The decline and fall of the American empire

Part of your theory is that now we see isolationist and unilateralist extremes working at the same time. The alternative you propose is liberal internationalism? What does that mean? What conflicts would we have engaged in during the 1990s, and now, if we followed that line of thought?

The world I envisage is one where the U.S. enters a period of transition in which it helps other actors build up the capability to do what we've been doing. I just don't believe that, given American politics, we will intervene in [situations such as] Rwanda and East Timor. I don't think that's the way the world works. Rather than no one doing it, we ought to work toward a world in which there are alternative centers of authority with the will and capability to do peacekeeping and intervention. I would love to see the European Union get to the point where it can take care of Kosovo and the Balkans. I'd love to see some sort of association of African states that could go into a Rwanda-type activity. The U.S. will no doubt remain willing and able to intervene in the Western hemisphere, but my view is that intervention far afield will diminish over time with a couple of exceptions -- where there are clear strategic interests like Northeast Asia and the Persian Gulf.

How does the Bush administration's desire to attack Iraq fit into these trends? You did write that we would be staying home and shoring up defenses post-Sept. 11, but here we are ready to wage another war already. What does this war represent?

The political landscape is so skewed that the unilateralist camp is essentially unchecked. In the Republican Party, there are three ideological camps: the neoconservatives, who are unilateralists; the moderate centrists, who are essentially liberal internationalists of the sort that I advocate such as Father Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger; and this new, young ascendant wing of the Republican Party represented by President Bush. That's the heartland wing -- the agrarian South and the mountain West. It's populous and its inclinations are neo-isolationist.

That's why from Jan. 20 to Sept. 11 the centrist wing was pushed to the margins and the neoconservatives and the heartland conservatives were duking it out. That's why one day Bush would say we can't be everything to everybody and the next day Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz at the Pentagon would say, "We're going to run the world." Then comes Sept. 11 and the heartland conservatives have their legs cut off. So right now there's no check on the neoconservatives and the Democratic Party has folded its tent, lost the midterm elections. That's why there's so little debate about Iraq. That doesn't mean, however, that the heartland wing is gone. They're in suspension now politically, but they will be back.

The other thing that is important on Iraq is that the Bush administration could, if it's not careful, find itself in over its head and have a set of commitments on its plate -- including a five- to 10-year occupation of Iraq -- that ultimately causes a political backlash in which the American people say enough already.

Could that scenario speed up this whole process of the decline of the American era?

It depends on how it goes. If the war goes smoothly and Saddam falls and all goes well and there aren't chemical weapons exploding in Tel Aviv, I think it will probably turn out OK and not change the landscape all that much. If anything, it will fuel the neoconservative view.

If it goes poorly ... I think the war will go smoothly actually. What I really worry about is the occupation. You ought to see a therapist if you want to occupy Iraq. It's just the last place I would want to set up shop. The whole region is deeply anti-American. They'll probably be dancing in the streets for 24 to 48 hours and then they'll take up sniper positions. That's where I think things could go wrong with barracks exploding, etc. If that were to happen, at the end of the day it would cause us to pull in our horns and cause Americans to say, "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

And our main challenger, in your view, is not radical Islam or Saddam Hussein, but the European Union. What kind of threat do you really see the European Union posing? Do you ever see us going to war with Europe?

To work backwards, no. The likelihood of military conflict between the U.S. and Europe is very low, almost beyond the stretch of imagination. The main threat is to order. The main threat is to the stability of the world. Everyone right now is focusing on terrorism and environmental degradation, and I'm all for those things. But we've gotten complacent about the big picture. We're used to a world where America runs the show. We may wake up one morning and find that we don't have complete control, that we go to the IMF or the World Bank or the United Nations, and say, "Here's our plan for the next week." And the E.U. looks at us and says, "We're not onboard. We're not going to do that."

In fact, everyone saw the recent voting at the U.N. Security Council as victory for the U.S. But what really happened? The U.S. went in and said, "This is our position, take it or leave it." Most of the Security Council, save Britain, said, "Leave it." They locked arms with France rather than with us, which is what they've been doing for the last 50 years. That's just the beginning of what the world could look like -- main powers not working together. If it comes to that, then these other threats will diminish in importance and pale in comparison to a world in which the key players are no longer on the same sheet of music, in which Europe sets itself against us, rather than with us.

The illusion, however, is that we control the major international organizations. Also, we seem to be reaching out to NATO. How could we lose control of them?

We still do control them, but that control is slipping away in several respects. First of all, we see major institutions devolving against our wishes. The E.U. takes the lead and says, "You want to drive SUVs and drill wells in the Alaska wilderness? Well, we're going to go ahead with the Kyoto Protocol without you. You don't like the International Criminal Court? We'll do it without you." Does it hurt the ICC that we're not there? Yes. But does it also start building a world where you have these other countries coming together with major steps forward and we're not there? Yes. Does that degrade order? Yes.

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