Why power is America’s weakness

Comparisons may be odious and analogies tricky, but they can be indispensable. Which ones are chosen, however, is a matter of some importance. In the current debate over Iraq, the analogy of choice has been Vietnam. A much better one is the Suez crisis of 1956.

The plan of attack involves the use of phoney evidence. The implementation of the plan is strikingly inept. Popular support for the venture, initially strong, drains away. The whole episode ends with the two principal western actors embarrassed and with their international prestige seriously damaged.

What the final balance of similarities and differences will be is uncertain. The Suez crisis caused the downfall of a British prime minister; whether the Iraq crisis will ultimately destroy George W. Bush and Tony Blair remains to be seen.

It was brought home decisively to the British that despite spending no less than 8 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence and having conscripted military forces of 700,000, their claim to "Big Three" superpower status after the second world war was no longer sustainable. Conscription was abolished in the UK soon afterwards and, in little over a decade, Britain was to give up every pretence of a strategic presence "east of Suez".

All subsequent British leaders have accepted that conclusion, even to the point of abandoning the traditional British policy of always trying to create and maintain a balance against any prospective hegemon. (The French, of course, drew a different conclusion from Suez: never again to rely on America.)

Errors resulting from weakness are easier to identify and correct than those resulting from strength. Weakness, once recognised, deprives one of choices and compels one to adjust one's ambitions quickly if disaster is to be avoided. When things go wrong for the very powerful, on the other hand, there is always the inclination to blame not the folly and impracticality of one's goals but the implementation of policy, or lack of resolution and support on the part of others, or simply bad luck. Hegemons do not easily learn the lesson of modifying their ambitions. What they are most likely to conclude from failure is that they must pursue those ambitions more ardently and efficiently next time.

These neo-conservatives will come out of this episode politically diminished. But the impulse they represented – to spread American democratic and liberal values to the rest of the world – will not die. They were merely its latest vehicle, not its creators. The conviction that the US is destined to be the model and inspiration for the world goes deep and is as old as the country itself. For better or worse, it is unlikely to diminish while American power is at its zenith.

The writer, Owen Harries, a former editor of The National Interest, is a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.