US Group Roundtable Discussion

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About this Event

05 Oct 2009 @ 12:45

US group roundtable discussion on The New Terms of Engagement in the Transatlantic Relationship in the 21st century with Professor Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Download the audio podcast of this event here.

About the Speaker:

Professor Coker is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is an acclaimed expert on warfare, transatlantic relations, British defence policy and British foreign policy.

About the Event:

At the start of the 21st century, referred to by some as the Asian century, the role of the US in the world is shifting, as it adapts to the re-emergence of regional powers, which demand a greater say on the international stage and a more instrumental role in international decision making.

Professor Coker began by addressing the concept of the “unipolar” moment at the end of the Cold War. Unipolarity in international relations describes a situation in which one state has the most cultural, economic and military influence. Coker identified America’s unipolar moment as existing under the second Clinton administration and both Bush presidencies, due to the “permissive” international environment. The unipolar moment was far worse for Europeans than it was for China or India or anybody else. Karl Rove stated “we’re an empire now and when we act we create our own reality, and while you are studying that reality, judiciously we hope, we’ll act again creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort themselves out. “ This is unipolarity.  

Unipolarity is also linked to America’s “exceptionalism”, the belief that America occupies a special place among the nations of the world.  The result of exceptionalism is however that it can leave a nation without the allies that it needs and the influence that it needs. Coker advocated a new style of diplomacy, “American exemplarism”, a style that would hopefully inspire others to follow the U.S. model, by getting things right at home.   

Coker diagnosed the failure of western leadership, under which the western powers assumed the right to speak on behalf of the international community, despite the fact that they were not appointed to do so. Professor Coker quoted Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who remarked that the west has lost its control over the globalisation process, and may now have to share control.  

He also identified the failure of the moral authority of the west. The U.S. did not have international law on its side during its unipolar moment and the checks and balances that exist in U.S. national politics did not affect America’s actions on the international stage. Under “democratic messianism”, if you think you have God on your side, who needs international law or the United Nations?   

Professor Coker attributed much of the failure of western leadership to the absence of strategic thinking and vision. He identified a tendency today for powers to do things on the spur of the moment as they seek to secure today and neglect to secure tomorrow. Tactical thinking is favoured over strategic. In a unipolar world, there are no consequences of actions and you can live with them, if there are. The speaker also believes that this lack of strategic vision may also have led to the crisis in international finance, through the desire for the realisation of short-term profit.  

Professor Coker described an alliance that has no clue where it is going. It is going somewhere but it does not know where. In the last few years, the partners have made a number of bad decisions. The first of these was in alienating Russia. Geopolitics has not gone away and a resurgent Russia wants to play the old game of negotiations with the west. Although Russia is a European power, is has been excluded from the management of European security, as it is not a member of the EU or NATO. A better institutional arrangement needs to be formulated to improve the relationship with Russia.  

Afghanistan is an issue that has split the U.S. administration over the issue of troop contributions. It has been fought as a tactical war, rather than a strategic one. What began as nation building became state building and is now an attempt to secure the country. The partners are recalibrating lower and lower. It is no longer very clear who is being secured and who the coalition is securing against. Professor Coker firmly believed that the operation in Afghanistan will be NATO’s last war and that NATO ought to focus on activities such as anti-piracy, cyber terrorism and European security. 

The issue of Afghanistan is closely related to the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States, a relationship that Coker doubts very much ever existed. He believes the parties to be close allies rather than partners in a special relationship. During America’s unipolar moment, the UK was certainly a special ally due to the act that it was the only EU nation that could “do war”. This has changed in the last few years, they have become underfunded and underequipped and under a conservative government, Coker believes defence spending would be reduced to the EU average.  

Now that the unipolar moment has gone and the “permissive environment” is no more, Barack Obama has brought a new look and style to America’s relations with the world. Coker believes that the same issues still remain however and these may prevent the transatlantic relationship from evolving.  

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