Russia, China Challenging US Worldwide: SIPRI Chief

“China is the world’s rising economic power, though the pace of that rise has inevitably slowed down, and its government is, therefore, challenging the shape of the world order and the role of the most powerful actor within it – the US. Russian political sentiment includes a strong sense of grievance about how the country was treated in the 1990s after the USSR’s collapse; under Putin it has steadily grown more assertive in foreign policy, leading up to its interventions in Ukraine and Syria. This also challenges the US role…,” Dan Smith told Tasnim in an interview.

Dan Smith has a long record of research and publication on a wide range of conflict and peace issues such as nationalism, identity politics, armed conflicts, ethics of intervention, gender aspects of conflict and peacebuilding. In recent years, his work has broadened to encompass other contemporary issues such as the relationship between climate change and insecurity, peace and security issues in the Middle East and global conflict trends. Smith has served four years in the UN Peacebuilding Fund Advisory group, two of which (2010–2011) were as Chair. He has lived most of his adult life in the UK with a 10-year spell in Norway. He has traveled professionally to more than 60 countries.

Following is the full text of the interview.

Tasnim: Recent strategic and military moves by the US in the Middle East signify that Washington’s foreign policy is shifting. Some experts argue that this shows Washington’s declining willingness to invest military and economic resources in defense of its allies’ security in the region. How do you see this? What is behind this change of policy?

Smith: President Trump has declared that the mission to destroy ISIS has been accomplished and that is why troops could be withdrawn from northern Syria. However, it is worth noting both that the killing of the ISIS leader al-Baghdadi was carried out after those statements, and that 3,000 additional US troops are being deployed to the (Persian) Gulf Region to provide assurance to Saudi Arabia.

It is, therefore, probably misleading to see what is happening as a US withdrawal from the region; it is, rather, a realignment of military assets within the larger region.

Tasnim: Do you believe that US desire to avoid foreign entanglements is a result of its long, costly, and thankless engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries?

Smith: The US has long lived on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, the urge not to be involved in military and political adventures abroad runs deep. It goes back to the presidencies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Those who have seen and experienced the effects of US power around the world may find it hard to understand how strong the rejection of an activist, adventurist world role is within US political culture. On the other hand, the fact is that the US global interests and has long sought to promote and protect them all round the world. Whenever there is a foreign war that has a heavy death toll and is unsuccessful, the political pendulum swings towards avoiding the kind of foreign commitments that could lead to further war. But after a time, the pendulum swings back.

Tasnim: Experts argue that the US hegemony is in decline as China and Russia have established new, leading roles in the region as well as the world. Do you believe in the decline? Do you think Russia and China are trying to replace the US?

Smith: China is the world’s rising economic power, though the pace of that rise has inevitably slowed down, and its government is, therefore, challenging the shape of the world order and the role of the most powerful actor within it – the US. Russian political sentiment includes a strong sense of grievance about how the country was treated in the 1990s after the USSR’s collapse; under Putin it has steadily grown more assertive in foreign policy, leading up to its interventions in Ukraine and Syria. This also challenges the US role. Meanwhile, the US is led by a President whose words and deeds cause increasing concern among many allied governments about the strength of the current US commitment to those alliances. This also weakens US influence.

So it does seem that US hegemony is declining but it is worth recalling that a similar argument was made in the late 1970s after the Vietnam War. In the 1990s, the US became for a period the sole great power in the world. That was bound to be temporary. Now there are three great powers that compete for influence. Their relative strengths will probably fluctuate up and down across the coming decade. What is most important is that security and well-being do not fall victim to those rivalries.