McNair Paper 59, Right Makes Might:  Freedom and Power in the Information Age, Chapter 4, May 1998

4.
Powers as Partners

The congruence of freedom, knowledge, and power is no guarantee of a peaceful world. But it does point toward greater security insofar as democratic powers are not hostile toward each other and have military superiority over undemocratic states that are hostile to them. At a minimum, the risk of great power conflict-the sort that made the 20^th century so violent-would be reduced. As the democratic powers become more integrated economically, they will become even less inclined toward confrontation, having little to gain and much to jeopardize, and more inclined toward joint pursuit of their common interests.

Rising powers should come to see the world in much the same light. In the information age, they must integrate in order to rise; and integration reduces conflict and increases collaboration. As national success depends less and less on relative power, hegemonic rivalry will be regarded as pointless and even inimical to success. The standing among the principal nations will become less important in world politics.

The claim that economic integration dampens conflict invariably evokes the reminder that the nations of Europe were interdependent prior to the outbreak of World War I. True, but the relevance of that history to the future begs examination. An important difference between then and now is that the old European powers were engaged mainly in commodity trade, whereas today's integration encompasses vital, high-value-added products and services, including information technology.¹ Commodity trade can be redirected if cut; dependence on common, crucial inputs cannot. In addition, the link between national success and relative power that characterized pre-WWI Europe has been called into question, if not obliterated, by the failure of Germany and Japan in 1945 and the Soviet Union in 1991. In sum, the old European powers were not truly integrated, and they saw each other's success as a threat to their own. Under these circumstances, their trade did not alter their strategic calculus.

In fact, colonialism-a major arena of economic interest among the powers of late-19^th century Europe-far from discouraging conflict, stoked it. Industrial-age economies depended on the control of raw materials, valuable land, and trade routes. Britain's empire and Germany's continental preeminence were economically important and depended on strength-indeed, on relative strength. Every power's industrial capacity (shipbuilding, steel, etc.) could be seen as a potential threat, certainly not a benefit, to other powers, especially given the possibility of sudden realignments. Hegemony could yield real benefits; consequently, hegemonic rivalry had a certain (disastrous) rationality. The low-value trade taking place engendered no sense of common economic fate, common strategic interest, or trust. Add the turn-of-the-century's cocky brand of nationalism, and the result was a flammable mix of maneuvering, distrust, and miscalculation that ignited in 1914.

No such competition for colonies, land, or resources-not even scarce energy-pits the leading democracies against one another today. In the information age, the existing powers have no interest in conquest, for it leads nowhere they cannot get more directly through investment and cooperation. Globalization, the liquidity of economic value, and the creation of a transnational pool of information technology reduce the utility of power, especially relative power. How can territorial dominion, let alone aggression, help when the prize is information and ideas? Nowadays, success produces power, not vice versa.

Integration in the information age leaves the leading powers with no reason to wage war with one another and every reason not to do so. Countries that fought a war of annihilation just 50 years ago-Japan, the United States and the West Europeans-now have no differences large enough to merit any thought of conflict. As for rabid nationalism, it has not recovered from the bad name Germany and Japan gave it, nor where it delivered them. The 20^th century history of these particular countries shows that the pursuit of power can lead to national failure, while the disregard of power can contribute to national success.

In the absence of a unifying external threat, the economic integration of the United States, Japan, and Western Europe increasingly accounts for their collaborative approach to the international problems they face. Integration makes the security of each a vital interest to the others. (In contrast, pre-WWI Germany and England hardly saw each other's security as a vital interest.) This above all explains why NATO and the U.S.-Japan alliance are essentially as cohesive now as they were when threatened by the Soviet Union and dominated by the United States. Increasingly, the great democracies are motivated by a shared interest in the economic health, security, and enlargement of their loose commonwealth.

