US hegemony – Here and there

Would Harris adopt the militarism of the failed Biden Doctrine?

29 August 2024 Mike Scrafton Global

As Trump’s prospects of electoral success seem to fade, the question becomes whether as president Kamala Harris would carve out a different foreign policy path from the failing Biden Doctrine.

America: the frailty of the hegemon revealed

1 November 2023 Mike Scrafton Global

The turning point at which the American hegemony began to irretrievably unravel will retrospectively be judged as the reaction of the Biden Administration to the Gaza crisis. Amid the pomp of an Official Visit to Washington did the Australian Prime Minister sense the enormity of the moment? As he paid homage to the hegemon, could he feel the facade crumbling to reveal America’s slipping power?

Once was a hegemon: Australia and the decline of the US

3 June 2021 Mike Scrafton Global

Australia’s Indo-Pacific obsession hides a radical global geopolitical shift, and denies the reality that US hegemony has passed a tipping point. Increasingly, the decisive great power actor(s) in any situation will be context specific, with delineation of spheres of influence and shifting balance of power arrangements requiring Australia to be nimble, smart, and independent.

The strategic aspect of human rights in a multipolar world: a tool of hegemony

14 October 2020 Mike Scrafton By Mike Scrafton, Global

The UDHR is being challenged by the rise of competing understandings of human rights, and very different interpretations of the relationship between the state and the governed. The US response has been an attempt to redefine ‘unalienable rights’ in a dangerous formulation that is aimed at restating the primacy of the US world view, and adding to the US’s reasons to confront, and perhaps fight, China and Russia.

The end of hegemony confounds the realists: the US must come to terms with its loss

25 September 2020 Mike Scrafton By Mike Scrafton, Global, International relations

Elbridge Colby and Robert D. Kaplan’s recent article in Foreign Affairs is an important addition to the framing of the contest between China and the United States. They point to the very real risks of seeing the relationship as an ideological struggle. But their analysis leaves key questions unanswered, and ultimately misses the need for the United States to accommodate a China that will be its equal militarily and economically.