CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

It is increasingly argued, however, that in the modern world, such robust unipolarity is a
luxury that even the US, as the world’s sole remaining superpower, cannot afford.
Thomas Franck is Professor of Law and Director of the Law Center for International
Studies at New York University. Speaking at the conclusion of what George Bush
termed ‘major combat operations’ (see p101) but before the emergence of substantial
‘post-conflict’ resistance that was to cost significantly greater casualties, he noted the
temptation after the success of US military action in Afghanistan (contrasted with the
Soviet Union’s failure in the 1980s) and in Iraq to ‘sympathize with, and even applaud,
their (America’s) leaders’ contempt for international law, which they now openly
derided as a toll by which the weak seek to inhibit the prerogatives and virility of the
powerful.’ 115 Franck’s conclusion, though, is that:
(u)nipolarity – the myth of America as the omnipotent world power – is the
snake oil of contemporary foreign policy discourse. Like snake oil it claims to
be a cure for all manner of disease, the cause of which its concocters do not even
begin to understand and which the snake oil itself does nothing to ameliorate. …
…
… Whatever the military preponderance we currently enjoy, it is not indicative
of its indispensable concomitant: economic and fiscal preponderance. And, by
itself, without a solid economic, fiscal and social base, unipolarity is a dangerous
delusion.
Even those who view unipolarity as a good thing can be warned that unilateral action
may not be the best way to sustain it. Arguing the case for ‘liberal realism’ in the
leading realist journal, The National Interest, John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan
counsel that ‘(t)he quickest way to end unipolarity is to pursue unilateralism’ whilst
‘(a)n America that obeys international rules will strengthen its foundation of power and
preserve its advantage.’ 116 The issue of preserving hegemony will be developed further
below.
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