Kori Schake on the Stability of the International Order

This podcast episode includes references to the Eurasia Group Foundation, now known as the Institute for Global Affairs.

Transcript:

July 12, 2019

MARK HANNAH: Is that another way of saying we made the world in our image?

KORI SCHAKE: That is exactly what the United States did. And what you should anticipate any future hegemon also doing.

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HANNAH: My name is Mark Hannah, and I’m your host for None of the Above, a podcast from the Eurasia Group Foundation. Today, all the way from across the pond, we’re joined by Kori Schake. Kori is a veteran of the National Security Council and served as Deputy Director for Policy Planning at the State Department before serving as John McCain’s foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign. She is the author, most recently, of Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony, and today we’re discussing potential conflict with another rising power across a different pond—China. So, Kori, what do you mean by hegemony?

SCHAKE: The hegemon of the international order isn't necessarily the strongest power militarily or economically. It is the state that sets the rules of the order, and it has to be willing to enforce the rules of the order.

Interlude featuring archival audio

HANNAH: Do you anticipate China to be a hegemon in the foreseeable future? And why do you think it will try to remake the world in its image if so?

SCHAKE: Typically, great powers do that because that's the DNA of leadership, right? How you navigate the acquisition and dispensation of power domestically become the reflexes by which you engage the international order. So if you think about the U.S. as a rising power, by 1917, the U.S. with Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and his expectation of how the international order should be different—transparent interactions between states and self-determination to create states—those elements were America's natural reflexes. And you begin to see them as soon as the United States becomes strong enough to try to shape the order.

And I think you can already see in China's behavior attempts to shape the international order in ways that reflect its domestic political compact. So for example, the Belton Road Initiative contracts that China is signing with developing countries to provide loans and construction of infrastructure—they do not want those countries to appeal any dispute to international arbitration tribunals. They instead want those countries to agree as a condition of getting the loan that they will allow China to determine nationally what these solutions should be without recourse to international arbitration.

HANNAH: That's somewhat similar to the United States when it was striking up free trade agreements with different countries that are making those agreements contingent on things we value, like environmental protection or labor protections, is it? Is that not the case?

SCHAKE: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. It's just that values matter hugely, right? The values of your domestic political compact get written large in the international order that a power strong enough to dictate the rules of the order would create. To answer your other question—will China try to supplant the United States as a hegemon?—I'm deeply skeptical of that and think it could only happen under two conditions. The first is the United States becomes so solipsistic and dysfunctional that we stop caring about shaping the rest of the world. And I think that's unlikely. In fact I think you already see, even amidst our febrile domestic politics, the one subject on which there appears to be widespread bipartisan agreement in the United States is that China isn't playing by the rules. And the United States needs to force compliance with those rules because we are not going to like an international order in which China gets to intimidate and compel compliance by countries on its periphery that are not as strong as China is.

HANNAH: But if you ask most Americans about whether they care about the stability or the shape of the international order their eyes will glaze over. Policymakers of both parties care about this. But do you think people at the public level do?

SCHAKE: Of course nobody's going to get to run out with banners that say, “Preserve the liberal international rules-based order.” But if you ask your mom, “Should China be able to profit from stealing the technology of Google and Apple?” What would her answer be?

HANNAH: Probably not. I would say certainly not. Yes. So what are the two other conditions, Kori?

SCHAKE: The second condition is that all of the middle powers, the liberal powers who are by and large America's allies—Germany, France, Australia, Japan, and India, which is not overtly an American ally but is a democratic free market country—would have to cease caring about the existing order and permit China to change the rules. And I think I also see counters to that occurring. You know, the rules of the order really matter. Transparency in contracts matters to the Japanese because their public expects them to conduct business in ways that can bear public scrutiny. And so I believe I see all sorts of different permutations of the middle powers realizing that it is so much in their interests for international institutions to be courts of arbitration for rules to not just be generally acknowledged, but to be consensual.

HANNAH: Let me ask you a bigger picture question. Does the international order exist independent of a kind of aggregate of all these countries’ particular self-interests? And even if those self-interests are in preserving a kind of international order, isn't the order just kind of duct-taped together to some extent?

SCHAKE: Yes, it's certainly true that the patchwork of regional security and economic arrangements is duct-taped together by the United States and by the institutions it created out of the ashes of conflict in World War Two, in order to provide transparency and predictability, that lets you see threats gathering and deal with them before they are of the magnitude of the threats we had to counter from 1941 to 1945. What is beautiful, admirable, and completely unnatural about the international order the United States and its allies created in 1945 is that it is not simply creating rules which are in America's interests. The United States created rules others voluntarily opted into. And that's the secret of our success—the international order the U.S. created, because countries want what we have and what the other liberal prosperous countries have created for themselves out of the order, has a magnetism that reduces the need to enforce it.