More concretely, the United States, Western Europe, and Japan share interests in, inter alia: the stable growth of the core economy; the unimpeded flow of goods, services, resources, money, data, and know-how throughout the core; the integration of emerging states; the success of new democracies; the security of world energy supplies, which lie mainly beyond the core; the stability of the dangerous regions where most of those energy supplies lie, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union; denial of weapons of mass destruction to hostile states; and, the capacity to relieve human crises in failed states. Though each power in the core also has particular interests, these do not contradict the more basic common interests. As other countries become more open, robust, and integrated, they too should come to identify with these same core interests, provided outdated industrial-age notions of hegemonic competition do not interfere.

Is hegemony obsolete? The current situation might provide a clue, since one of the powerful democracies in the G-7 is clearly more powerful than the others. The United States has military and technological superiority; it has the fittest economy (though the EU's is larger); and it is the most adaptable. Despite this, the United States does not seek to dominate others; nor did it try to do so when they depended on it for their safety during the Cold War. America's triumphalism and its unilateralist lapses are criticized by its closest friends.² But there is a huge difference between insensitivity-not an unfair complaint-and an attempt, exploiting superior strength, to exert hegemonic control or to trample the interests of others in pursuit of one's own.

While this is a subjective matter-just ask a Gaullist!-part of the explanation for U.S. unilateralism and clumsiness is its heavy burden of international responsibilities, rather than any propensity to amass and employ power for exclusive gain. When a prescription for a velvet American hegemony was floated by conservative Republicans, it drew hoots of disapproval, even ridicule, from across the U.S. political spectrum.³

So the United States seeks no hegemony, even though it is not infeasible. And the other democratic powers accord it none. Simply put, they do not fear the United States. If the EU and Japan are disinclined to challenge U.S. leadership, it is because they are content to let the United States bear greater global burdens and have no worry that the United States would use such responsibilities to dominate them. Moreover, while they may agree with the United States on many matters, they are hardly deferential. Thus, the great democratic powers, with common interests, are functioning as an effective community of trustful partners, despite an imbalance of power and responsibility among them. There is no balance of power among them-nor is one needed.

In sum, the most powerful state cannot easily gain by exploiting its position at the expense of others. Less powerful states need not distrust and oppose if for fear that it will. And the existing power or powers need not dread and resist rising powers. This change in the "laws" of power politics is a consequence of the information revolution and the democratic revolution and globalization it is causing.

This essay has argued that, because of the new link between knowledge and power, no country (whatever its size by traditional measures) will be able to develop modern power without being competitive in the creation and use of information technology. Only by allowing economic and political freedom and participating in the core economy will a state be able to acquire the investment, know-how, and market access needed to take full advantage of what information technology has to offer. A rising power that offers such economic and political freedom will find the governments and firms of the core prepared not only to accept but also to facilitate its integration and success. Thus, in the information age, being a great power-in the league of Japan and the EU, if not quite that of the United States-means joining the core. How will that integration affect the new power's international outlook and conduct?

There are several ways a rising power like China might be induced by the United States and its partners to act in ways that are consistent with their interests and norms. They could try to constrain or coerce it by military power-as well they should if China is belligerent. But that will become a costlier, riskier strategy as China gains strength and confidence. Moreover, as China integrates and enacts reforms, the threat of using force against it, for any reason, will lose its appeal and credibility. Indeed, the use of force against China's increasingly vibrant and open cities and citizens will soon seem unthinkable. Finally, even if the United States is prepared to police Chinese behavior, Japan and Europe are not.

Alternatively, the democratic powers could pressure China to respect their interests and norms by linking further integration-trade, investment, access to technology-to Chinese behavior. Such contingent integration is appealingly simple in theory but hard in practice. The lever can work both ways, as we have seen, because every economic interest and transaction between China and the core is valued roughly the same by each party. Moreover, short of sanctions or across-the-board restrictive policies on trade and investment-neither of which could be justified-it is exceedingly difficult for governments, including Washington, to manage an integration process that is determined mainly by private interests.

