Power and Strategies of Rule - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 68

mitments to an American-led international order. Judith Goldstein and Joanne Gowa, for ex-
ample, argue that the United States' agreement to bind itself to the GATT was necessary to
encourage smaller states to make a risky move toward market liberalization. 31 The credibility
of these institutional commitments was facilitated by the democratic character of the states
themselves as well as other more specific steps, such as the stationing of American troops in
both regions and complex sorts of institutional agreements. 32
The logic is also helpful in explaining variations in America's institutional commitments
to Western Europe and East Asia. The United States pursued a multilateral strategy in
Europe—with NATO as its anchor—while in Asia it pursued a series of bilateral security
agreements with Japan, Korea, and several states in Southeast Asia. The United States tied it-
self more tightly to Europe, embedding its power in a multilateral security order that involved
extensive institutionalized restraints and commitments. Because the United States was more
dominant and wanted less out of East Asia, as a practical matter, it was less necessary to give
up policy autonomy in exchange for institutionalized cooperation there. In contrast, the Un-
ited States had an elaborate agenda for uniting the European states, creating an institutional
bulwark against communism, and supporting centrist democratic regimes. These goals could
not be realized simply through the brute exercise of power. To get what it wanted, the United
States had to bargain with the Europeans, and this meant agreeing to restrain its exercise of
power. In Asia, the United States did not have goals that were sufficiently important to “pur-
chase” with an agreement to restrain its power. As Galia Press-Barnathan argues, the Americ-
an military's “specific objective was to attain base rights,” and as a result “there was little to
gain in that respect from pooling regional resources.” 33 Bilateralism was the desired strategy
in Asia because multilateralism would have required more restraints on policy autonomy.
The United States had much more unchallenged hegemonic power in Asia than in Western
Europe, and therefore it had fewer incentives to secure its dominant position with interna-
tional institutions. As Peter Katzenstein argues, “the United States was willing to create in
Europe multilateral institutions that would restrain U.S. power in the short term only to en-
hance that power in the long term. It was eager to build bilateral institutions in Asia, where
the concept of binding institutions did not seem as attractive as locking in the advantages of
the preponderance of power of the United States through bilateral relations.” 34 The United
States did not need to give up policy autonomy to secure its objectives in East Asia.
Other factors, of course, contributed to and reinforced these divergent American institu-
tional strategies in Europe and Asia. Victor Cha argues that the United States was drawn to
bilateral pacts in East Asia out of fears of entrapment and collusion of East Asian states. 35
Bilateral security treaties provided more direct mechanisms for restraining East Asian allies
within the region. “The United States created a series of bilateral alliances in East Asia to
contain the Soviet threat,” observes Cha, “but a congruent rationale was to constrain anti-
communist allies in the region that might engage in aggressive behavior against adversaries