USA Hegemony is Declining - The Ultimate Fall of the American Empire of the United States of America
Madhav Trump
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Below are given several summarized points to be discussed:
America will retreat from the mess in the Middle East, creating openings for Russia and other Islamic countries
IN 1972 Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet military advisers from Egypt, setting the stage for decades of American dominance, and much violent disappointment, in the Middle East. In 2013 President Barack Obama surrendered America’s hegemony when he refused to take military action against Syria’s use of poison gas, and later sought a nuclear accommodation with Iran. Donald Trump, by contrast, has lobbed missiles at Syria and menaced Iran. But as he swings between threatening to crush foes and getting out entirely, the latter instinct will dominate. Sometimes events, his advisers or domestic politics may compel him to take action. But Mr. Trump will mostly prove even more detached than Mr. Obama.
That will make for unpredictability, ineffectiveness and prolonged chaos. Partial accords might be negotiated in Yemen, Syria and Libya, without finding lasting settlements to end the wars. Mr. Trump’s ultimate deal of peace between Israel and the Palestinians will be stillborn if a plan emerges at all by CNN its hardliners. Jihadists will exploit any space to regroup.
The three types of hegemony are?military, political, and economic.
American decline?is the idea that the?United States of America?is diminishing in power?geopolitically,?militarily, financially,?economically, demographically, socially, morally, spiritually, culturally, in matters of healthcare, and/or on environmental issues. Friedman, Hershey H.; Hertz, Sarah (2015). "Is the United States Still the Best Country in the World? Think Again".?SSRN Electronic Journal. Elsevier BV
There has been debate over the extent of the decline, and whether it is relative or absolute. Those who believe America is in decline are?declinists.
Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around
The United States has long been attempting to mould other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an "America for the Americans," what it truly wanted was an "America for the United States."
Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.
American decline?is the idea that the?United States of America?is diminishing in power?geopolitically,?militarily, financially,?economically, technologically, demographically, socially, morally, spiritually, and culturally, in matters of healthcare, and/or environmental issues.
There has been debate over the extent of the decline, and whether it is relative or absolute. Those who believe America is in decline are?declinists.
According to American public intellectual?Noam Chomsky, America's decline started shortly after the end of?World War II, with the "Fall of Beijing" followed by the?Indochina Wars. By 1970, the United States' share of world wealth had declined to about 25%, which was still large but sharply reduced.?
Chomsky dismisses the "remarkable rhetoric of the several years of triumphalism in the 1990s" as "mostly self-delusion". However, Chomsky argued in 2011 that power will not shift to China and India, because these are poor countries with severe internal problems, and there will be no competitor for global hegemonic power in the foreseeable future.
According to?Jeet Heer, U.S. hegemony has always been supported by three prominent proven pillars: "economic strength, military might, and the soft power of cultural dominance."?
According to American diplomat?Eric S. Edelman, the declinists, or those who believe America is in decline, have been "consistently wrong" in the past.
However, American political scientist?Aaron Friedberg?cautioned that just because the declinists were wrong in the past does not mean they will be incorrect in their future predictions, and that some of the arguments by the declinists deserve to be taken seriously.
Geopolitical overreach
an expansion in military activity and the showcase aggression can appear to be an increase in an overall power but can mask a decline in power.?
He observes that this occurred with the?Soviet Union?in the 1970s, and with the?Roman Empire,
and that the United States may be going through a similar period in time.
There were 38 large and medium-sized?American facilities spread around the globe?in 2005—mostly air and naval bases—approximately the same number as Britain's 36 naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898.
Yale historian?Paul Kennedy?compares the U.S. situation to Great Britain's prior to?World War I, saying that the map of U.S. bases is similar.
Political scientist?Matthew Kroenig?argues Washington has "followed the same basic, three-step geopolitical plan since 1945. First, the United States built the current,?rules-based international system?...Second, it welcomed into the club any country that played by the rules, even former adversaries?... and third, the U.S. worked with its allies to defend the system from those countries or groups that would challenge it."
Military
According to a 98-page report by National Defense Strategy Commission, "America's longstanding military advantages have diminished"
The U.S. Armed Forces have one mission: to protect our nation from foreign enemies. Our troops are as committed to that mission as ever before. But according to a bracing new report, our warriors’?ability?to do their job is being undermined by civilian leaders more interested in woke indoctrination and partisan politics than warfighting readiness.
