The Rise of the American System - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 141

drawn into building required more far-reaching commitments and institutional agreements
than Washington had anticipated—and the urgency of the Cold War generated the necessary
political support for these undertakings. At the same time, the Cold War alliance system and
security commitments provided a wider and deeper foundation for cooperation among the
“free world” countries. The postwar order that America came to lead was more hierarchical
than anyone expected, but it was also more institutionalized and infused with a complex array
of bargains and agreements.
Hegemonic Bargains
As the American-led postwar order took shape, it came to rest on a set of strategic bargains
between Washington and its European and East Asian partners. Bundled together, these un-
derstandings—explicit in some instances, tacit in others—constituted a sort of hegemonic
bargain. The United States would lead and manage the international order by providing secur-
ity, supporting economic openness, upholding its rules and institutions, and other countries
would agree to operate within this order and acquiesce in American leadership. The United
States would provide an array of services—producing and maintaining an agreed-upon set of
governing arrangements—and other countries would affiliate with rather than resist the Un-
ited States. The United States would be first among equals and exercise hierarchical political
control over the functioning of the order. It would have privileges and discretionary author-
ity, but other countries would countenance American hegemonic power if it remained within
limits.
The American hegemonic bargain with Europe and East Asia differed in specific ways. It
evolved over the decades. The United States would export security, import goods, and up-
hold the rules of order. It would exercise power, but it would do so within institutions and
through political processes that involved active interaction with the other participating states.
The reciprocity and negotiated nature of these institutions and relationships gave the hege-
monic order its liberal character.
Two major bargains underlay the liberal hegemonic order: a security bargain and a politic-
al bargain. The security bargain grew out of the Cold War. It dealt with the ways in which the
United States would act to provide military protection, facilitate trade and economic growth,
and sponsor and support the overall rules and institutions in the context of building strategic
partnerships within an American-led order. The political bargain grew out of the asymmetries
of power between the United States and its partners. Here the United States consented to op-
erate within agreed-upon rules and institutions—to exercise power through institutions that
established restraints and commitments on that power and provided mechanisms for voice
and reciprocity in the political hierarchy of wider American-led order.