The figure above (my contribution to the APSA task force) shows how often, on average, countries from various regions vote with the United States in the United Nations General Assembly. Aside from a boost in the early and mid-1990s, there has been a secular decline in agreement with the U.S. since the early 1960s (the obvious exception being that the end of the Cold War led Eastern European and Central Asian former Soviet Republics to vote more frequently with the U.S.). Indeed, the U.S. now votes with non-European countries less often on average than it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. At least as far as the UN General Assembly goes, the image of a lonely superpower seems quite accurate.
What does all of this mean?
Part of this trend is surely due to particulars of UN General Assembly politics that are not necessarily all that consequential to U.S. national interests. The early 1960s coincides with a large expansion in UN membership. These new members have started to dominate the UN agenda with non-binding resolutions that may have symbolic value to some but have few meaningful effects.
Yet not all of it can be attributed to such agenda change. For example, in a 2004 article I looked only at resolutions on which the U.S. had actively lobbied. Given that many resolutions are repeated over time, we have a way to separate agenda change from preference change. The conclusion is pretty clear: the U.S. is becoming increasingly lonely on issues it cares about. To give one example: in 1992 the US got 73 states to abstain or vote against a resolution proclaiming the necessity of ending the boycott against Cuba. In 2008 there were 4: Israel, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau.
What to do about this? Winning more votes in the UN General Assembly should not be the U.S. goal per se. Yet the inability to do so may be reflective of the general difficulties the U.S. encounters when it seeks support for its foreign policy initiatives. This is part of what Robert Pape calls soft balancing: “measures other states take that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but use international institutions, economic statecraft, and diplomatic arrangements to delay, frustrate, and undermine U.S. policies.”
To some extent, there may not be much the lonely superpower can do about this. The increase in the gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world also continued during the Clinton and Carter years: it’s not a Republican versus Democrat thing. Yet, some of it is likely due to the U.S. unwillingness to exercise restraint in its foreign policies. Few countries like heavy-handed uses of power by the world’s lone superpower even when they may agree with its ultimate objectives. The opposition to the Cuban sanctions is a good example. The uptick in support during the early 1990s was likely due to the U.S. willingness to channel its power through international institutions. There also seems to be some acceleration in the downward trend under Bush. Realists are right that countries are always going to be suspicious of the top dog in the international system. Yet there are surely better and worse ways to manage those suspicions. Let’s hope Obama can do better than Bush in this regard but let’s not take this as a given. The problem is formidable indeed.