Professor Joseph Samuel Nye Jr. is the former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He currently serves on the Harvard faculty as a University Distinguished Service Professor, and this year completes fifty years on the faculty there. Along with Robert Keohane, he founded the theory of “neoliberalism” in international relations, and more recently coined the often-used phrases of “soft power” and “smart power”. He is one of the world’s foremost intellectuals in the fields of political science, diplomacy and international relations. A 2011 TRIP survey ranked him as the sixth most influential scholar in the field of international relations in the last twenty years, and he was appointed last month by Secretary of State John Kerry to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board.
To get us started, I’d like to talk about the way that Americans perceive US power. I’ve noticed that a lot of commentators believe that the US is on the decline. Why do you think that people believe that?
Well I think that it goes through cycles. You look at attitudes towards American decline, there’s a cycle after the Soviets launched Sputnik, we think the Soviets are ten feet tall. The Japanese are doing so well with manufacturing in the 1980s, and we think the Japanese are ten feet tall. Now after the world financial crisis, where China did better in recovery than others, we think that China is ten feet tall. We’ve seen it before. It usually runs in cycles. But what triggered this particular cycle was largely the 2008 financial crisis.
So you’d say that we were not in a period of thinking that America was in decline before the crisis?
If you look at polls in the early 2000s, it might even be the opposite: people had too much hubris. That was the period when we invaded Iraq; we thought America could do anything, and that was a mistake in the opposite direction.
Is the belief in American decline triggered by things that the United States does, or things that are external to the US: e.g. the financial crisis vs. the mess in Iraq?
Well I think that if you look at the earlier cycles of decline, it was Soviet actions in space that triggered fear of American decline. If you look at the 1980s it was the success in manufacturing. Those were external. But they interact with things that are internal.
You’ve wrote a lot about how there is a myth of American decline – even if American power isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, what could trigger decline in the future?
You have to be careful when you talk about decline. If you mean absolute decline, such as Ancient Rome, which didn’t succumb to another empire but succumbed to internal tensions and civil war, I don’t see that happening in the United States. If you’re talking about relative decline, where the US declines in power relative to other countries, its effected not so much by what’s happening inside the US but rather by the rise of the rest, which is a much more defensible proposition. I’m writing a book which will be published in March with the title “Is the American Century Over.” The American century is usually dated with the approximations of Henry Luce (sp?) in 1941. The question is whether the United States is going to be the leading country in 2041 – and my guess is yes. Even though there is relative decline, meaning that the US will not be as far ahead as others as it might be, I don’t think it’s going to be passed by others. China will have a larger economy, but even when it has a larger total GDP it will still have lower per capita GDP, which is a better measure of economic prosperity. And it won’t surpass the United States in military power or soft power. So I think the American century is not over.
Speaking of the possibility of relative decline, some commentators in the US say that the US will lose power if we become overextended, and some say we risk decline with isolationism. Is either of these views relevant, and what policies can the US pursue to combat relative decline?
The US share of world product is one measure of power, and it will probably decline somewhat in the 21st century. We entered the 20th century with one quarter of the share of world product, and that goes up to nearly half at the end of World War II when others are devastated, and it declines to about a quarter by 1970 and is about at that level by the end of the 20th century. Projections such as the IMF see the share of world product going down by about 17 or 18 percent over the next decade or two, and I think that will be not because of failures inside the United States, but because of the rise of the rest – the success of other economies. The way we adjust to that is something we have a great advantage in – strengthening our alliances and institutions. Compare the United States with China. The US has far more depth in terms of alliances and networks with other countries than China does. The way to deal with the causes that are largely the rise of the rest is to strengthen our ties with many of the rest.
I want to specifically ask about how our ties are shaping out in East Asia. What would you say that Abe’s decision to remilitarize Japan says about US power relative to China? Is that just Abe trying to drum up domestic support, or is this actually an indicator that we need to strengthen alliances in East Asi?
I think it’s a little too strong to say that Abe is remilitarizing. What he’s doing is talking about an interpretation of the constitution, which does not revoke article 9 restricting Japan to self defense, but to allow Japan to engage in what is called collective self-defense. That’s a long way from remilitarization. I think it reflects a desire on the part of the Japanese to return to the condition of what they would see to be a more normal nation, and it also reflects the rise in the power of China. If you look at the balance of power in East Asia you’ll notice that China is rising, but China has to deal with the effects of its rise on both Japan and India. And you’ve noticed an increase in relations between Japan and India, and that’s because both countries are concerned about an increase in unbalanced Chinese power. So even when you don’t have the US in the equation, there is something to the balance of power in East Asia. Add the American position, the alliance with Japan and more friendly relations with India, and the American military position, working with others, is not to contain China, but to shape the environment in which it makes decisions, whether those are to be more aggressive on the China-India frontier or the South China Sea.
The reinterpretation of that article of the constitution has less to do with US power and more to do with a rising China and the geopolitical realities that come along with that?
