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It would appear that the United States stands to make considerable strategic gains and greater consolidation of its status as the "sole super-power," by toppling the administration of Saddam Hussein.
But the path towards a unipolar hegemony, as pursued by Washington, is far from being paved owing to certain major restrictive factors.
The Iraq war could enhance, to some extent, Washington's military strength and geo-strategic advantage. But its economic might, which lies at the core of its comprehensive strength, remains unchanged.
Economically, the United States is merely a part of the tripartite world - the United States, the European Union and East Asia - that exists today and one which is unlikely to alter fundamentally for a long time to come.
Politically, the world is not a unipolar one ruled by the United States. Moreover, the trend would suggest that it is moving farther away from the expectations of Washington.
During this latest Iraqi crisis, the United Nations did not ultimately yield to pressure from Washington, a demonstration of the decreasing amount of control the United States can levy on the UN.
Some countries that opposed Washington's unilateral military actions against Iraq dared to give an unequivocal "no" to the United States.
Even its military strength is not "invincible" as some boast. In this information age, modes of war have greatly changed. If September 11 attack was an act of war, as US President George W. Bush called it, the advanced US weapons are of little use when it comes to combating this kind of adversary.
The sole superpower strategy of the United States is also constrained by its domestic political factors.
Although it is a national foreign strategy, the concrete objectives and means set by the government holding office are inevitably stamped with the political brand of that party and interests groups.
The Bush administration's ABC (Anything but Clinton) policy is very much representative of its partisan interests, and one which would surely be resisted by the Democrats.
Without a united will, the government's capacity will inevitably be weakened.
The current US global strategy has inherent self-restricting factors.
The objective of the US global strategy is to realize its unipolar hegemony, for which it needs to contain potential rivals.
But the United States has to cooperate with other countries to fight terrorism, prevent nuclear proliferation, recover the global economy, promote western-style democracy and maintain regional security. This is conducive to the development of its potential rivals, which, of course, is not favourable for the realization of US strategic objectives.
In addition to the above-mentioned "internal factors," there are many "external factors" that restrain the United States from realizing its unipolar hegemonic dream.
Relations between the world's leading powers are one of those "external factors."
In this Iraqi crisis, by upholding their own principled stances, those countries of influence such as France, Germany, Russia, China and India did not follow the United States.
These nations attach great importance to their relations with the United States, but they would not bow to Washington's pressure by abandoning their own interests and principles.
Relations between the major powers have an immediate impact upon the implementation of US strategy.
To reach the goal of unipolar hegemony, the US needs to either contain them, so that they would be unable to challenge it in the future, or make them submit to its will in order to become its allies, neither of which, however, is easy.
Alliances are a key content of US global strategies.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and US-Japan Alliance are two wheels on the US wagon driving unipolar hegemony. The United States has incorporated all the major developed countries into its systems through these two alliances.
In the Kosovo and Afghan wars, the US allies provided it with as much support as they could.
Contrast this with the NATO split over the Iraqi crisis, with even its close neighbour, Canada, opting not to side with the United States.
On its way towards unipolar hegemony, the United States must face the challenges presented by the so-called "rogue states" and "axis of evil" states.
In the view of the United States, it has to put these nations under its control first before it can consolidate its lead in the world, an aim which is not going to be easy.
Most of these countries are Muslim nations, whose anti-US sentiments in part stem from differences in political culture and religious beliefs.
The United States is attempting, through this war, to transform Iraq into an example of American-style democracy for the Muslim world as it did with Japan and Germany after World War II.
But Iran should serve as a warning against the pitfalls of enforced Western-style democracy.
A more hard-line policy could also arouse the local extremist forces to resort to further attacks on the United States.
Moreover, the Iraqi crisis has demonstrated that legal grounds are an absolute, before any use of force is considered against such countries, otherwise the international community will oppose such action.
In today's world there are more and more international organizations besides the UN, such as the European Union (EU), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO), and Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Independent of the United States they have an increasingly louder voice in regional or global affairs.
Furthermore, some major development trends within today's world are not conducive to the establishment of US unipolar hegemony.
Multipolarization is at the other end of the spectrum to unipolarization.
Since the ending of the Cold War, although the United States has become the only superpower in the world, the strength of other nations has also substantially increased.
Many American strategists realize that, though the situation of "one superpower and many powers" or "co-existence of unipole and multi-poles" will continue for some time, the trend of this structure is developing towards multipolarization rather than unipolari-zation.
Threatening the security of both the United States and the world, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other global problems have become the major topics of international politics.
This requires the co-operation of all countries, for such problems cannot be solved by one country or a nation group alone.
Hence, the United States must improve its co-operation, instead of confrontation, with other major powers, a move which is conducive to improving their overall strength and more importantly, international influence.
Peace and development are the two major themes of the times and the ambition of the world.
The unprecedented global anti-war protests aroused by the Iraqi crisis, demonstrate that the search for peace has become the common will of people worldwide.
Even in the United States, the UK and Australia, some domestic political forces resisted their governments war policies.
The mentioned factors constrain the United States from advancing its strategy of unipolar hegemony. And the dominant world trend, coupled with US internal factors, cannot be fundamentally changed.
(The author is a professor with the Centre for International Strategic Studies of the Central Party School. )
(China Daily April 8, 2003)
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