Unipolar vs. multipolar world: Which is better?

This issue is often brought up in debates about the U.S.’ current military/political role on the post-Cold-War world, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a thread actually debating it. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of a world overshadowed by a single military superpower, compared to a world with no one dominant power? Which is likely to be more peaceful? More safe? More just? More prosperous?

Also – if a unipolar world is better, does it matter which power is the hegemon? You could make a case that the European Union is better suited than the U.S. for the role – not in terms of effectiveness, but in terms of effects, on the rest of the world. Whereas if China is the hegemon . . . well, let’s not think about that, shall we?

Well, of course it does, as your China example points out.

As to what’s “better,” I think it will depend a lot on what you value. To put it one way: Rome was good for peace and progress; it was not so good for complete local autonomy. It was good for cross-pollinating ideas; not so good if you prefer cultures be forever preserved as they evolved.

I didn’t know you favored Europe so much. :slight_smile:

Out of curiosity, what would that case be?

  1. The Europeans seems to have actually gotten over the idea of aggressive imperialism, just as the U.S. is really starting to feel its imperial oats. The role of global hegemon is definitely not a job that should go to a power who actually wants it.

  2. By the same token, the Europeans (especially the Germans) seem to have a shared idea that they have a lot of past wrongs to make up for. (See this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269082) So, in their future foreign adventures, they might be (compared to the U.S.) more inclined to be generous and less inclined to be exploitive.

  3. Because Europe is not just one country, and the European Union not really a government in the full sense, the various governments would have to agree among themselves before taking any military action abroad. This would make them less effective, less able to take quick, decisive action – but also less rash (and I think we Yanks are learning a bitter lesson right now in the folly of rash action). This situation also makes it harder for any particular corporation to enlist the Union forces in its service.

Some required reading:

William Wohlforth. 1999. “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security, 24, 1, Summer, 5-41.

Ethan Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno. 1999. “Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War,” in E. Kapstein and M. Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics, NY: Columbia University Press

Ethan Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno. 1999. “Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War,” in E. Kapstein and M. Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics, NY: Columbia University Press

Could you, well, summarize those for us?

Unipolar versus multipolar? Hmmm.

One problem with a unipolar world is, what happens if something ‘goes wrong’ with the ruling power? This is the problem with all monocultures*, from single-species industrial farming to the Windows quasi-monopoly: their vulnerabilities have disproportionately-large effects. In a unipolar world, there may not be another system to take up needed tasks if the first one breaks down.

What if the ruling state turns to tyranny, ruling all for the benefit of a tiny elite? What if it gets distracted by a philosophy that makes it less able to survive?

I have read that one reason Europe was so successful in the past 500 years is that it was internally multipolar, and many different philosophies and strategies had to compete to survive.

It’s not multipolarity; it’s… ‘competition’. :slight_smile:

[sub]*Note that having a monoculture is not the same thing as having common standards or protocols. It’s perfectly possible to have diversity and competition among entities that use a single communications protocol, for instance; the Internet is one example of this.

Curious how you gloss over the worst thing about Rome: It was an empire – a government of the foreigners, by the Romans, for the Romans. At least in its early centuries, the empire was, like most empires known to history*, quite frankly and unapologetically a system of organized banditry, which existed to enrich Romans (meaning, mainly, the Roman nobility and elite) at the expense of non-Romans, often by enslaving non-Romans. That goes way, way beyond loss of “complete local autonomy.” Unlike most empires, Rome also had a highly sophisticated system of justice and government, and a facility for useful public works, and several ways by which an energetic and lucky person could earn citizenship in the ruling nation. Still, on that balance, not a good model for this discussion.

*The Warsaw Pact, the empire of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1991, was a curious anomaly – almost the imperial model stood on its head. The subject nations were oppressed, but, for the most part, not economically exploited, in fact their peoples generally enjoyed a higher standard of living than Soviet citizens; and the Soviet Union spent a lot more money/resources maintaining its rule there than it got out of the arrangement in economic advantages. This curious empire existed partly because of the ideological imperative of spreading Communism, but mainly to make sure Russia would never again be invaded from the West, as it had been so many times before.

