Is America Becoming an “Overstretched Superpower”?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: That’s just one family trying to get through this fear and this catastrophe. And Israel says it is striking all parts of Gaza in its effort to get Hamas. Just an update. The IDF has now confirmed an airstrike did hit the largest refugee camp, Jabalia, in the north. And as we see from Ukraine to Israel and beyond, the world is facing serious series of challenges. And the United States is involved in all of them.

In a recent article, “The Economist” Diplomatic Editor Anton La Guardia argues the U.S. could be overstretched, and he gives Hari Sreenivasan the view of America from abroad.

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HARI SREENIVASAN,  INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Anton La Guardia, thanks so much for joining us. In a recent issue of “The Economist” you essentially laid out the case why you thought that American power is going to be tested and it may be on the decline. So, sort of set the scene for us, if you can. What are the challenges facing the administration and Joe Biden?

ANTON LA GUARDIA, DIPLOMATIC EDITOR, THE ECONOMIST: Well, the administration has already been extremely busy trying to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, you know, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars worth of military equipment and economic aid and people were already asking whether the U.S. and his allies had the wherewithal to deal with a contingency over, say, Taiwan.

Now, you have a crisis in the Middle East happening. So, this is a second war that the U.S. is involved in indirectly, but in this case, more directly in that it sent two whole carrier strike groups to areas around the Middle East. And Asian allies noticed these things, that a lot of hardware is going through to the Middle East and hardware that they would presumably like to see close to Asia. But it goes beyond merely, you know, America’s industrial base support the now three sets of allies, Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, at the same time, all of which it is trying to arm into the kind of — you know, to help them wage their own conflicts, or at least deter attack in the future.

And then, that in turn leads to the whole question of America’s political polarization and the paralysis that you’ve seen in Congress until now where, you know, money for Ukraine is extremely hard to come by and you’ve had the hold up over the speaker of the house which, you know, may now be resolved, but we don’t know whether money for Ukraine, for example, will be forthcoming.

SREENIVASAN: Assess President Biden’s handling so far of the Israel Hamas war. He has been a staunch ally of Israel. He’s taken the steps necessary so that that is visible for the entire planet to see. As you said, he’s moved to carrier strike groups into the region to let the region know that the United States wants to minimize the outbreak of this war from getting further. But what does he have to do right now in how he postures with Israel, but at the same time, tries to stop this war?

LA GUARDIA: He’s got a very difficult hand to play. I think he is instinctively and emotionally close to Israel. So, he has embraced Israel, hugged them close, to show that America stands behind Israel. And I think that comes from a deeply held conviction. He calls himself a Zionist. At the same time, I think he’s also trying to embrace Israel in a sense as a form of restraint to say, look, you know, as your best friend, I have your best interests at heart. And I think that you need to keep this conflict within bounds, within bounds of the laws of war, but also within political bounds so that the humanitarian suffering in Gaza is not deemed to be excessive. And you’re hearing ever louder voices that the — you know, the sort of pain of the population in Gaza is reaching levels that are extremely worrying, not just in terms of waters, humanitarian supplies, the plight of hospitals, and so on.

So, he is trying to buy the Israelis time, give them the opportunity to try and get at Hamas, but also make sure that it is done within bounds that are politically bearable.

SREENIVASAN: Is there a risk here for the president in destabilizing the region further by taking the actions that he’s taken to show this much support for Israel, especially if patient starts to wear thin in the International Community that perhaps this response from Israel is disproportionate already, but it could be much worse?

LA GUARDIA: If President Biden can show that he has moderated Israel’s response then I think, you know, his embrace of Israel will be seen as a wise thing to do. If however it becomes, you know, a terrible — which is already a terrible humanitarian costs or an even worse — imposes an even worse humanitarian plight on Gazans and Palestinians and leads to even larger — much larger loss of life, then there’s a danger that the U.S. will be tarred by the same brush, will become, you know, in a sense, complicit in the eyes of the world in what is happening in in Gaza. I mean, needless to say, the United States is a big part of International Community and has a say, but it is striking that the western allies who are so united on the question of Ukraine are more divided on the question of Israel and Palestine.

So, you had a U.N. council resolution, which was vetoed by the United States, was — the United Kingdom abstained and France votes in favor.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

LA GUARDIA: You don’t see that kind of three way split over Ukraine, typically.

SREENIVASAN: Does this — I’ve put into focus traditionally what has been the role of the United States as the mediator, the negotiator, the person you can call. I mean, in one sense, I don’t see the phone lines burning up everywhere else on the planet saying, hey, help us get out of this situation. But at the same time, the day before he was scheduled to meet with the Jordanian leader and the Palestinian leadership, there was that horrible rocket shelling at the hospital, which changed all the plans.

LA GUARDIA: I think it’s telling the three Arab leaders felt able to shun the American president and basically say, please don’t come. And it says something about the strength of opinion in the — on the Arab street that Arab leaders are worried about the demonstrations that were starting to gather. But I think it also says something about declining American power and influence in the region.

Nevertheless, it is — you know, the United States remains the only address in part because they’re the only people who can really speak to Israel and try to help Israel find a way through. And one of the things the United States needs to do is to help Israel think — in itself, think with Arab leaders, well, what happens a day after? Let’s assume for a moment Israel is successful in evicting Hamas from Gaza, which is not an easy easy order, but let’s assume it’s successful. Then what?

And history has shown that after previous wars, Hamas does come back. It has a — it is a political movement and a social movement. And there is, at the moment, no alternative power that is going to rule the Gaza Strip. And unless that part of the problem is fixed, then it’s unfortunately likely to lead to, yes, another cycle of violence.

