Martin Wolf, the highly respected economics columnist at the Financial Times, recently concluded, as have other political scientists and historians, that the United States is losing or has lost its position of hegemon. Exercising hegemony means being in a leadership position to the point of having dominance over other countries. The hegemon holds enough power—political, economic, military, or cultural—over subordinate polities to be able to impose its will on others. The term hegemony (hēgemonía, η̇γεμω̇ν) was coined to describe Ancient Athens and Sparta at the peak of their power. This term is also correctly applied to periods in history for the roles played by Ancient Rome (189–146) BCE; Persia (the predecessor to modern Iran) around 550 to 330 BCE, particularly under Cyrus the Great (559–530 BCE); and various feudal states in China during the Han (202 BCE–220 CE), Tang (618–907 CE), and early Ming (1368–1644 CE) dynasties, for a period of two thousand years.
These hegemons share one thing above all else in common: Their reigns all lasted for a period and then came to an end. This piece looks at the decline of Ancient Athens, one of the most famous hegemonies, and seeks to determine what lessons there are in it for America. The historical record in the case of Athens offers a near playbook for America's loss of hegemonic status. Where it diverges is that America appears in key respects to be choosing this outcome whereas Athens resisted it.
The American hegemony
The United States has been the unequalled world power since at least the end of World War II. It was challenged by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for a while, but that entity rather spectacularly imploded in December 1991. Now the United States is being challenged by China. But, if America's time as hegemon is ending, which certainly seems to be the case, it is due to its own actions, not from some external force.
After World War II, the United States did not have an equal in terms of a combination of political, military, and economic strengths, although to those who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet rival appeared to mount a full challenge to the United States, given the nuclear arms race and their competition for other nations to join one of two camps. That the United States was the clear winner even before the Soviet collapse is evident. Even now, the United States annually spends more on its military than the next six countries combined (China, Russia, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine) and at times has spent more than that. Its currency was and still is the dominant world currency. Its strength also has been in its alliances. It has guaranteed the security of its closest allies through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After the war, in the late 1940s it was often referred to as "the leader of the free world," although that term of late has largely fallen into disuse.
History does not provide complete parallels. The history of Ancient Athens, or of other hegemons, cannot foretell the duration of the American hegemony, but that history can provide some useful insights. It is the story of that one city-state that is most interesting today, from a reading of the writings of contemporary, near contemporary, and later historians.
The Athenian and American hegemonies
The first democracy, and the one America's founding fathers looked to as a model when creating the United States, was Ancient Athens. There are aspects of the arc of America's hegemony that bear striking, even uncanny, similarities to the Athenian experience. Both America and Athens viewed external relations as a necessity. While Athens depended heavily on imported grain from the Black Sea and Sicily, America increasingly depended on imports of oil (from the late 1940s until 2008) to fuel its growth. During the last half of the 20th century, US demand for energy eclipsed domestic production capacity. By the early 1950s, the United States began relying on foreign sources of oil, with imports representing about 15 percent of total petroleum consumption, rising to 20 percent by the 1960s. For both, free-flowing trade in at least a few key commodities became a vital necessity. To protect Athens' shipping routes, the famous Athenian leader, Pericles, maintained a large state-funded navy that successfully deterred pirates and secured access for overseas trade. America, for its part, declared the world's sea routes to be open starting in the late 1940s as a military necessity. The US Navy was not just the largest in the world—it was larger than all other navies combined.
Writing in the first century CE, the historian Plutarch tells us that Pericles proposed a Panhellenic congress in the spring of 449 BCE. He aimed to establish a lasting, region-wide peace to eliminate piracy and promote open trade among all Greek city-states. (Sparta and its allies declined to attend.) Similarly, America pressed for the creation of the United Nations. But relations between the USSR and the United States worsened immediately after the end of World War II. There was not to be one effective overall political organization during either the time of Ancient Athens or modern times. The United States created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). For trade, it and its allies proposed first an International Trade Organization and then the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT) to liberalize world trade. In 1995, under Western leadership, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created.
