2011.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
However, Morgenthau’s landmark book also shows that he has a relational understanding of power as he defines power as a “psychological relation between those who exercise is and those over whom it is exercised”. See Morgenthau 1954: 25.
- 7.
- 8.
Also Joseph Nye’s ‘soft power’ approach is based on a relational understanding of power. See Nye 2004. It should be noted, however, that ‘soft power’ is difficult to generate and even harder to wield intentionally in order to influence another actor. In Chap. 3 of this volume Commuri deals more closely with this kind of power.
- 9.
Other (post-)structural approaches argue that A’s ability to influence the relevant elites of B as well as the influence of discourses, role models and social structures within states (‘third’ and ‘fourth’ face of power) should be seen as separate forms of power. See for instance Lukes 2005; Chase-Dunn 1989; Digeser 1992; Campbell 1998. However, while both ‘faces’ can indeed be seen as exercises of power, a relational conception of power can nevertheless very well capture most (if not all) of these aspects. See Guzzini 2000: esp. 62ff.
- 10.
According to Strange, these four structures are within the issue areas security, production, finance and knowledge. See Strange 1989.
- 11.
Interestingly, Waltz also acknowledges this. Despite dismissing the relational concept of power, he agrees that “the stronger get their way – not always, but more often than the weaker” (1993: 169). Surprisingly, this closely reflects – unintentionally? – a position of Immanuel Wallerstein, who held some years before Waltz that “the stronger ‘get their way’ more frequently than the weaker” (1986: 331).
- 12.
A comprehensive theoretical discussion of hierarchy is presented by Lake 2009. See Scholvin (2011) for a valuable overview of current hierarchisation models.
- 13.
- 14.
This captious approach would basically mean to judge power relations on a case-by-case basis without being able to interconnect the various cases. See Sprout and Sprout 1965.
- 15.
Currently, there are only one and a half super powers on the global level. The US continues to be able to exercise relevant influence on many issue-areas in all world regions. Within the last two decades, China indeed expanded its ability to change the behaviour of other states especially in the field of economics in many regions such as Africa, Central Asia and South America. It largely replaces the Soviet Union/Russia in this role.
- 16.
The population of the Russian Far East Federal District has declined to only 6,5 Mio. – as much as Laos or Papua New Guinea (RIA Novosti 2010).
- 17.
Arms and energy deals rather than pro-active and resourceful diplomatic activities will continue to be the main expression of Moscow’s regional engagement.
- 18.
This is quite closely related to a functional understanding of middle powers.
- 19.
In this regard, Chapnick rightly notes that the behavioural approach risks being tautological when scholars set up a list of behavioural characteristics taken from likely middle powers such as Canada and use these characteristics to subsequently identify Canada as a middle power. See Chapnick 1999: 76. However, deducting behavioural features from a group of states is possible as long as no small n-design is used for deducing these features in the first place, a test group is included and, most importantly, the states under examination were not grouped together by indicators which were designed to identify relevant states a priori as the relevant group to look at.
- 20.
On ‘leadership’ as a tool for measuring power see also Schirm’s contribution in Chap. 12 in this volume.
- 21.
Apart from establishing a security dialogue and some minor military-to-military relations.
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Fels, E. (2012). Power Shift? Power in International Relations and the Allegiance of Middle Powers. In: Fels, E., Kremer, JF., Kronenberg, K. (eds) Power in the 21st Century. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25082-8_1
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