The problem with the multipolar model is that one pole tends to be the good guys and the other pole tends to be the bad guys. Whatever stability was gained during the Cold War was bought at the price of the democratic aspirations of hundreds of millions of people in the USSR and its satellites.

The goodness or badness of a unipolar world, too, is going to depend on whose at the top of the pole. Had the USSR prevailed and become the dominant power today, we’d have an entirely different situtation than the present condition.

So, it depends on what you value. If you value security and stability over freedom, then the Cold War wasn’t such a bad time. If you value freedom more, then you’ll probably prefer a unipolar world with a western style deomcracy at the top. And don’t kid yourself about Europe. Europe and the US have largely overlapping interests. If Europe were “on top” right now, they would probably behave differently than they do at present. The guy at the top is an easy target, and a static analysis of that guy’s behavior is overly simplisitic-- ie, assuming Europe would stay as neutral as it tends to be now if it were the dominant power in the world.

No, that would be a bipolar world, like we had during the Cold War. A multipolar world would be one without any global hegemons at all. Like the world always was, before the age of European colonial imperialism.

Uh, well, no. A huge amount of ink has been spilled on this subject in the subfield of IR theory. It has ranged from case studies to econometrics to game theory. One of my favorite books on the subject argues essentially that this matters far less than the ratio of the winning coalition to the selectorate. I’d be happy to run through the literature if I had a lot more time.

As an IR major with a relatively shallow (standard undergrad) understanding of the field, I can try to give you a very basic summary of what is taught to undergrads about the subject currently (at least, at the University of Georgia).

From what I can tell, almost no one supports the idea of a multipolar world being “better,” in the sense of more stable or secure. The debate is between bipolar vs. unipolar, with more scholars leaning towards bipolar. Multipolarity was standard in Europe until the ascendancy of Great Britian as a hegemon in (I believe), the late 18th century. The world was unipolar until the end of World War I, at which point British hegemony declined and American hegemony was yet to begin. Multipolarity is generally associated with highly unstable alliance structures and war.

There has only been one case of global bipolarity, the Cold War period. There was no direct conflict between the major powers, although we came close to it; also, there were numerous proxy conflicts. In addition, it should be noted that both poles were nuclear powers; most scholars find this fact essential to a study of Cold War bipolarity. Bipolarity is considered stability-enhancing because neither pole can become aggressive, as it has a check in the other pole, and it creates tight alliance structures, meaning that you know where everyone stands. In addition, with nuclear powers, agression can equal armageddon, so the poles are even less likey to engage in conflict.

There have been more examples of unipolarity than bipolarity, in modern times, British and American. I don’t know that the periods of British or American hegemony have been characterized as relatively peaceful. I believe there were many 19th century European wars, although I may be mistaken. In addition, unipolar American hegemony has only existed since 1990 on; although conflict overall has declined during this time, it still doesn’t seem to be to be that peaceful. Gulf Wars I&II and the Balkan conflict all occured in these 15 years, as well as numerous smaller conflicts throughout the world. Most IR scholars are realists, which means that they don’t attribute particular importance to a state’s ideology; therefore, theoretically, China being a hegemon would not be different than America as hegemon. Actually, I can’t off the top of my head think of discussions about polarity that aren’t realist in orientation. Anyways, the benefit to unipolarity is that the hegemon can function as a policeman, to curb aggression, and also facilitate trade and other international agreements.

That’s what I can remember off the top of my head at 2:30 in the morning. Sorry, I don’t have any cites : (. Again, this is a very rudimentary outline; please feel free to get more specific and/or correct any mistakes I have made. Also, it just occurred to me that i have conflated unipolarity with hegemony; please note that this is not always the case. America was arguably a hegemon from 1945 onward, although the world was only unipolar until 1990. Which actually seems like a contradiction; can anyone resolve this for me?
Gestalt

Could this not simply be because Europe is not the current hegemon, and thinks that the United States might oppose imperialist actions? From what I know, China has not had imperialistic overtures (outside of Taiwan), but that doesn’t mean that it lacks imperialistic intentions, just that it doesn’t have the power to exercise these intentions. Yes, it has engaged in arms trade, but then again, so has the EU.

Why do you feel the ability to act less decisively would make a hegemon more inclined to promote stability? Wouldn’t potential aggressors see a militarily indecisive hegemon as less of a deterrant?