The surest, most feasible, and most durable way to get China to accept core interests is not through coercion or linkage but through the effects of integration. But wait. Where have we heard that before? Why believe this will work now with China when its antecedent, détente, failed with the Soviet Union?

The Soviet Union was, as we know now, not a rising power at all, but one whose economic system was starting to fail well before the collapse. It had no real hope of integrating into the world economy and was not really trying to do so. It made little that anyone- including most Soviet citizens-wanted to purchase. And of course, in the last of the great industrial-age hegemonic rivalries, détente could not be reconciled with the strong view in the United States that helping the Soviet Union meant imperiling the American way of life or at least vital U.S. interests.

China harbors no interest in transforming the world-rather its main interest is in trans-forming itself. It is eager to integrate and can realistically aspire to a major role in the world economy. Another impor-tant difference between it and the Soviet Union lies in the effects of information techno-logy. Integration should soften Chinese internal politics and international behavior in ways détente never could have affected the Soviet system prior to the information revolution. In order to achieve its goals, China must be able to acquire, create, and use information technology. Therefore, China must continue to reform and integrate. As it does, it will come to share the economic and security interests that motivate cooperation among the United States, Japan, and Europe.

Like the current democratic powers, China will identify with the need for technology, products, money, energy, and information to flow freely throughout the world economy. It should also begin to sympathize with and eventually subscribe to the security concerns of the core democracies, particularly access to world petroleum reserves, for which China's future needs are great. Threats posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction have already begun to outweigh whatever economic and political benefits the Chinese might see in trafficking with the likes of Iran, as evidenced by Beijing's recent decision to curtail such activity. With global trade increasingly vital to China, it will value the security of trade routes and thus the need to resolve peacefully territorial disputes, such as those in the South China Sea.

At the same time, despite its integration thus far, China's assertive behavior and growing power are being met with suspicion and concern by the democratic powers. Moreover, from the Chinese vantage point, exposure to the world in most of the 19^th and 20 ^th centuries has been a decidedly negative experience, what with European exploitation, Japanese atrocities, Soviet bullying, and American antipathy. It is therefore not hard to understand why Chinese nationalism is currently strong, not to mention the fact that the "Middle Kingdom" attitude survives and may even have been reawakened by Chinese success of late. The intensification of this nationalism is not incompatible with domestic reform and economic integration; and it is a concomitant of the growth of Chinese power. Although the ideal of self-sufficiency is being discarded, nationalist sentiment could make even a more democratic China suspicious of the existing powers, especially the superpower.

In this light, could a more open, economically integrated, technologically and militarily strong China be hostile to U.S. and core interests, in its region and the world? Perhaps; but probably not. Even if they seem justified by past exploitation and indignities, nationalism and belligerence will not help China achieve its goals for the future-prosperity, stability, and greatness. Those goals are furthered by modernization, reform, and integration, as already argued, but also by supporting the same global interests that guide the current democratic powers: the economic health of the core, the free flow of economic values, energy security, and countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, while one does not dare to predict that China will become a democracy in a few years, Chinese self-interest will merge with core interests. If the Chinese understand that joining a community of powers in which the United States is strongest does not mean subjecting China to American hegemony, they need not hesitate to do so. Just as the United States is anxious to know that China will be a responsible power, so too is China watching whether the United States handles its superior power responsibly.

This all presupposes that China will complete its economic reform, proceed with political reform, and become an open society in every respect. If the leadership wants to acquire, create, and use information technology successfully, it has no choice. If it wants China to be an information-age power, it has no choice. And as China masters the technology and becomes more open, it will enhance the contributions, living standards, and hopes of the Chinese people-its greatest asset by far.

The alternative for China-slowing reform, suppressing dissent, resisting openness and democracy, challenging the interests of the democratic powers, cozying up to rogue states, refusing to play by the rules of the global economy-seems unlikely because it would damage China's rise, prosperity and, in the end, stability. If the older generation of Chinese leaders does not fully grasp this, the younger one must. If traditional centers of state power do not, new centers of economic and technological power will.