I think the rise of China – China has now replaced Japan as the nation’s second largest economy – does mean that Japan is thinking in balance of power terms, and the question is how it balances Chinese power. And that has lead Japan since the 1990s to a reaffirmation of the US-Japan security treaty, which goes back to a declaration under President Clinton and Prime minister Hashi Boto (sp?) back in 1996. It was the basis for stability in East Asia in the post-Cold World period. I think that the changes in the interpretation of the constitution to allow for collective self-defense is Japan’s way of being better able to implement that policy.
Speaking of internal ways of countries in East Asia try to keep their power, do you think that Xi Jinping’s efforts to root out corruption inside of China are motivated tangentially by a desire to ensure China has the institutions necessary to secure influence in East Asia?
Xi has collected power quite impressively – he has more power more quickly than any leader since Donxou Ping (sp?) and the question we don’t know is how much of this is for the goal of really transforming Chinese institutions and how much of it is for him to accumulate power. Part of that depends on the targets of corruption. Charges of corruption have long been used in China as a way for leaders to get rid of their enemies. So the question is when he goes beyond those who are potential threats to political power, then it might have more to do with institutors. But the extent to which it really reduces the power of people who pose potential threats to him, it might be more like things we’ve seen in the past. At this stage I think it’s too early to be certain.
Going back to strengthening our alliances? Would you say that NATO is still a useful tool for American foreign policy? Has the role of the alliance changed over the last decade? Why?
It is crucial. It allies the US with Europe which is, as an entity, the largest economy in the world. The United States and China are the largest national economies, but Europe when it acts as an entity is still the largest economy. And that means it is a source of potential strength and power in the world system. Having an alliance between Europe and the United States has been an enormous engine for stability since 1949. It still remains so. Its not that there’s a trend towards the threat posed by the Soviet Union. But there is a threat when we consider the way that Putin has treated his neighbors such as Georgia and Ukraine. So NATO still plays an important role in ensuring the stability of East European countries, whether it is the three Baltic States (which are member countries) or others.
How do you think NATO’s reaction to the Ukraine crisis will impact its ability to provide security to those East European states?
NATO has responded well. At the NATO conference in Wales in September they described plans for rotating troops through states that otherwise feel threatened, the Baltics, as well as plans for increasing capabilities. And in that sense NATO has responded. It’s also important to remember that Ukraine and Georgia are not NATO members, so there’s no guarantee to provide the security of those states. But the Baltics are NATO members, who have a guarantee of security under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which is important for deterrence.
How would NATO’s reaction to Russia’s actions in Ukraine compare to NATO’s response following Putin’s moves in Georgia?
They’re very similar. When it comes to military action on Russia’s borders, Russia has local military superiority. If you try to challenge that local military superiority, they will have the dominance in the escalation ladder, and the question is whether there would be credibility of security guarantees that are not backed by a treaty. When President Bush said that he wanted Georgia and eventually Ukraine in NATO he was alluding to the fact that there might be a security guarantee in the future. But when it came to practice, and Putin moved troops into Georgia, Bush couldn’t do anything about it. When it comes to Putin moving troops into Ukraine, there’s an effort to use sanctions and mobilize diplomatic support.
Do you think that NATO faces any real competition from some of the other alliances that are coming into prominence? I’m thinking specifically about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The SCO is focused primarily on Central Asia. I don’t see any potential for it to come into competition or conflict with NATO.
Returning to internal decision-making in the US. You’ve sometimes said that the Constitution sometimes serves as an impediment to exercising power internationally. How has its fracturing nature played out in recent crisis? Do we need to do anything to fix potential problems?
The relations between the executive and legislative branch in foreign policy have always been fraught with difficulty. There was a famous Constitutional scholar named Edwin Corwin who titled his book on the division of foreign policy power between the branches “Invitation to Struggle.” There are certain powers given to Congress and certain powers given to the President that overlap, and they are not clearly separated out in the Constitution. That means there is bound to be a tension there. But in some ways that is how the founding fathers wanted it. They didn’t want an executive who could act fully without the Congress. In that sense, we’ve lived with this for 200 years and it’s not as though it’s something new. People may complain and say that it’s not adequate for the problems of the 21st century, but my sense is that we’ve survived for this long, so I think we’ll survive longer with this form of Constitution.
Speaking more generally, going forward do you think the world will look unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar?
I’ve used the metaphor of a pyramid or triangle or three-dimensional chess, which is to say that in the military domain, the world is unipolar. There’s only one country – the United States – able to project power on a global basis. But on the middle tier, the role of economic power in relations among states, the world is already multipolar, and it has been for decades. Europe, China, Japan, US, balance each other when it comes to trade negotiations or anti-trust things. When you get to the bottom of this construct, the layer of transnational relations seems to cross borders outside the control of governments, which could include things from bankers transferring sums of money larger than the budgets of nations, to climate change to pandemics. There is no polarity, and it makes no sense to talk about the categories when dealing with transnational issues. What that means is that we’re going to have to learn how to talk about international issues differently depending on the context. Some people say that transnational issues don’t matter. But in fact they are exceedingly important. But we’re going to have to avoid simple categories of unipolarity and multipolarity and realize that for different issues there will be different configurations of power.