American strategy in the shadow of populism and rivalry of powers

They say:

• James Graca (Man)
• Luke the Gauntlet (Expert)

Łukasz Gadała – postgraduate of the University of Warsaw and the University of Birmingham. Editor of EURACTIV.pl portal. He analyses power politics and theories of global relations, as well as American interior and abroad policies.

Jakub Graca: There has been an intense debate for any time about whether the United States is inactive a planet hegemon or possibly a “only” number 1 power. In your book you express the view that America has not lifted this challenge, you call it “lost hegemon”, although you do not seem to answer this question directly, writing, for example, that the US is no longer the only crucial power. But do you think they are clearly the leader of the global community? How would you describe Washington's current position and position?

Luke the Gadzad: Hegemony is presently beyond the scope of the United States. This is simply a state in which 1 state has an undisputed advantage over others – it is undoubtedly strongest and imposes its conditions on everyone. This was the function of the United States after the end of the Cold War. Today, on the another hand, we are dealing with a situation where they are inactive the strongest, but at the same time they are "only" 1 of the 3 large powers in the global system.

For at least a twelve years, Beijing has been trying to construct an alternate global order compared to what Americans built after 1945 and stretched to further areas after 1990. In the last 3 decades, they have created many global institutions, including the world's largest countries, specified as BRICS, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. These are serious initiatives that are casting the challenge of the US.

Back in the '90s. China would not have specified opportunities. Then Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin signed papers that were actually akin to those that Xi Jinping signed with Vladimir Putin today, but did not have the strength to enforce what they wrote: so that the planet would be multipolar, that Americans would not usage their power to intervene in another countries and that global relations would be more democratic. present the situation is changing due to the fact that China is having a real and increasing influence on the policy of the United States, as can be seen in trade talks and uncommon earths. And Russia is very actively protesting the American sphere of influence in east Europe and Americans do not have a good answer to that.

Therefore, the United States is inactive a large power, but is no longer a hegemon. Even if they want to be.

Jakub Graca: If the U.S. is not a hegemon but a leader, then the question about the future is born. America built its hegemony as a consequence of 2 planet wars and established it after winning the Cold War, during a time erstwhile there was a kind of "demand" for hegemon or at least for the leader of the global community. Is there specified a request today? If the U.S. loses its leadership position for China, will Beijing automatically enter the role, or are we heading inevitably towards a multipolar world?

Luke the Gadzad: First of all, it is impossible to talk about something like the global community today, due to the fact that neither the West represents it, nor there is simply a consensus on who would do it. On the another hand, whether there is hegemon in the global strategy depends on the relation between the forces of individual states and only on their desire. Whether the planet is multipolar present or possibly only bipolar, each of these circumstances by definition excludes the existence of hegemony.

Can China replace the United States? Today, it is hard to find the trajectory of the rivalry of these 2 powers, but in the foreseeable future, I do not anticipate 1 of them to accomplish specified a large advantage over the another so that we can return to the concept of global hegemony.

I find another interesting issue to me, namely how China would behave as a global hegemon and to what degree this behaviour would be different from American hegemony. Many attentive Chinese policy observers argue – and their arguments seem mostly convincing to me – that China has its own, different modus operandi internationally, that historically they are far from the global expansion of Europeans and that present they would not be willing to keep the global empire as the British and the Americans did. An example of the demolition of its fleet in the 15th century, at a time erstwhile Europeans have conquered overseas, is the first historical example of specified a difference.

Jakub Graca: You referred to the historical example of the demolition of the Chinese fleet. present we see that the Americans themselves are undermining certain pillars of their primacy. Examples can be multiplied: for example, the mad run by DOGE Elona Muska to dismantle administration, which in areas related to national safety affected mainly the sphere of politics and abroad aid and atomic security, but the interview or defence sphere besides did not escape revolutionary fervor. Do you agree that the Americans are now doing the same thing as China utilized to do; possibly not on specified a scale, but they themselves are cutting their position as number one?

Luke the Gadzad: The Chinese stopped overseas expeditions and rejected the anticipation of colonizing distant lands for many reasons, but they had nothing to do with the irrational, "human" desire to reverse the course of history. They simply believed that the costs of overseas colonization outweighed the expected influences and felt that the most crucial challenges were at their borders alternatively than in the far-off world. Similarly, Trump and his squad are addressing interior problems and problems in the Western hemisphere, and the cost of maintaining a weakened empire is intended to burden peripheral states, for example Europe. This is how Trump wants to halt the process of weakening America and give him a fresh impulse. However, it is hard to have affirmative effects erstwhile actions in interior politics are directed by incompetent people, and migration and abroad policy is subordinated to ideological idiosyncracy of the ruling political class.

