Predatory Hegemony

In the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs, Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international affairs at the the Harvard Kennedy School, says the U.S.foreign policy can best be described as “predatory hegemony.”  Foreign policy is no longer treated as a “plus-sum” game in which two sides can benefit.  Instead, Trump sees it as a “zero-sum” game.  The U.S. gains will be at the expense of the losses of other countries, both former allies and opponents.

Here is how Walt sums up current policy:

A predatory hegemon is a dominant great power that tries to structure its transactions with others in a purely zero-sum fashion so that the benefits are always distributed in its favor.  A predatory hegemon’s primary goal is not to build stable and mutually beneficial relations that leave all parties better off but to ensure that it gains more from every interaction than others do.  An arrangement that leaves the hegemon better off and its partners worse off is preferable to an arrangement in which both sides gain but the partner gains more even if the latter case yields large absolute benefits for both parties.  A predatory hegemon always wants the lion’s share.

Walt points out that predatory hegemony often has short term gains but tends to ignore the long-term negative consequences.  The U.S. will become poorer, less secure, and less influential than it has been for last 100 years.