The Fractured Superpower

Foreign Affairs | Jenna Bednar and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

The January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol highlighted a critical vulnerability in how the American federal system of government can be exploited to negate presidential election outcomes. Conspirators targeted the state-level process of choosing electors, attempting to appoint alternative slates to overturn the certified results. This strategy exploited the decentralised nature of U.S.

federalism. State-level decisions became the primary battleground for democratic integrity. Because the slates of electors that collectively certify the presidential election are chosen at the state level, the conspirators focused their efforts on subverting local processes. Ultimately, Republican state officials in Arizona, Georgia, and other key states refused to comply with these efforts, preventing the subversion of the democratic process. Their resistance proved decisive. This event revealed how the constitutional division of power between state and federal authorities, designed to safeguard democracy, could instead be weaponised by actors seeking to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Comment

The vulnerability of the American electoral system to state-level subversion directly threatens the perceived reliability of Washington's extended deterrence commitments under the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. Allies like Tokyo rely on the predictable execution of executive authority during a crisis, which can be disrupted if the legitimacy of the U.S. commander-in-chief is contested at home. If state-level administrative disputes in places like Arizona or Georgia can paralyse the federal executive's transition, the decision-making speed required to respond to a sudden contingency in the Taiwan Strait is severely compromised. This structural friction suggests that domestic constitutional vulnerabilities in the United States are now a primary variable in how the People's Liberation Army assesses the credibility of American intervention.

Specifically, the mechanism of this vulnerability lies in the decentralised control of election administration under the U.S. Constitution, where individual state legislatures can trigger prolonged constitutional crises. Such domestic paralysis would directly delay the mobilisation of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command during a rapid-onset conflict. Consequently, the operational readiness of the Yokosuka-based Seventh Fleet remains hostage to the stability of local administrative structures in states like Georgia.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If domestic political paralysis in states like Georgia or Arizona delays executive decision-making in Washington, how can the Yokosuka-based Seventh Fleet maintain credible deterrence under the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security during a rapid-onset crisis in the Taiwan Strait?

The pattern suggests that maintaining credible deterrence under these conditions would require a significant delegation of operational authority to regional commanders, bypassing potential bottlenecks in Washington. However, such decentralisation risks creating coordination friction with allies like Tokyo, who expect highly centralised political clearance before committing their own forces. Ultimately, the trajectory indicates that domestic constitutional friction will increasingly force the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to rely on pre-planned, automated response frameworks rather than real-time executive directives.

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