Hegemonic War and Grand Strategy by Zack Aaron M.;

Author:Zack, Aaron M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

Chapter 8

Dehio’s Theory and Contemporary American Grand Strategy

Just as Dehio asserts that Germany’s historical fate was linked to the broader history of the European system of states, so we might assert that America’s future is intertwined with the dynamics of contemporary and future state systems. To be sure, Germany’s conduct, in the age of its highest vitality, owed much to its own particular history as a power state. The United States is closer to the Habsburg powers, or revolutionary France, in its sense of universal mission. America is also possibly near the peak of its relative power. It thus faces dual temptations to make a bid for hegemony within a global system. In terms of military power, as noted, certain analysts compare the current status of the United States to the Roman Empire at its height.1

In the context of Dehio’s thought, we might ask, is America still a truly insular power, or has it also taken on some of the characteristics of a continental power state? And is the globe truly unified in a comprehensive state system, or can we speak only of a number of regional systems?

America, in Dehio’s narrative, is both an insular power and a continent-sized power organized on the largest scale.2 The unofficial concord with Great Britain after 1815 allowed the United States to unify its continental space and fill it with the forces of civilization, undisturbed by the intervention of other European powers.

As an insular state, America then exported its naval and economic power, staking its claim as arbiter in the Pacific.3 America mediated the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War so as to deny Japan the financial windfall necessary for the construction of a great fleet. This was in the interest of preserving America’s own maritime advantage and, in the long run, safety in the western hemisphere.4 In the Pacific both offensive and defensive impulses merged. But the essence of America’s policy towards both the European and East Asian spheres of Eurasia remained consistent, since the beginning of the twentieth century—to frustrate a bid for hegemony in either sphere.5

In doing so, the United States, during the Cold War, developed a military and bureaucratic apparatus as imposing as those possessed by continental power states in the past. To frustrate the possibility of the Soviet power state’s global hegemony, the Americans created their own, more limited power state—focused more on the air and sea. None the less, it always existed side by side with the insular form of life. And it was this insular financial, economic, and political flexibility which ultimately bested the purer form of the Soviet power state.

Thus America presents the spectacle of an insular society with the trappings of a power state, which suggests an inherent capacity for a number of typical grand strategies as analyzed by Dehio. For example, if we assert the existence of a number of plural regional state systems, the United States might channel outside power into these systems, in order to maintain their plurality. Or, it might act as a power state and attempt to overwhelm power-saturated state systems from the outside.

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