This, however, is different from the 15th century China, which felt that they were not curious in competing for land and influence in distant countries. Trump is obsessed with dictating another conditions and so under his regulation the United States will stay heavy active in the world, and this in turn will make further conflicts and misunderstandings to which Washington will gotta respond – without wanting – to. In this sense, I do not consider Trump an isolator; he is the president of abroad policy.

Jakub Graca: any say the Trump administration is moving distant from the primacy strategy (primacy). Various factions clash there: Primate supporters (primacists), advocates of a restrained approach (restrainers), those advocating to follow priorities (prioritizers) Or open isolationists. Marco Rubio's interview with Megyn Kelly just a fewer days after taking over as Secretary of State suggested that the unipolar planet was whether it was a historical anomaly. The fresh national safety strategy announces abandoning the quest for global dominance and focusing on defending its own territory (homeland), and the affairs of the Western Hemisphere, and only later on on another continents, but on the another hand, demands that America be the most powerful and richest country in the world. There are besides doubts about Taiwan's defence. Is the charge that the U.S. departs from the primacy missed?

Luke the Gadzad: The goal of all administration after planet War II was to make America the most powerful country in the world. To accomplish this goal, the Americans utilized different strategies: first, it was to halt the USSR, and after the Cold War, global expansion and to grow their own sphere of influence, which allowed the US to keep and grow a political and economical strategy based on the dollar and primacy of the American army.

Using specified a strategy, the Americans clearly became its hostages. erstwhile Bill Clinton came to power in 1993, 1 of the officials of the State Department in a private conversation with journalists slipped out that America had no resources to control everything that was going on in the planet and to intervene anywhere where something was going on. Shortly thereafter, the conversation came to light and scandal broke out. Clinton's administration was under fire that he may be trying to quietly get free of certain global commitments. Yet, this is the apogee of the American power, so that could not be the case at the time. Only the defeat of Iraqi politics and the 2008 financial crisis sobered the American political class. Barack Obama spoke plainly that America must be less, but wiser to engage in the planet and that the time of the erstwhile primacy policy is over.

As for Trump, in his administration, you can actually find clues to what's called restraint. He wants to shift as much as possible the cost of keeping the empire to the periphery (Europe, East Asia) and usage the resources he has for interior problems. That is why he wants to end the war in Ukraine and therefore, for example, the British "The Times" reported in December that the Americans wanted Germany to replace them as NATO commander-in-chief.

Can this information - excuse me if I interfere - be disappointing from the point of view of collective deterrence and defence in Europe?

This is not amazing information. This is simply a classical transition from a primate strategy to a strategy offshore balancing, which is to shift work for safety to its allies. And America can only come to the aid if its vital interests are threatened or 1 of the European countries can dominate the others. This is not happening at the moment, which is why from the American point of view this strategy has a reasonable basis. In fact, it is written straight in the fresh National safety Strategy, the author of which is simply a longtime supporter offshoreBalancingElbridge Colby.

Is this besides a rational strategy from the point of view of our region? Rather, the better question would be: what does Europe intend to do in the face of structural changes in American policy? due to the fact that they are happening, and the only solution that Europe is presently seeing is the absolute submission to the will of the US. It is simply a policy calculated that Trump will nevertheless leave the US in NATO and American soldiers in Europe. But this policy is short-sighted due to the fact that it does not prepare Europe to collide with the reality of the multipolar world, in which the US is no longer a hegemon and will not always be able or willing to warrant the safety of existing allies.

James Graca: You mentioned Elbridge Colby. I didn't have this question prepared, but I thought that all now and then there was controversy around it. Colby sought to be in the Republican administration for a very long time, and he yet made his point, and it all points to the fact that he contributed to specified a strategy of national safety alternatively than another one. But even congressmen complain about him – they say he is the individual to whom to contact the Pentagon the hardest. Politico reported that the British delegation was expected to meet Colby and inform him that they were sending their aircraft carrier to Indo-Pacific, and he was expected to say, “Can you turn around? due to the fact that we don't want you there. You have another function to play.” There have been situations where the Pentagon stopped arms shipments to Ukraine without consulting Trump, and most likely he was behind it. Does Colby have a chance to stay at the Pentagon and will his hard line win, or will his urges be "empered"?

Luke the Gadzad: To answer that question, you'd request to know the interior relation at the Pentagon. However, as far as Colby's political line is concerned, her strength is seen in the fresh safety strategy, with her emphasis on the challenges in the Western hemisphere and a reasonably instrumental approach to the European periphery of the American empire.

