Is America still an 'indispensable' nation? Their foreign policy disagreements say otherwise

The US is still the planet’s most powerful country, boasting the largest and most innovative economy. But the gap is narrowing – Russia is resurgent, while economically China has more or less caught up with the US

Clinton has been more hawkish than Obama on issues such as Syria and North Korea, but whether as president she would be able to convert this to policy remains to be seen (Getty)

No more pussy cat America. That is the belief – and most probably the wish – of the foreign policy cognoscenti here, assuming (as everyone does) that Hillary Clinton will be sitting in the Oval Office, come 20 January.

And to be sure, her record points in that direction. On a host of issues, from the Middle East to North Korea, she has been more hawkish than her erstwhile boss Barack Obama, criticised widely for being a soft touch; too nice and too idealistic when rivals like China, Iran and above all Russia aren’t playing by the Queensberry rules.

Moreover, as a former Secretary of State and before that a senator who spent six years on the Armed Services Committee, she will bring to the job a greater knowledge of foreign affairs and national security than any incoming president in decades; certainly a good deal more than her husband back in 1993. So Hillary the hawk let loose on a turbulent world crying out for decisive American leadership? Maybe, but maybe not.

Most certainly she will want to be more assertive. It’s hard to deny that Obama’s rationalism that borders on passivity has raised doubts among some of Washington’s traditional allies about whether, if push came to shove, the US would be there for them. Power lies in the perception of a readiness to use it, and in that sense American power has indubitably been reduced – at a moment when a changing world was hastening the process anyway.

Madeleine Albright was Washington’s Ambassador to the United Nations and then Secretary of State under Bill Clinton. Probably she won’t go down in history as a foreign policy titan, but she delivered a couple of remarks that perfectly captured that fleeting post-Cold War period of the late 1990s when the US was the sole superpower.

America, she said, was the “indispensable” nation; without its involvement, none of the world’s great problems could be solved. At the time those problems included the Balkans. Frustrated by the continuing savagery and violence there, and the West’s inability to stop it, she turned angrily to the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell: “What's the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can't use it?”

Such was the mind set at that apogee of pax americana. Now American power is in decline, or more exactly relative decline. The US is still the planet’s most powerful country, boasting the largest and most innovative economy. It’s still the only one capable of projecting unrivalled military might to the remotest corner of the Earth. In terms of “soft” power too, no one comes close.

But the gap is narrowing. Russia is resurgent, while economically China has more or less caught up with the US, and in a decade or two may have done so militarily as well. Meanwhile the atrophy and dysfunction of America’s own political system do nothing to enhance the country’s role as a democratic model, or its reputation in general.

This is the world that Hillary Clinton will inherit. Her instincts may well be to revive those Albright tenets. Despite her need to hew close to a popular President Obama, she has parted ways with him on Syria, where she advocates no-fly zones and greater military assistance to moderate rebels, both resisted by Obama. No leeway will be accorded Russia, least of all in its efforts to rival or supplant the US as patron power across the Middle East.

A more forceful approach from Clinton toward China is also likely. Obama is supposedly engaged in a “pivot to Asia” to underline US commitment to a region where it is still strategically crucial. But if last week’s embrace of China by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines – a longstanding ally and bulwark of America’s policy of curbing Chinese expansionism in South-east Asia – is anything to go by, the pivot isn’t having the desired effect.

In Washington the frustration crosses party lines. Republican and Democratic foreign policy establishments both believe America must become more assertive. In his crude fashion, Donald Trump made the point in the presidential debates, and to some effect. A better disciplined, better informed candidate could have had Clinton squirming.

But the frustrations of the elite may not be the decisive factor. For all its imperfections, democracy rules in the US, and the will of the people matters. The people (and Trump for that matter) may love the idea of an America that throws its weight around – but not to the point of buying Albright’s complaints about the superb military that cannot be used.

In the US, the interventionist pendulum has swung, from the comparative caution of the first Clinton era to the George W Bush administration’s embrace of “preventive war”, that led to the unprovoked invasion of Iraq in 2003. Now it’s swung back. The Iraq disaster still shapes public opposition to US ground involvement elsewhere in the Middle East, and there’s no sign attitudes will change any time soon.

The chaos in Syria and Libya, and the replacement of bad by even worse in Egypt, has only hardened that mindset. Clinton herself has repeatedly said she opposes US “boots on the ground” in the Middle East. She may be wise to do so – but by taking the option of direct military intervention off the table, she has reduced America’s potential leverage.

Then there are eternal geopolitical realities. The notion may be unfashionable and derided, but in the 21st century spheres of influence still exist. And a power like Russia, whose nuclear arsenal represents an existential threat to the US, must be treated as such, however objectionable its policies.

All this argues against the US plunging into Syria: a war against Bashar al-Assad means war against Russia. And it explains why there is a limit to what may be done about Russian encroachments in next-door Ukraine – and why everyone is so fearful of where Russian intimidation of the Baltic states, once parts of the Soviet Union, may lead. So Clinton the hawk or Clinton the pragmatist? My guess is the latter, albeit adorned with a few feathers and talons.