Athens' relations with its allies deteriorated. Thucydides (450–400 BCE) wrote that Pericles used the Delian League—originally a defensive naval alliance against Persia—to create an economic empire. Athens became overbearing. Under its naval supremacy, it required all allied states to use the same Athenian currency, weights, and measures. The early Delian League (478–460 BCE), which had been generally viewed positively by Athens' allies, became more burdensome. Athens forced its allies into unequal trade agreements much resented by them. Under the Megarian Decree, it imposed an embargo against that city, using its trade monopoly to sanction a rival economy. The stage was set for war between Athens and its allies and the states led by Sparta.
The parallels and sometimes near congruence of current US policy with that of Ancient Athens are eerie. The United States has insulted its allies (e.g., Canada), threatened them with territorial acquisition (Denmark over Greenland), demanded unequal treaties (Turnberry deals), attempted economic warfare with its major opponent (China export controls and tariffs), imposed additional tariffs on all, and engaged in a war that its allies did not support (Iran).
The Western alliance has held but is showing strains, while the autocratic powers of China, Russia, and North Korea, pledge closer alignment among themselves.
The loss of hegemonic status
The final causes of loss of status as a hegemon can be both external and internal. For ancient Athens it was a mix of both. It is widely held that the final blow to Athens' dominant role occurred when the Roman emperor Justinian I closed the city's schools led by non-Christian scholars in 529 AD. This severely diminished the city-state's intellectual influence, according to formidable students of history such as Edward Gibbon and Bertrand Russell. In America, the challenge to the universities has been internal, from the US administration, and it is too early to judge the effects of the interventions. But there are the first indications of harms. See Michael Clemens's blog post: "The US is driving away international students at a long-term economic cost."
History informs and provides a clearer understanding of current events, but it does not dictate their course. In the case of Athens, the decline did not follow a straight path but in the end was unstoppable. At first, there were positive developments for the Athenian state. Despite suffering a plague, Athens had a major victory over Sparta in 425 BCE and dictated a peace in 421 BCE. This recovery proved temporary. Athens launched a war of choice, the massive Sicilian Expedition to conquer Syracuse, which ended in a catastrophic loss of manpower and ships in 413 BCE. In modern times, parallels have been drawn with America's initiating a war in Iraq, and more recently may be drawn with the US war of choice against Iran. These misadventures cannot rival however the potential dismantling of America's alliances through casting doubt on the validity of its pledges of support, such as the one contained in Article 5 of NATO.
The eventual loss of Athenian hegemony was caused equally by internal forces, and here too there are parallels. Athens was plagued by severe internal political instability. The chief general during the Sicilian Expedition and others were removed by the Athenians. The ranks of senior military officials here have been roiled by removal of seasoned military leaders by the civilian in control of the Pentagon during these last two years.
The Athenian democracy was intermittently interrupted by oligarchic coups. Twice, the most prominent oligarchs seized power directly, ruling in their own names (but only for a few months at a time.) The richest of the richest Americans are equally widely known by name, and their interests in influencing public affairs and opinion are to a degree also well known. They have not seized power in their own names, but critics see them as seeking to influence the direction of American public policy for their own benefit.
America's relations with its partners are still troubled. It is still seeking to extricate itself from a war it started with Iran that also has serious economic effects on its allies. Recently, at the NATO summit, President Donald Trump reiterated his interest in the United States controlling Greenland, causing renewed uneasiness among America's allies.
Looking forward
America's partial retreat from the world seems irreversible. Can the United States regain its footing, its prominence? That is far from clear, but an American recovery of status cannot be precluded—although not in the same way, not to the same extent, but still formidably.
The next chapter in America's history is not written yet. It will be what its leaders and citizens make of it. The next American leaders will face a problem not very different from that faced by President Franklin Roosevelt and his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, in the 1930s, the previous time that a policy of America First dominated US politics. To what extent does the internationalist wing of the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy or of the Republican Party of George Herbert Walker Bush still exist? Will a spirit of international cooperation and defense of the liberal international order regain prominence within the leadership of either political party? If it does, and I think that it will, it will be built in part as a reaction to the disappearance during these last years of the America that was familiar, the international leader that the world had come to know. for eight decades dating from the US entry into World War II.
There can be a resurgence of leadership from America, to join with like-minded leaders in Europe, Japan, and others, to form a league for the promotion of an international liberal order, to carry on the battle against illiberalism everywhere, at home and abroad.
Data Disclosure
This publication does not include a replication package.
