This past July 4th, former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev penned an op-ed for the International Herald Tribune in which he expressed concern over “the size of America’s defense budget and the militarization of its foreign policy.” Without going into the details (just read the piece; it’s short), Gorbachev questions what role the United States will play in the world of the twenty-first century, stating that “the next president… will have to decide and state clearly whether America wants to be an empire or a democracy, whether it seeks global dominance or international cooperation. They will have to choose, because this is an either-or proposition: The two things don’t mix, like oil and water.” Putting aside Mr. Gorbachev’s specific motivations – he is, after all, Russian, and, as he chose to remind us in a more recent piece likely has the interests of his own country at heart – he raises some important questions that U.S. leaders have yet to answer with any coherence or unanimity: What role should the United States play in the world of the twenty-first century? How does the U.S. military fit into that role? Can America remain prosperous, free, safe and hegemonic all at once?

The question of hegemony has been on the mind of U.S. foreign policy thinkers at least since the end of the Cold War. As the Soviet Empire collapsed, the U.S. found itself in a position of unprecedented global dominance, with the world’s largest economy, it’s most powerful military, and (it seemed) the ability to act around the world with near impunity. Contemporary neo-conservatism came out of such heady times, as a coterie of American thinkers imagined that a hegemonic United States could remake the World in its own image, creating a convergence of democracy and capitalism that would serve as history’s final punctuation mark.

Such a vision was never realistic, and attempting to implement it is in the best interests of neither the United States nor of humanity as a whole. Grasping at hegemony, in the traditional, muscular sense of the term, serves only to erode America’s moral standing, deplete its resources, weaken its alliances, create convergence among its adversaries, and complicate its ability to show leadership in addressing the trans-national problems that promise to be the bane of twenty-first century industrial civilization. I say all this advisedly because, though a liberal, I am not strictly speaking an anti-imperialist. I recognize that there is value in having a manageable number of global power centers that can homogenize norms of international behavior, spread similar values, and manage areas of conflict. In every age, though, would-be global leaders need to assess the purpose of empire, what it proposes to accomplish, and how to best go about its just and sustainable implementation.

Unlike in times past, there is simply no good reason these days to engage in traditional imperialism. Empire, at its most basic level, is supposed to provide wealth and security to its core. In the pre-war days, this was accomplished through mercantilist arrangements that gave imperial centers monopolies over the resources of their colonies. In the post-war era, when power competition fused with ideological struggle, neo-imperialist policies allowed the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to leverage their economic strength and exploit resources and strategic positions in the developing world while denying them to their strategic competitor.

None of that makes sense any more. Recent difficulties at Doha notwithstanding, barriers to capital movement have come down worldwide, and wealth and resources now flow between strategic competitors as easily as they do between allies. We don’t need our military to force the issue anymore, and for reasons I’ll address later, such conduct is no longer feasible in any case.

That’s not to say that America no longer has military interests abroad. The United States has a clear material and ethical interest in maintaining the long-term stability of the current geopolitical and geoeconomic order. To my mind, this means that the U.S. in the twenty-first century has three principal, interrelated goals: security, stability and sustainability. Our military can of course help with the first one, influence the second, and do little to affect the third.

Security: Unlike in times past, the principal threats to American security do not emanate from the militaries of other states. Though the global military balance must still be taken into account, the American people are under far greater threat from “anti-system” movements like trans-national terrorism than they are from Chinese submarines. This calls for the continued deployment of military assets abroad, but those assets should be geared toward combating terrorism and helping allied governments to do the same, rather than toward fighting other states. Likewise, military-to-military relations can help the U.S. cultivate allies in foreign governments, but if they are improperly managed they often alienate foreign populations, bringing about the kind of long-term blowback that we can ill-afford. Much as I am loathe to say it, Donald Rumsfeld had it right when he sought to lower the “footprint” of American forces abroad.
It is also worth mentioning that one major security threat – nuclear proliferation – will almost certainly be un-resolvable absent a drastic reduction of nuclear forces by established nuclear powers like the U.S.

I’ll close with some final thoughts to touch off this debate. Whatever role the United States is to play in the world, it must be geopolitically realistic, economically and politically sustainable, and should take into account the values that we want guiding our decisions. Hegemony, tempting though it may be to strive for, is neither necessary, nor desirable, nor feasible, and it is time that U.S. thinkers formed a post-hegemonic consensus as we move into the twenty-first century.

Matt Eckel is a graduate of McGill Univeristy and a blogger who writes on global issues at Foreign Policy Watch. He currently works in the non-profit sector in Washington DC.

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