Colby himself is surely a very interesting and crucial politician whose way of reasoning about the planet can form American abroad policy for a long time.

Jakub Graca: Let us return to the questions straight related to the book. I liked it very much that you look at it through the prism of American interests, not Polish, allied or "free world", which is common in us. Sticking to this point of view: how should you – utilizing this phrase – “contribute” Russia and China into the American planet order? How could their interests be linked to US interests without losing sight of smaller players like Poland? The aim is to prevent what you call a "constructive disadvantage" of the present order and to make a planet in line with the "long-term trends in past and the fundamental interest of humanity", as Brzeziński wrote.

Luke the Gadzad: Russia and China are 2 different cases. The Americans put Beijing into organization order, which they created after 1945, but did not foretell that the Chinese would usage this aid so well for their own purposes. It turned out that for many American thinkers and politicians, it was a large surprise that Beijing was not going to uncritically control to a completely liberal economy model. Nor did he intend to accept liberal democracy. This would not yet be the biggest problem for Washington, but Beijing has grown beyond measurement and has begun to endanger the position of the US in key economical sectors. And this – from the position of America – is clou China's problem.

As far as Russia is concerned, it was essential to extend NATO. From an American perspective, it was a double-edged sword. On the 1 hand, it allowed Washington to grow the sphere of influence in Europe, and this gave him influence, arms contracts and another open markets. On the another hand, as early as the 1990s, many politicians and intellectuals warned that this movement would origin a negative reaction from Russia and would lead to the return of American-Russian rivalry. And indeed – in Russia nationalism, authoritarianism and militarism have been increasing for a long time, which, as I believe in the book, are mostly a reaction to American politics after the Cold War.

It is simply a winding spiral of action, where 1 country sees its actions as defensive, but the another country considers them offensive and takes action which the another country besides reads as offensive, despite the fact that this country believes it is acting defensively. The culmination of this spiral was on February 24, 2022, the minute erstwhile Russia invaded Ukraine.

James Graca: You compose in the book that in the mistake of unwise hegemony brought shortsightedness to America. However, I wonder, in the American strategy – where the election run takes place in the strategy of permanence, and the business must be effective in 1 quarter, where voters anticipate fast wealth and fast gratification – was it possible to think strategically? There was a message by Joe Biden from the 1990s when, referring to the claim that after the NATO enlargement Russia could turn to China, he said something like, "Yes, sure; let them effort towards Iran." If individual in the 1990s said in the U.S. electoral run that China would compete with the US as equal in 15 years, he would immediately be ridiculed by a competitor to the applause of the seditious crowd of voters (Biden inactive in the 2020 run said: “China’s gonna eat our lunch? C’mon”). In those realities, could you think forward and strategically?

Luke the Gadzad: I believe that American shortsightedness involves alternatively the inability of self-limitation alternatively than a short electoral or business cycle. After all, Americans have been able to prosecute a coherent policy in many areas over decades; the best example of this is simply a policy of restraint against the USSR or a consensus that has persisted on China for 10 years, and it is on specified a polarised political scene.

The problem of America is alternatively the inability to self-limit and long-term reasoning about the possibly negative effects of its own policies. In my book, I compose about how Americans acted after the Cold War in an unwise way, that is, they felt that as the most powerful state in the planet they could actually do what they wanted. They did not think that they had to take into account the interests of another countries and did not think that specified a course would be a good investment for the future, encouraging another countries to support the existing order. This shortsightedness, i.e. the desire to take as much power and influence as possible, is now turning against the Americans. If they acted more prudently and conservatively in the mediate East, if they were to grow NATO more cautiously, and if they did not become so fond of the globalisation and technological changes it has brought, who knows what the planet order would look like today? I'll take the hazard that the Americans would be in a much better position.

Jakub Graca: This was my next question – was it possible to halt the process of deindustrialisation 30–40 years ago? You made it clear you did. What if the Americans decided to do that?

Luke the Gadzad: It was a completely different time, which present may be hard to understand. present everyone is talking about the request for reindustrialisation, about how crucial manufacture is and how crucial supply chains are. But in the West it was not a subject at all in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. Of course, it can be said that the West should be smarter and yet see what is happening in the non-Western world, where there was no conviction of "the end of history", of reducing the importance of industry, etc. Today, the claim that Americans "slept" time in the 1990s, due to the fact that it was essential to industrialize and prevent the outflow of industry, is somewhat ahistoric, due to the fact that almost no 1 thought in these categories.

