USA: Allies Resent U.S. Dominance
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Linking Palestinians & Their Friends
Even Allies Resent U.S. Dominance
By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 4, 1997; Page A01
BERLIN, Nov. 3 - Through the eyes of much of the world, the resur-
gence of the United States and its ascendancy as the world's only
superpower has been one of the most dramatic developments since
the passing of the Cold War. Historians who once warned about
America's decline now gush about an age of unrivaled dominance.
But over the past few months, irritation and anxiety have begun to
overshadow sentiments of admiration among America's closest allies.
Across Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, convictions are
growing that the accumulation of so much political, economic and
cultural clout by the United States is breeding an arrogance that
is unpleasant and possibly dangerous.
"Never before in modern history has a country dominated the earth
so totally as the United States does today," the German newsmaga-
zine Spiegel reported in a recent cover story. "American idols and
icons are shaping the world from Katmandu to Kinshasa, from Cairo
to Caracas. Globalization wears a 'Made in USA' label.
"The Americans are acting, in the absence of limits put to them by
anybody or anything, as if they own a blank check in their 'McWorld.'
Strengthened by the end of communism and an economic boom, Washing-
ton seems to have abandoned its self-doubts from the Vietnam trauma.
America is now the Schwarzenegger of international politics: show-
ing off muscles, obtrusive, intimidating."
The chorus of dismay with America's overwhelming power has grown
louder lately as the United States finds itself increasingly
accused of bullying the rest of the world. Indeed, the United
States is discovering that its behavior has come under sharpest
scrutiny from friendly nations that no longer feel prevented by
Cold War loyalties from expressing their disagreements with
Washington.
At the United Nations, intimate allies such as Britain and Germany
have not shrunk from excoriating America's refusal to pay as much
as $1 billion in past dues, its reluctance to increase spending on
foreign aid to poor countries and its rejection of a worldwide ban
on land mines.
Among some 150 delegations gathered last week in Bonn to craft a
global warming treaty, there was almost unanimous disapproval of
President Clinton's proposals to curtail production of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And the most virulent criticism
came from countries long considered Washington's closest partners.
"How can the Americans, with around 5 percent of the world's popu-
lation, go on accounting for a quarter of its greenhouse gases?
This flagrant imbalance cannot be allowed to continue," warned
Germany's foreign minister, Klaus Kinkel.
Within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, European govern-
ments still grumble about the peremptory manner in which the United
States shut off debate by insisting that the alliance's expansion
will be limited initially to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
They also complain about U.S. demands that Europe must pay the
lion's share of the costs.
Washington's efforts to compel other nations to embrace its policy
of isolating Cuba, Iran, Iraq and Libya as pariah states have also
provoked annoyance among U.S. friends. When South African President
Nelson Mandela visited Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, he rebuffed
Washington's attempts to impose its views.
"How can they have the arrogance to dictate to us where we should
go or which countries should be our friends?" Mandela asked.
"Gadhafi is my friend. He supported us when we were alone and when
those who tried to prevent my visit here today were our enemies.
They have no morals. We cannot accept that a state assumes the role
of the world's policeman."
Clinton administration officials dismiss such complaints as an
inevitable consequence of America's new global supremacy. They say
the United States is bound to be condemned whatever it does -- it
will be criticized as too overbearing when it asserts its will over
other nations, and scorned as too passive and indecisive if it
steps back to allow others to take the lead.
U.S. power may have been greater a half century ago, when World War
II ended, but the revolution in communications and other technolo-
gies has given America a broader impact on today's world. Besides
having the world's biggest economy and highest living standards,
the United States possesses the only military force capable of
acting in all parts of the world. It has spawned 10 million new
jobs in the past four years while other Western countries struggle
with persistently high unemployment. American mass entertainment
has never been more popular -- "Baywatch" and MTV penetrate the
most distant corners of the globe.
But while the United States may reign as the world's dominant eco-
nomic, military and cultural force, its power still has limits. As
the world's largest debtor, Washington owes the rest of the world
more than $1 trillion -- much of it to Japan -- and remains vulner-
able to the whims of its creditors. While the United States remains
the world's paramount economic engine, its share of the global eco-
nomy is much smaller than in the days after World War II, when
America accounted for a quarter of world output.
Moreover, U.S. officials argue that the resistance aroused by Ame-
rican policies shows that U.S. power does not always translate into
persuasive influence, particularly without the cementing factor of
an outside strategic threat like the Soviet Union.
