Summer is here! Even usually overcast Brussels is enjoying clear blue skies, 28°C (82°F), and a gentle breeze, as well as a pretty inner-city artificial beach alongside a canal. So perhaps now is the perfect time for the foreign policy analyst to ask: What if I've got it all wrong?
For several years, the working assumption for those interested in EU foreign policy has been quite simple. Europe relies for its freedom, stability, and prosperity on a liberal world order that it is unable to assure on its own. The chief guarantor of that global order, the United States, is becoming relatively weaker, and is less inclined to provide security services for free to her allies in Europe.
With the international order getting messier, Europe will be forced to deliver more if it wants to protect its interests, support its values, and remain relevant as a transatlantic partner. As a consequence, Europe needs a more unified foreign policy, improved strategic thinking, and better civilian and military assets to play a role in the world.
But what if this is all wrong? The counter-scenario is easy to construct. In this setup, the United States would not only remain a great power, but would solidify its status as the sole superpower on Earth. Several factors would have to come together to bring about such an outcome.
First, the North American shale gas revolution would reduce energy costs and lead to a huge re-industrialization of the United States, as many experts predict now. America's tax revenue would skyrocket and its deficit would shrink. The United States would invest in infrastructure, research, and the military, creating solid growth rates for a long period of time.
Second, America's basic power calculation would not change. The United States would not give in to isolationist temptations, but would remain politically and militarily present around the globe, from Europe to the Middle East to Central Asia to the Pacific. America's born-again economy would profit greatly from ever-more-globalized markets and supply chains, and the superpower would decide that it is better to stay in charge of ensuring the planet's stability than to ask others for help.
Third, with China openly admitting that it has benefited considerably over the last thirty years from Pax Americana, Beijing's ambitions to become a rival superpower would remain limited to its immediate neighborhood. China's leaders would find international crisis management much too tedious, costly, and distracting from domestic affairs to really challenge U.S. leadership around the world. The Chinese would actually be quite happy with the way Washington keeps markets open and conflict at bay from North Korea to the Middle East.
