End of Hegemony dreams!

Antonio Gramsci coined the term hegemony to describe the dominance of one ruling group over another, by willing consent as opposed to force. He traced this power of the hegemon to the "spontaneous consent" of the populace through intellectual or moral leadership, what Harvard Professor Joseph S Nye Jr popularized as "soft power". History is replete with numerous examples of the dominant political and economic power of the time trying to impose its hegemony over other nations. The ideologies and policles of successive American Governments after the collapse of communism, have clearly pointed towards continuation of that trend. However this effort was at a more benign cultural and economic hegemony initially, but became more overtly political as the neo-conservatives asserted power.

Post 9/11, the hegemony project gathered pace, and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld team felt that the shadow of terrorism and international security could be a convenient alibi to expedite the hegemony. The wise men at Pentagon and the Foggy Bottom also saw the Iraq threat and a quick, presumptive strike as an excellent opportunity to impress on the free world, the benefits of American leadership and military prowess and instill fear among the recalcitrant "rogue nations". And this is where it all started to go terribly wrong.

"Squandering the immense influence of the US in such a short period has required monumental effort. Now the fog of war clears. On the ruin of the neocons' new world order emerges the old world disorder on steroids", so writes Sidney Blumenthal in Tyranny on the March.

He describes Gen Parvez Musharraf's recent imposition of national emergency and martial law, despite strong American protestations, as the surest indicator of the end of American hegemony. "Gone are the days when the stern words of a senior US official prevented rash action by an errant foreign leader and when the power of the US served as a restraining force and promoted peaceful resolution of conflict. In the vacuum of the Bush catastrophe, nation-states pursue what they perceive to be their own interests as global conflicts proliferate. The backlash of pre-emptive war in Iraq gathers momentum in undermining US power and prestige."

Benign hegemony of the sort cultivated by the US and USSR during the Cold War had geo-strategic benefits. Despite all the detrimental effects on the society and economy of both the subordinates and the hegemons, it was a fact this benign (and sometimes not so bengin) hegemony papered over civil wars and moderated or atleast kept a lever of control over the actions of tyrannical dictators and military rulers. The utility of such hegemony became very visibly evident in the aftermath of the Cold War with the eruption of civil wars, break-up of countries, re-alignment of alliances, and the loss of any control over the actions of rogue leaders. International diplomacy will have to step into this vaccum, before some other pernicious element takes its place.