Gestalt

What is “IR theory”? And what is a “selectorate”?

I don’t think one is better than the other (well, if we are talking bipolar instead of multipolar…I think multipolar is inherently unstable in the long term. See WWI). ‘It depends’ is the operative statement. The CURRENT unipolar situation I believe is a lot better than some other situations of the past. While its not optimal I think its about as good as its likely to get. Enjoy it while you can…it won’t last forever and we will probably all live to see less stable times.

Why? I see nothing to indicate that the Europeans have undergone some fundamental change that has put them at a higher plane. All I see is that WWII basically wrecked the various multipolar powers, shattering their industries and crippling their war fighting capabilities from a force projection standpoint, FORCING them to loosen their grip on their various overseas empires. Kicking and screaming in most cases. Couple that with their dependance on the US for aid and support during the cold war, the fact that they haven’t needed to devote large percentages of resources to their military aside from some local defense (relying on the US and all), thus enabling them to have decent economic growth while supporting their various social programs (at our expense) and you have the current situation.

BTW, what indications do you have that US imperialism in on the rise? Are you talking from an economic perspective or something else? What do you see as the prime indications?

Er…because they were evil, expansionist bastards in the past this makes them ideal to take the US’s place as the unipolar power once we fold??? Maybe they are less inclined simply because they are less capable. Make them more capable and perhaps they will become more inclined.

Again, I don’t see this as a big advantage. You are saying that because they are divided amongst themselves this makes them the ideal unipolar power. Myself I think its the worst of both worlds. No one will take them seriously if they are constantly divided into factions. And of course, re-arming such an entity to the point that they are militarily capable beyond Europe, while maintaining those various factions…well, perhaps they are over their seemingly endless slaughtering of themselves. However, I’m not too keen to find out and have the US embroiled in yet another massive European killfest. YMMV and all that.

-XT

:rolleyes: I’m gonna pretend you didn’t post that.

Not the ideal, merely the least dangerous.

No, Brain, I’d like a cite on that. I shall point out, Korea, Vietnam, Panama… I don’t see any great increase in imperialistic tendencies.

I am currently hoping Iraq II is a abberation, but it’s not any great increase in imperalism, compared to the past. If we’d won in Nam, would it be any different?

What has increased is our tendency to act like we’re the imperial power in this world and we don’t have to give a shit what anybody else thinks or wants. During the Cold War, the U.S. was merely the senior partner in an alliance. Now, we (or rather, our leaders) seem to be thinking in terms of PNAC ideology.

From PNAC’s 1997 statement of principles – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnac. Just the way that was phrased – “American principles and interests” as opposed to “free” or “democratic” or “capitalist” – reflects a fundamental sea change in foreign-policy thinking.

I’m gonna go with Multipolar. I think that comparisons to the past are not going to really help us in this one, because of the state of globalisation. We are moving into corporatism, or anarcho-syndicalism right now, and states are more about balancing power than anything. I think as time goes by what’s going to be more important is economic stability than anything else, and with the complex lattice of economic ties that span the globe, any major war would cause serious problems. I have been glad to see that America is being pushed back against.

I think that what is happening in South America is ultimately a good thing, and a powerful Iran with strong economic ties to China, Russia and India will put American adventurism into perspective.

It is becoming less and less relevant what nation you are from, as national identity is having less impact upon what your power base is. Multinational corporations have headquarters offshore in order to lower their tax burden yet they have high levels of power over the American political machine. I do not believe that these companies feel any particular allegiance to America as much as they feel allegiance to themselves as their own entities. This is why Halliburton will have subsidiaries working in Iran even with sanctions there.

Basically, the lines on the map are becoming less and less important in the power games that people are playing on a global scale. It’s more about multinational conglomerates, and being invited to the right conference where execs of these conglomerates meet with diplomats to discuss policy decisions.

I don’t think that unipolar is even an option, much less a desirable one, and I don’t see a bipolar world in our future either. America may have a strong military, but what good does that do us if we can’t hold the nation’s we conquer? Certainly we could reduce almost any nation in the world to a lower economic rank with cruise missiles, but if we can’t exploit them economically, what benefit is there in it for us to do so?

Erek