SREENIVASAN: You know, the president tried to make the case to the American public to get Congress to fund both our involvement in the support of

Ukraine, as well as our involvement in the support of Israel, he wanted to try to tie those two things along with national security at home when he’s asking Congress for the money, he said, “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common, they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy, completely annihilate it.”

Is his plea getting through, especially to a new speaker of the house who wants to try to separate these different engagements?

LA GUARDIA: It seems that it’s not getting through to him in particular. He would like to separate the bundles and they would like to vote in Israel, which is extremely popular, and it’s not entirely clear what they want to do on Ukraine. On Ukraine. there is still a bipartisan majority that supports helping Ukraine against Russia, particularly, you know, as the counteroffensive is stalling and a long war is in prospect. But it is becoming more difficult to get more money, particularly for Republicans. And the pro-Ukraine Republicans are saying, look, let’s have one big vote on Ukraine. Let’s give them the money they need for the coming year. Let’s not come back to this again in an election year. Whether they succeed in doing that is open to question. The rules of Congress are what they are. And it seems to me that, you know, a substantial minority of anti-Ukraine Republicans, you know, do have, you know, some kind of veto over what the house does, which in turns means that, you know, there is — they have a veto on what Congress as a whole does.

So, you know, unless a Republic — pro-Ukraine Republicans are willing to cross the aisle, obtain votes from Democrats on this particular question, it’s difficult to see how things really progress.

SREENIVASAN: The other kind of elephant in the room, if you will, is China. China seems to be the sort of third major international crises that President Biden has to confront.

LA GUARDIA: Well, President Biden coming into office was hoping to have stable and predictable relations in Europe with Russia and to park the Middle East in order to concentrate on the Indo-Pacific. And that’s not the way it’s turned out. He’s got a major war in Europe, and he’s now got a major war in the Middle East to manage.

And the question is whether China is seeing a stretched America, will see an opportunity to, you know, act on Taiwan, whether in the gray zone or as an overt invasion. The — you know, it’s not mechanical. A lot depends on the politics of what happens in Taiwan and the United States, both of which have elections next year and indeed in the politics of what happens within the communist party, which are harder to divine. Nevertheless, military strategists worry about a supposed window of vulnerability when China’s military strength will continue to increase and America’s will not catch up until the 2030s when new investments begin to bear fruit.

In the meantime, there is a move towards helping Taiwan become more of a porcupine with more of the defensive weapons to hold off a potential Chinese invasion. You’ve started to see some of — some weapons being made available to Taiwan and there’s new package of national security supplemental funding that President Biden requested appears to contain money for Taiwan as well. But that’s certainly one that is worth watching. And I think for a lot of people, Americans in the Indo-Pacific every day that passes without a Chinese attack on Taiwan is a good day.

SREENIVASAN: Earlier this month, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, wrote in “Foreign Affairs” that the United States is underutilizing or even undermining our alliances with other democracies. And I wonder if the United States has been able to reframe and adjust those relationships.

LA GUARDIA: It is true that America’s alliances were put under great strain in the Trump years, and it is also true that the Biden administration has invested a great deal of effort in bringing together its allies, both in Europe and in Asia, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a catalyst for that.

NATO is more compact than it’s been for a long time. It has a renewed sense of purpose. Japan, Australia and others have also tried to help Europe against Russia in the belief that — or in the hope that in future, should there be a contingency in Asia, Europe will come to their aid in turn. So, you’re seeing this kind of network of alliances growing closer together. On top of which you’ve had this ad hoc patchwork of relationship.

So, I think on the alliance front, the administration has done a fairly good job. The question is whether the crisis in the Middle East, where the U.S. takes a position that is somewhat different from that of most of its allies, will put a new strain on it. At the moment, I don’t think it’s a problem, but it might become a problem in the future, particularly if it starts to have repercussions across the Middle East and so on. And you, for example, get a flow of, you know, migrants from the Arab world into Europe.

The other way that this affect things is just, you know, the amount of attention America can pay to any particular set of regional problems. The last thing to say is that administration came in with a very strong democracies versus autocracies mindset and worldview. It has somewhat moderated that because it realized it needs the help of countries that are not necessarily democracies. For example, Vietnam, which is not a democracy, but is a useful partner with which to counterbalance China.

So, I think you’re seeing a more nuanced perception by the administration. So far so good, but there is still some way to go. And by the way, if Congress were to cut off aid to Ukraine, that would put a huge amount of strain on relations with the Europeans.

SREENIVASAN: Given the dysfunction inside our own government over the past several weeks, and given how stretched the United States is in all of these different theaters, I wonder what that says to countries that are our allies on whether or not we can be a partner that can be counted on?

LA GUARDIA: It is a worry around the world, among America’s friends and partners. But it’s a worry they can’t do much about. So, their only choice is to keep trying to work with the United States. It’s easier with Joe Biden. It will be harder — it was harder with Donald Trump and it may be harder again if he is re-elected.

So, sure, countries can try and hedge somewhat. You hear, for example, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, saying this is time for Europe to gain some strategic autonomy because we cannot always rely on the United States. And indeed, what — even under Joe Biden, there are still these sorts of tendencies to sort of — you know, for America to close in on itself, aid to Ukraine will may not always be forthcoming. Therefore, we must do more. The problem, of course, is that Europeans are — don’t yet have the wherewithal to do it. Becoming more autonomous is a generation long effort.

And it is slow progress because they too have to trade off spending on defense and security against social spending and all the other problems that they must confront.

So, it’s difficult. It’s easier and cheaper to do things together as allies, and it’s harder to do it separate. And, you know, there are big questions about whether Europe can do it given the lack of American leadership, you know, if American leadership were lacking, guidance and the nuclear umbrella that the United States extends over a place like Europe.

SREENIVASAN: Anton La Guardia from “The Economist,” thanks so much for your time.

LA GUARDIA: Great to talk to you.

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