The Great Transformation and the Failure of Illiberal Hegemony - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 187

not bound to the U.S. Constitution. It is not the use of force itself or the American exercise of
power that is objectionable. It is the absence of a commonly agreed-upon framework or set
of norms about how military force and power will be exercised.
As I discussed in chapter 4 , the United States was able to legitimate its massive power
advantages during the postwar decades. Its leaders understood that American interests would
be advantaged by the construction of a global framework of rules and institutions that lock
in a favorable international environment and legitimate American power. Power is most pro-
found and durable when it is manifest in the rules and principles of order itself. In the face of
Bush's grand strategy, European Union diplomat Javier Solana tried to remind Washington
officials: “A rule-based approach is not a ploy to constrain the US. America wrote much of
the great body of international law that has served us so well in the post-war period. Uphold-
ing and strengthening the rule of law is the best means for America to preserve her position
as the benign world power and to continue to protect her values.” 93
The rule-based sources of consent were revealed during the Iraq war. Large majorities of
European public opinion were strongly opposed to the Bush administration's decision to in-
vade Iraq. In turn, this opposition made it politically appealing for European leaders to also
resist Bush policy. But public opinion polls suggest that if the United States were to get au-
thorization for the use of force from the United Nations, the public would be more support-
ive. 94 The opposition was less about the use of force, as such, and more about the principles
and procedures for using military power. To the extent that the United States seeks the con-
sent of other governments—particularly that of its traditional allies—for the use of force, it
has incentives to operate within United Nations and other multilateral forums.
In this sense, a great deal of the opposition to the Iraq war was not directly related to the
merits of the war itself but to what it meant in terms of the wider rules and principles of
world order. The war was emblematic of an imperial turn in American global strategy, and it
was this turn that leaders in many countries opposed. Reflecting this view, a French diplomat
noted at the time: “France is not interested in arguing with the United States. This is a matter
of principle. This is about the rules of the game in the world today. About putting the Secur-
ity Council in the center of international life. And not permitting a nation, whatever nation
it may be, to do what it wants, when it wants, where it wants.” 95 If the Iraq war had been a
unique adventure, it is quite possible that world opposition—at least the opposition of leaders
from Europe and the other major powers—would have been less severe. But because the war
was tied to Bush's grand efforts to redefine America's global security role, the stakes grew
and so, too, the opposition.
Taken together, the rise of unipolar American power is paradoxical: the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did make the United States a superpower without
peer, but it also eliminated a geopolitical threat that made countries in Europe and East Asia
fully dependent on American security protection. To go back to our post-Westphalian town: