After Pax Americana?

USAID Agência Norte Americana para o Desenvolvimento Internacional

OPAS Organização Pan Americana da Saúde the Panamerican Health Organization (PAHO)

Appointed President of the Sociedad Inter Americana de Ciencias Sociales, December 1974 to present.

Many historical periods have been named after imperial hegemons Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana. Some believe that, with the rise of China, Pax Sinica is next.

In addition, five countries of the subregion agreed to establish a subregional action plan for the sustainable development of the Puna Americana region of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

Either it must live with the continued Pax Americana in Asia, for as long as it lasts, or face a more independent, nuclear armed Japan. Privately, many Chinese might still prefer the former.

In Latin America too, public institutions have reportedly made contacts with mining companies established in the region, to explore the possibilities of investment to support the priorities set out in the Puna Americana.

Some Americans favor a uni polar system in which the US dominates. Such a Pax Americana would cost the country less to sustain, but the world would worry if America adopts a wrong policy, as has been the case in Iraq.

It has effectively supported the establishment of trade related institutions, such as the Asociación Latino Americana de Capacitación en Comercio Internacional, the Association of Training Institutions for Foreign Trade in Asia and the Pacific and the African Regional Standards Organization.

The world no longer adheres to the static Cold War order, with two blocs locked in open but guarded confrontation. Nor does it work according to the Pax Americana that dominated in the decade after the Soviet Union s collapse, when the US briefly emerged as the sole superpower.

In the late 1980's, it was fashionable in some Japanese policy circles to argue that the Pax Americana was over, to be replaced in Asia by Pax Japonica. America's economy seemed to be tanking, Japan's was soaring, and projections favored 2005 as the date when it would overtake the United States.

In LAC, the secretariat has assisted in the development of activities under the Gran Chaco and Puna Americana SRAPs, the preparation of the framework of the Hispaniola transboundary programme (PAN FRO) between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and the sustainable land management approach for the Caribbean countries that will constitute the Caribbean SRAP.

Leaving aside the lies, fictions, and questions of morality and personal responsibility, the critical mistake of America s war against Iraq was the absence of either a viable plan or the necessary strength to enforce a Pax Americana in the Middle East. America was powerful enough to destabilize the existing regional order, but not powerful enough to establish a new one.

But America s extraordinary efforts to rein in Israel might not be enough to avert a calamity. The days of Pax Americana in the region are over, which means that avoiding a regional explosion will require mobilizing the major international actors that favor diplomatic solutions for the Arab Israeli conflict and for Iran s quest to become a legitimate partner in a new regional system.

So it is today, to some degree, with Pax Americana a kind of imperial world order that was never a formal empire. Compared to most previous empires, it was relatively benign, though it is too easily forgotten how often the leader of the Free World subverted elected leaders and supported dictators, as in Chile, South Korea, El Salvador, Argentina, Indonesia, Guatemala, and so on.

Japanese governments could devote their energy to building up the country s industrial wealth, while the US took care of security, and by extension much of Japan s foreign policy. It was an arrangement that suited everyone the Japanese became rich, the Americans had a compliant anti communist vassal state, and other Asians, even Communist China, preferred Pax Americana to a revival of Japanese military clout.

As the warm welcome given to Hillary Clinton on her recent swing through Asia even in communist Vietnam appears to show, Southeast Asians are more than happy to hang on to Pax Americana for a bit longer, out of fear of China. Other Asian countries might even be drawn closer to Japan, the only alternative to the US as a counterbalance to the Middle Kingdom.

More broadly, the urgent task for Asian statesmen over the next 5 10 years will be to replace the region s Pax Americana, which has guaranteed regional stability for decades, with a more comprehensive Pax Asia Pacifica that is built on inclusiveness and burden sharing. But such an Asia Pacific peace will be durable only if it is based on a balance of mutual benefits rather than on the balance of power.

The chances that the Bush administration might be able to rally America s Sunni moderate allies in the region to help salvage an Israeli Palestinian peace are now hostage to an Iranian led regional axis that includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. All are united in their rejection of a Pax Americana in the Middle East, and all have so far shown remarkable resilience in ignoring America s pre conditions for a dialogue.