The years since the Sept 11 attacks have produced a remarkable series of events that promise to dramatically alter the structure of the international system.
Since the attack on the World Trade center we have seen the following occur: The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the developing threat of nuclear weapons in North Korea, the failure of peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians and the emergence of pronuclear armament and pro-Democracy rumblings in Iran.
Together, these events constitute a historic period of activity that will possibly define the course of the 21st century.
Therefore, it is of crucial importance to develop an understanding of the international system and what America's role is in that system. Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, has put forth some powerful theories on how to interpret these recent events.
Nye has asserted that power in today's world can be viewed as a game of three-dimensional chess. On the top board are military issues. The U.S. is dominant in this dimension. Our conventional and non-conventional military prowess, driven by remarkably high spending levels, gives us an advantage that will be insurmountable for decades to come.
On the second board, the vertical board, as Nye describes it, is trade and economic relations. This dimension is far more multilateral. One needs only to witness the recent breakdown of WTO trade talks in Cancun to realize this.
On the bottom of this proverbial three-dimensional chess board are transnational issues such as infectious diseases and transnational terrorism. This bottom board now constitutes the gravest threat to American security and Nye correctly points out that the U.S. is far from hegemonic on this bottom board.
America's security is most threatened by a "dirty bomb" crudely constructed by terrorists being dropped in the middle of Manhattan, or by poisonous germs being dispersed in an underground train system.
There is only one way to play successfully on the bottom transnational board, and that is by cooperating with the international community.
This is the central mistake the Bush administration has made in its calculation of how America can best enhance its security in the post-9/11 world. The administration has mistakenly identified the current international system as unipolar, with America being completely hegemonic. The U.S. is hegemonic on the top board, to be sure, but the second and third boards are clearly multilateral. Indeed, our hegemony on the top board is dependent in large part on our ability to succeed on the other boards. The path to the greatest security for America is not by solely focusing on the top board, but by playing on all three boards successfully.
Certainly, each of these dimensions interacts with the others. As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich asserted, "you cannot have a coalition of the willing if you don't constantly cultivate the willing." We cannot expect our "allies" to give us assistance on top board issues without also having meaningful interactions on second and third board issues as well.
Nye's famous concept of soft power applies to this idea of cultivating the willing. Soft power is "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion," Nye said. The Bush administration's stunning failure in exercising soft power has been demonstrated by plummeting international perceptions of the United States.
In largely Muslim-populated Indonesia, for example, America's approval rating was close to 80 percent in 2000; after the Iraq war it was down to 15 percent.
This is a dynamic that ultimately presents a greater threat to US security than does any national army, and it can only be solved by playing effectively on the vertical and bottom dimensions of the international chess board.
The United States cannot be ultimately successful by coercing countries into passive acceptance of American policies. America must learn that even though we dominate the first board, the second and third boards are still largely multilateral, and one can only succeed on those boards by playing with that in mind.
As Nye himself wrote, "If you play three-dimensional chess on one board only, in the long run you're going to lose."
Joel Meyer is a senior international studies major from Piedmont, Calif.
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