As a result, European allies feel no restraints about criticizing
American heavy-handedness in NATO's decision-making councils. And
China does not flinch from rebuffing American appeals about human
rights.
Joseph S. Nye, dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government, describes the paradox of the world's only superpower
being unable to get others to do its bidding as evidence of Ameri-
ca's "soft power," which he says is less coercive and less tangible
in today's world. But such explanations have not consoled European
and other nations that fear their interests can be trampled by the
American juggernaut.
After the Denver summit of the world's leading industrial democra-
cies in June, several leaders voiced alarm that Clinton's triumph-
alist spirit was verging toward hubris. "We see a certain tendency
toward hegemony, which is not necessarily identical with exercising
the global responsibilities of a great power, even if it is a
friend," French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said.
Thierry de Montbrial, director of France's Institute for Inter-
national Relations, said France is prepared to accept America's
special leadership role but worries where it is taking the rest of
the world. "America holds the keys today to the evolution of inter-
national relations. The essential question now is whether the
United States may be tempted to abuse its dominant position through
what is known as American unilateralism." As the world's leading
commercial bloc, the 15-nation European Union has clashed often
with the United States over trade disputes involving everything
from civilian aircraft to corn gluten feed. But nothing has out-
raged the Europeans more than U.S. efforts to impose unilateral
sanctions on countries that do business with Washington's list of
pariah states.
European officials say the Helms-Burton Act, which inhibits trade
with Cuba, and the D'Amato-Kennedy bill, which seeks to block deals
with Iran and Libya, are intolerable forms of "American imperialism"
because they seek to extend the reach of U.S. law to foreign nat-
ions. When the French energy company Total ignored U.S. warnings
and signed a $2 billion contract to develop Iran's natural gas
fields, the French poke in the American eye was heartily applauded
by other European partners who reject the idea of having the United
States tell them where they can and cannot invest.
Another source of irritation is the dominant role played by the U.S.
dollar as the world's only reserve currency. Europe's drive to cre-
ate a single continental currency, the euro, is motivated in part
by desire to a develop a counterweight to the dollar -- a European
currency so trustworthy that it could be held as reserves instead
of gold and so broadly recognized that it could be used as a stan-
dard of exchange in international trade instead of the ubiquitous
dollar.
"Americans do not yet understand the significance of the euro, but
when they do it could set up a monumental conflict," said Germany's
former chancellor Helmut Schmidt in an interview. "The arrival of
the euro will imply the overriding importance of the dollar will be
reduced in the world. And it will change the whole world situation
so that the United States can no longer call all the shots."
In South America, where Clinton recently visited three countries,
fears about U.S. hegemony have never really dissipated. These days,
for instance, grave suspicions have arisen that a U.S. proposal to
build a hemispheric free-trade zone stretching from Alaska to Pata-
gonia could threaten economic sovereignty and become another tool
to perpetuate North American predominance.
"We're not ready for it, and we don't want it forced upon us," said
Roberto Macedo, president of Brazil's group of electronics manufac-
turers. "The United States is trying to herd us into this thing
like the buffaloes in the [Wild West] and, just like those
buffaloes, if we allow it, we will be heading for extinction."
Within the United States, there are signs that the alarm and sus-
picion expressed by America's neighbors and allies are generating
greater sensitivity. Even leading members of Congress, which many
foreigners blame for the arrogance they perceive in U.S. foreign
policy, are waking up to the dangers of alienating the rest of the
world.
"If we do not learn to change our leadership style, we will event-
ually have enormous resentment across the planet," said House Spea-
ker Newt Gingrich in a speech this month at Georgetown University's
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. "We are so large that unless
we adopt a more 'learning and listening' leadership style, we will
have a lot of resentment."
Yet even Europeans who worry about the perils of American arrogance
say that on many difficult problems, such as making peace in Bosnia,
nothing gets done unless the United States assumes a leading role.
"America's power comes from pull, not from push," said Josef Joffe,
foreign affairs columnist for Munich's leading newspaper. "American
values and arrangements are most closely in tune with the new Zeit-
geist. It attracts the world's best and brightest, allowing them to
rise to the top within one generation. And that makes for a univer-
salist culture with universal appeal."
+ Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
Fwd: I. Musa / Forum for Palestine
Wachtberg, November 17, 1997
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