However, this happened to the detriment of the US. The outflow of industrial work abroad has led to 2 major changes: firstly, America was earning more and more and that is why the American political class maintained this policy, but, secondly, a smaller number of Americans participated in this profit and their discontent yet gave fuel to Donald Trump's campaign. So the Americans are truly poor, and present they gotta rotation around looking for solutions.

Jakub Graca: You mentioned that Americans were able to look long-term throughout their history, even during the Cold War. Andrew Michta late said that the U.S. and the West deficiency a strategy, referring primarily to the doctrine of holding back from the beginning of the Cold War. He claims that if we formulated specified a strategy now, the West would know better where it is going and would compete more effectively with China for a primate in the world. Do you agree with this, and is it possible for the Americans to formulate specified a strategy?

Luke the Gadzad: The restraint strategy that the Americans developed at the beginning of the Cold War evolved, and its final form in the form of the NSC-68 of 1950 powerfully deviated from the demands of George Kennan, whom they consider to be the father of the restraint policy. That is why it is not possible to immediately make one, coherent strategy, which will be accepted by the full political-military establishment. That's one.

Secondly, I think present the planet is besides complex for Americans to have 1 doctrine that they should cling to in their relations with the world. Rather, they request a set of rules, a circumstantial road map, which would lay the foundations for relations with China, Russia and another countries. For example, Stephen Walt and Dani Rodrik tried a fewer years ago to conceptualise specified a "road map", focusing on how large countries could plan common relations to reduce tension and mitigate conflicts. I think that we request to go this way, that is to say, outline certain categories of cases in relations with rivals, outline what is attainable, specify red lines and agree to comply with certain rules. This would require quite a few effort, the agreement of both parties and would be rather revolutionary, given the current state of affairs, but would give hope that the US's relations with China, Russia and India would become more unchangeable and predictable.

Was the Biden administration closer – in your opinion – to formulate a framework for cooperation with China, which said by the mouth of president or National safety Advisor Jake Sullivan that its goal was to manage China's rivalry responsibly? Antony Blinken stressed that the US's relations with China would be based on competition where they should, on cooperation where possible and on confrontation where necessary.

I am not saying that this would be easy, especially in the case of Russia, but from the very beginning there was no another thought than – repeating behind the main intellectual of democrats, John Ikenberry – to build a "world safe for democracy". This clearly prevented an effective policy towards the rivals of America, and even strengthened cooperation between the 3 largest of them: China, Russia and Iran.

Jakub Graca: Let's decision on to interior politics. A populist phrase is now taking place in America; any administratively related individuals say, “Yes, we are populists, and what? And very well, for we turn to the people.” Is he something that stays longer in the United States, or is he something permanent? Trump will yet leave – sooner after second alternatively than after the alleged "third term" – but will this phenomenon last Trump?

Luke the Gadzad: It's hard to tell erstwhile Trump's time in American politics will be over. For now, the Republican organization has a very strong (with all its diversity) MEGA movement, whose most crucial face after Trump is present Vice president J.D. Vance. I believe that this movement will stay strong as long as there is deep and targeted against the liberal part of the political class discontent with the deepening economical inequality and social divisions.

Trump and Vance, but besides defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are trying to convince the Americans that their harm was done by a liberal policy that not only led the US to Iraq and led to a financial crisis but besides weakened the spirit of the American people. That is why Hegseth speaks of the "etos of a warrior", which is the request for physical and intellectual renewal, which will make the Americans physically fit and willing to fight for their country. It is crucial that the administration does not mention here to the values traditionally referred to by erstwhile presidents, namely freedom, democracy or human rights. Americans – and Vance peculiarly clearly says it – must now defend their land.

We are so dealing with nationalism in terms of closer European nationalisms, for which attachment to a peculiar land is an highly crucial factor. It will be interesting to observe how much this trend in thought and politics on the right will strengthen and to what degree it will affect the definition of their identity by average Americans.

Jakub Graca: America was built not so much on race or nationality as on a strategy of values (cred), This is simply a country where in explanation anyone can become American, but the core of American society was the alleged WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). This model slow goes back to the past. We have a strong Latin component – where, on the 1 hand, these Latinos come to the US, who are more industrious and enterprising, but on the another hand, many Hispanics are tainted by reasoning in terms of social justice, which is not entirely compared to American capitalism in the realities of the most competitive marketplace in the world. In the face of these cultural and social changes, is America able to keep its strategy of values, unite society and rediscover itself?

Luke the Gadzad: Trump administration clearly departs from knowing citizenship through prism cred and the values on which the state was created. Vance and Trump talk clearly of attachment to the land and the fact that Americans must fight not for abstract values and for the right of another nations to live in peace and democracy, only for their own land. In the case of the Vice President, but besides in the case of Hegseth for example, it follows that their worldview developed during the period erstwhile young Americans were sent to Iraq or Afghanistan to advance democracy there.