There will likely be continued friction between China and the United States and its partners over human rights, trade policy, and regional questions. Indeed, one dispute, Taiwan, could produce a nasty head-on collision. But the safety net beneath such difficulties, even if Chinese nationalism persists, will be the convergence of China's fundamental economic and strategic interests with those of the United States, Japan, and Europe. Even the Taiwan problem should become more soluble, despite China's growing military power, as China itself becomes open and as the idea of war between China and the United States begins to look unacceptable to both.

The decoupling of relative power and national success, as the industrial age gives way to the information age, makes confrontation between leading power and the rising power unnecessary and reckless. The leading power need not be committed to the status quo, because progress, not power, produces success. So the rising power has nothing to assault. The world's great powers can function in lasting concert rather than in precarious balance, even if their relative power is somewhat out of balance.

If, ignoring this possibility, China chooses to regard the United States as a hegemonic power that it must challenge, or the United States chooses to regard China as a usurper that it must block or defeat, both will be the worse, and the promise of globalization will go unfulfilled.

Barring such strategic folly, globalization can thus come to extend the circle of great and cooperative powers from three to at least four. India, too, can modernize and integrate, especially since it is already democratic, has a potentially important role in the world economy, and is discovering how to capitalize on its enormous human talent. Like China, India most likely will increase its power while also opening its economy and beginning to identify with the interests that motivate the world's present democratic powers. If, however, India gets detoured by ambitions to dominate South Asia, by fear of China, or by aversion to perceived U.S. hegemony, its prospects will fade.

The new multipolar world of three, four, or more powers need not, and from this standpoint will not, resemble the old variety: ever maneuvering to rebalance power; ultimately distrustful of each other because of the maneuvering; preoccupied with stability yet dangerously precarious. Globalization and its prime mover, information technology, are producing a growing commonwealth of great powers-compatible in outlook and ideals, unafraid of one another, eager for all to succeed, and confident enough to welcome change and other powers.

The last two decades have been encouraging: and relations among the United States, Japan, and Europe are reassuring. The prospect of China and India joining this stream of progress is good. So the question naturally arises: Does the information revolution have the strength to convert the entire planet (but for the odd rogue) to openness, responsibility, cooperation, and peace?

Since the end of World War II, the expansion of the core from North America outward has had a pacifying effect: Western Europe and Northeast Asia, two of the world's most dangerous regions in the first half of the 20^th century, are now at peace. More recently, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, also notorious for violence, have begun to enjoy security as a consequence of their transformation and integration. The locations of conflict since the end of the Cold War have been beyond the democratic pale: Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and Central Africa. It is reasonable to believe that the wider the democratic core the greater the expanse of security.

But globalization might be in for a slow-down. Beyond East and South Asia (i.e., China and India), other regions-the greater Middle East, the former Soviet Union, and Africa-are showing less promising signs. Ancient feuds persist among states and tribes. Reform is at best uneven. Most governments lack legitimacy. Cynicism and corruption among elites are unabated if not rising. Human capital is not being developed and used to the fullest; education and science are weak. With all the options available to core firms in search of new locations in which to produce for global markets, now including vast pools of Chinese and Indian talent, they are not likely to choose these three regions. For all these reasons, investors are wary, except when it comes to extracting raw materials. The bountiful energy deposits of the greater Middle East and the former Soviet Union, instead of a blessing that will facilitate progress, could make these regions of interest to the world economy primarily for their fossils-hardly a way to elevate human potential.

The fundamental problem for these regions is that they are on the outskirts of the information revolution and, generally speaking, might not be willing or able to do what it takes to move toward the center of it. True, Internet terminals, satellite dishes, and cell phones are proliferating in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. But such participation is superficial. The deeper problem is that the human capital of these regions is not engaged in the creative enterprises of the information revolution. Their knowledge is not being utilized or enhanced in the same way, or to the same degree, as in America, Europe, and Asia.

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