So for example, if China were to become the hegemon of the international order, it would have to enforce the rules all over the place because countries aren't naturally going to want to be part of a tribute system where they have no say over the rules, and China uses force to compel their compliance.

HANNAH: That's the question. Have we undermined, to some extent, these guidelines we've created with the way we've conducted our foreign policy in the past twenty-five years?

SCHAKE: Not just the past twenty-five years, Mark, the past seventy years. But that's the wrong standard. The right standard is: has any dominant power in the international order ever done so much to voluntarily limit its own power in order to legitimate that power in the eyes of others? And the answer to that is no.

HANNAH: Why? Why is that the root of what people see as American exceptionalism? Why have we been able to restrain ourselves in such a fashion?

SCHAKE: Because we were smart enough to know if we did that, other countries would share the burden of upholding the order.

HANNAH: I mean, we talk about a consensus or that other countries have a stake in the success of the order. Certain countries do not. I mean, China has profited significantly from certain aspects of this order, but haven't they also potentially had an interest in biding their time and waiting for the order to expire?

SCHAKE: We have permitted China to have most of the advantages of compliance with the rules of order without them fully complying. And I think the sand has run out of the hourglass. The question that raises is if the Chinese are such strategic geniuses operating with a hundred year time horizon, why did they activate the antibodies against their continued rise when per capita GDP is $8,800? And before they win the artificial intelligence sweepstakes? Right now is not the obvious time for them to do that. So I think the answer to the question is this wasn't a strategy choice on their part. This was a mistake. It was arrogance. It was what happens when one person has too much power and authority in a political system and misjudges the strength of their position.

Interlude featuring archival audio

SCHAKE: I think the likelier prospects for the U.S. and China going to war are China doing something provocative that invokes America's defense of an ally, or the Chinese military not being under political control and provoking a conflict that escalates.

HANNAH: But is there a possibility for mutual understanding and commonality between Americans and Chinese? The stereotype is that we're very different cultures.

SCHAKE: I think there is enormous space for understanding between Americans and Chinese. I think there is very little space for commonality between the current Communist Party government of China and the United States. One of the great American advantages and one of the signature elements of that international order the United States and its allies built after 1945 is that we genuinely believe our values—the belief that people have inherent human rights and loan them in limited ways to governments for agreed political purposes—those truths that we hold to be self-evident, are universal. And one of the beautiful things about the flowering of freedom since 1945 has been that that has pretty well proven true. Any time people get the opportunity to choose their government they choose to protect their individual liberties.

HANNAH: Aren't there other human desires, though, people have that are universal and aren't necessarily always championed as prominently by democracies, such as economic stability rather than opportunity, or a sense of collective belonging rather than individual autonomy? And do you think there has been a way in which China is proposing itself as advancing certain universally appealing values that are in direct competition with America's universally appealing values?

SCHAKE: No, I don't believe either of the values you suggested are universally aspired to. But yes, I certainly believe China is trying to propagate a model of authoritarian capitalism that is appealing to authoritarians around the world. If you don't want your public to be able to determine its leadership and set the rules by which problems get solved in their own communities, then yeah, the Chinese model is for you. The Russian government loves the Chinese model. I don't think the Russian people would choose it if they were able to have a choice.

Interlude featuring archival audio

HANNAH: You mentioned that the transition from British to American hegemony was the only transition that has been peaceful, in your accounting of it. What was exceptional or different about that, and what can we learn from that, as we start to address or confront China's rise?

SCHAKE: What made the transition from Britain to the United States peaceful was that for the crucial twenty years, Britain and the United States came to see themselves as similar to each other and different from everyone else. The U.S., because of westward expansion and because of manifest destiny, came to see ourselves in imperial terms. And what Britain celebrated about itself was the peaceful expansion of its franchise—that it managed to make its political system more representative without incurring a revolution like in France.

So by the mid-1870s, Britain and the United States considered each other a fraternity. Common values gave Britain and the United States breathing space so both governments could make policy compromises in a crisis. And that's the importance of values. It gives a way for the political leadership to make compromises that prevent war. And you don't see that sense of common values between the Communist Party leadership in China and the United States. I am pretty confident that China, if it continues to grow more prosperous, will grow more liberal. But if it doesn't, I would not bet that a transition, should it take place, would be peaceful.

HANNAH: Are nation-states more prone to conflict than their citizens?

SCHAKE: Democratic states almost never fight each other. The only example we have of fully democratic states engaging in a war is Iceland and Britain in 1973, and it lasted about three shots over fishing rights. Democratic states tend not to fight each other because they tend to find other problem-solving means. That is the extrapolation into foreign policy of what democratic societies do in their domestic policy. Democratic states fight the most wars of any in the international order, but they don't fight each other. So they defend their liberties. They try to advance their liberties. They sometimes advocate and try to carry out regime change. Newly decolonized states define their territory. All of those are reasons democratic states fight wars, but they don't fight each other.

