The Hegemon’s Maneuvers

Abstract

The best way to summarize the United States’ global primacy from World War II until the administration of President George W. Bush is to state that it was done through a series of highly intricate maneuvers lasting several decades, which included alliance building, soft balancing and selective cooperation. As much as the Bush administration was known for its penchant for unilateralism, it should be noted that it did not have sole monopoly in this behavior. The evolution of this type of strategic maneuver was quite obvious during the presidencies of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, especially in their dealings with Russia, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) war against Yugoslavia, as was discussed in Chapter 3. George W. Bush took unilateralism to a new height in his declaration of the so-called global war on terrorism (GWOT), and the unilateral manner in which he decided to invade Iraq, without the sanction of the United Nations (UN), which epitomizes international legitimacy. The reaction of the three great powers of this study to the Bush administration was an increased feeling that the only way they could become influential in determining the shape of global events was through the development of a multipolar global power arrangement. Of the three great powers, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) might be following internal balancing (military modernization) for the purpose of protecting itself from any contingency that would lead to a major skirmish with the United States (US).