Can these views reject the MEGA movement of Latin people who have come to the country and already have American citizenship? The last election, in 2024, showed that not necessarily. About 46-48% of the Latins who went to vote voted for Trump.

Nevertheless, changing cultural composition is of large importance for geopolitics, and this is not only about the Latin people but besides Asian. Americans turn from Europe towards Asia, the mediate East or the Western Hemisphere besides due to the fact that their political class is changing. There are more and more politicians who not only are not the legendary WASP, but besides have no peculiar attachment to Europe and transatlantic relations. Take Kamala Harris. She doesn't have experiences like Bill Clinton. She didn't survey at Oxford, she's connected to California, her position is simply a Pacific perspective. Or Marco Rubio. Although he was active in the Russian Senate, he is more curious in the Latin world. Many people in Washington no longer have sentimental attachment to transatlantic relations, have another cultural experiences. This will force change on how Americans think about the planet and what their priorities are.

Jakub Graca: You mentioned land defence as mark number one. From this point of view, does Trump/Vance’s squad realize that the prosperity of the United States comes in a consecutive line from the American position in the world, including military presence in the planet and the alliance system? These alliances are 1 of the most crucial competitive advantages of the US over China. Are they able to capture it?

Luke the Gadzad: I think that, above all, they realize that America cannot afford as extended global action as it did 20 or 30 years ago. Actions specified as Venezuela can mask it, but it does not change the fact that America is tired of being in Europe and in East Asia and is doing everything it can to shift work to its partners. That's why Trump tells them to increase their defence spending and tells them that America doesn't get adequate in exchange for the protection it provides.

Trump, like his predecessors, does not care about the tremendous debt of America, but feels the structural force that is due to expanding restrictions on the global stage. Trump, Vance and Hegseth realize that the US are starting to lose to China the race for the latest technologies, that they may not be able to defend Taiwan (they propose it in the fresh National safety Strategy) and think that they may shortly lose control of what is happening besides in their immediate neighbourhood.

From this perspective, alliances specified as NATO cease to be so crucial due to the fact that present there is no threat that 1 country will dominate Asia or Europe; or that Europe will join forces with Russia to make a continental-sized political body that could endanger America. That's why I think it's a permanent change in American abroad policy.

Jakub Graca: Moving on to the summary: If I asked you for 3 most crucial recommendations for today's ruling America to win a rivalry for primacy in the world, what would you indicate?

Luke the Gadzad: The first point would be that 1 should not think in terms of triumph in the fight for primacy. The primacy – in the sense of planet hegemony – is not available today. The intent of America should be to be prudent and liable to tie our own interests with the interests of the world, and thus to identify the most crucial levels on which its interests intersect with the interests of another large powers, and to build on this foundation. It is so a reasonable management of the rivalry with China and Russia, not an effort to overcome them completely, due to the fact that it does not belong to the realm of attainable things.

The second thing is related to the first: namely, the already mentioned comprehensive road map of relations with the most crucial countries and regions. What goals do the US have in Europe? What about the mediate East? How can they agree to the concession to China or Russia, and where are the impossible red lines? This is all very poorly understood today, and the actions that Trump administration takes very frequently are ad hoc activities.

Thirdly, speaking of classical explanation of political realism, I would point out that countries balance the influence of another countries in 2 ways: strengthening themselves internally and, secondly, building alliances. As for the first of these factors, America, if it wants to establish a rivalry with China in many crucial fields, must halt thinking, for example, about energy in ideological terms and start reasoning in strictly state terms. As for the other, Americans should remember that it is better to have partners and allies on their side, not peripheral protectorates. This has been the case for European and Asian partner countries for a long time.

James Graca: Do you, over time, see Trump’s ability to learn from mistakes and learn from conclusions? Is there a chance that Trump, taught experience with China, who were the only ones who stood up to him and with whom he hasn't played much so far, will get on the right path?

Luke the Gadzad: I don't think so. I believe that the overarching nonsubjective of Trump's policy – like any another American administration – should be to arrange the peaceful and unchangeable planet order possible. Trump is making efforts to end conflicts, but he does not truly realize their causes, and this does not let him to succeed. This in turn gives emergence to frustration, which can respond to smaller countries that cannot defend themselves, for example Venezuela. Trump, however, has no strategical imagination but that the primacy of America should be restored in the western hemisphere and from the position of force to talk to another powers. This yet does not lead to anything, and a more peaceful and unchangeable planet will not bring.

Jakub Graca: I understand. Thank you so much for talking to me.