HANNAH: You mentioned in your book about how Venezuela kind of invoked the Monroe Doctrine in getting the United States to come in and bounce Great Britain from that country, and now John Bolton is invoking the Monroe Doctrine again, as a as a sort of justification for potential military action in Venezuela. Is it an example in which these ideologies that get wrapped up in doctrines take on a life of their own?

SCHAKE: Let me start by saying that John Bolton invoking the Monroe Doctrine to threaten the Maduro government in Venezuela with overthrow by the United States is terrible American foreign policy. It raises all sorts of unnecessary concerns. Moreover, it takes momentum away from the Lima group of Venezuela's neighbors, who have been really active and helpful in having a humanitarian policy, a transition policy for moving to legitimate elections in the country. This is being handled very well by Venezuela's immediate neighbors. And the best American foreign policy would be to support and celebrate the good work they are doing. The United States declared the Monroe Doctrine in 1923 to suggest the Western Hemisphere is no longer open for European colonization. And in 1905, Teddy Roosevelt expanded that to suggest the United States would police the commercial activities of countries in Latin America in order to prevent European powers from having a legitimate basis for military intervention.

The next Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, overturned that policy, greatly to America's credit, in the 1930s to substitute a “good neighbor policy.” And it shows the difference between the United States as an overbearing regional power trying to dominate its neighbors, to becoming a power which encouraged positive change that supported democratic governance and helped underwrite positive change in the region. And the result of that was an outpouring of support and assistance by our hemispheric neighbors when the United States was attacked by Japan in 1941.

The language that becomes Article 5 in the NATO treaty—that an attack on one will be considered an attack on all—was first used by America's neighbors in the Western Hemisphere after Japan attacked the United States in 1941. So I would say there are a lot of benefits to not being a jerk.

And China is being a jerk by trying to invoke the Monroe Doctrine to say they deserve to dominate their neighbors. And it's reinforcing America's alliances in Asia because we are no longer a jerk that tries to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.

HANNAH: We’re now going into the lightning round with Kori Schake.

You talk a big game about shared values. I know you've worked for John McCain and the McCain-Palin campaign. Your sister ran communications for Hillary Clinton's campaign. So, where are the shared values there, and how are your political debates?

SCHAKE: Our political debates are wonderful. They're educational; they're respectful. My sister is what I hope my political opposition always looks like, which is that she is a big-hearted liberal who wants very much to have the best outcomes for our country. And I respect that enormously. I have policies that I think would achieve that better than the policies she advocates. But every time we have a conversation I sharpen my own arguments because she raises great challenges to them, and she causes me to change my own thinking about those issues.

HANNAH: Who wins the debates?

SCHAKE: You know, I think win is an undemocratic word. You know what I'm hearing in my head right now? I'm hearing that line from Bull Durham: ground balls are Democratic. I don't have to win the argument. We have to find a compromise that both of us can live with because that's the nature of democratic politics.

HANNAH: I see. This brings me to the next question. What do you feel so possessive over that you'd get into a fight about it?

SCHAKE: I become indignant when people are disrespectful of views they don't share, because I feel like that's a violation of the fundamental compact in free societies. That is, we should be able to disagree even on hugely important, consequential issues and still be respectful that other people are operating in good faith and just come to different conclusions than we do. And if we can't persuade each other, we have to find some middle ground we can meet on.

HANNAH: There might be some irony here. You would fight with people who would fight with people they disagree with?

SCHAKE: Oh you mean actually fight with people?

HANNAH: I mean—not necessarily fisticuffs or physical fights but, you know, just fight.

SCHAKE: I argue all over the place. I don't think I fight.

HANNAH: No fighting. Okay. Going in 180 degrees here. What's your favorite thing to do with your friends over there in London?

SCHAKE: Britain gets a bad reputation for bad food. Food here is fabulous. With the parenthetical exception that there’s not nearly enough good Mexican food.

HANNAH: They import a lot of great food. They import a lot of great tea. Can you explain what tea as a meal means in the United Kingdom? Is it lunch, dinner—what is tea as a meal?

SCHAKE: Late afternoon sandwiches.

HANNAH: Uh-huh. What is the thing that surprised you the most about living there?

SCHAKE: What surprised me most is how broad the cultural differences are between the British and the Americans. Britons love themselves in endurance. And Americans love themselves in “build a better mousetrap” problem solving. Think of a hot water faucet and a cold water faucet here. You don't get warm water; you get scalding water or freezing water. I feel like Americans would have driven a change to that.

HANNAH: And that’s the lightning round. I think everybody won. That was Kori Schake. Her book is Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony. You can find it anywhere you buy books. If you like what you heard here on None of the Above, please feel free to subscribe to our podcast, rate us, and review us. You can visit us on iTunes, Spotify, GooglePlay, or noneoftheabovepodcast.org. Tell all your friends. Thank you very much for your time and interest, and thank you, Kori, for joining us.

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