"The Report of the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness" is an urgent warning about creeping politicization at the Pentagon and its corrosive impact on America’s national defense. As the report details, the Biden administration’s whole-of-government embrace of woke politics is becoming a dangerous distraction for servicemen and women who signed up to protect and defend, not virtue-signal.?
The top-line statistics compiled in the report are jarring.
Last year, the Army missed its recruiting goal by 25 percent. They expect this year to be even worse. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps began the new fiscal year in October 50 percent below their normal recruiting numbers. Public confidence in the military is falling precipitously, and even military families—from which most recruits come—are less likely to recommend military life.
What explains the decline? According to a November poll, the most common explanations included "military leadership becoming overly politicized" and "so-called ‘woke’ practices undermining military effectiveness." Another survey found that 65 percent of active-duty servicemen and women are concerned about politicization, including the woke training programs and equity-minded reduced physical fitness standards.
Troop retention rates are falling, too and for the same reasons.
As the report notes, "the perception that non-warfighting missions are distracting senior military leadership may alienate experienced, skilled and knowledgeable warfighters, incentivizing their early departure.
Last year, the Army missed its recruiting goal by 25%. They expect this year to be even worse. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps began the new fiscal year in October 50 percent below their normal recruiting numbers. Public confidence in the military is falling precipitously, and even military families—from which most recruits come—are less likely to recommend military life.
What explains the decline? According to a November poll, the most common explanations included "military leadership becoming overly politicized" and "so-called ‘woke’ practices undermining military effectiveness." Another survey found that 65 percent of active-duty servicemen and women are concerned about politicization, including the woke training programs and equity-minded reduced physical fitness standards.
Troop retention rates are falling, too, and for the same reasons. As the report notes, "the perception that non-warfighting missions are distracting senior military leadership may alienate experienced, skilled and knowledgeable warfighters, incentivizing their early departure[.]"?
Politicized initiatives like DEI always spawn enormous bureaucracies that distract the rank-and-file from their real jobs. The military is not immune. A report on the Navy compiled for members of Congress observes that, today, "non-combat curricula consume Navy resources, clog inboxes, create administrative quagmires, and monopolize precious training time."
Biden’s DOD sometimes seems more interested in culture-war activism than combat training and lethality. The Pentagon now pays for abortion travel expenses, on-base pride celebrations, and drag queen story hours.
Their 2023 budget requested $34.2 million to conduct a witch hunt for "extremist"—which in Biden-world translates as "conservative"—political activities in the ranks. Even DOD’s own study showed less than .005 percent of the 2 million active military personnel were linked to extremist activity.
China, Russia, North Korea, Iran... there is no shortage of real threats to deal with, and real challenges are coming. Since the Biden Pentagon continues to focus on make-believe ones, Congress must step in to restore the military’s warrior ethos and warfighting readiness.
The "Report on Military Service and Readiness"?proposes several urgent reforms. DEI should be excised from the Department of Defense, and political initiatives redirected to combat readiness. Physical fitness standards should be designed to protect the American people, not to accommodate demographic quotas.
Military readiness does not just win wars—it deters them. With war raging across the Atlantic and a Cold War heating up across the Pacific, now is not the time to forget that, least of all because of juvenile political distractions.
The American people need patriots to step up, to meet our rivals, and defend our country and values. Those in uniform on bases around the world already have. Now those on Capitol Hill need to do their part.
and "The country's strategic margin for error has become distressingly small. Doubts about America's ability to deter and, if necessary, defeat opponents and honour its global commitments have proliferated." The report cited "political dysfunction" and "budget caps" as factors restraining the government from keeping pace with threats in what the report described as "a crisis of national security." The report wrote that, to neutralize American strength, China and?Russia?have tried to perform and achieve the "regional hegemony" and were developing "aggressive military buildups".
In 2018, Air Force General Frank Gorenc said that the United States military is in Decline while its airpower advantage over Russia and China is strengthening.
According to?Loren Thompson, the military's decline began when defence secretary?Dick Cheney?stopped a hundred major weapons programs 25 years ago when the?Soviet Union collapsed.
Deficit spending
Paul Kennedy?posits that continued deficit spending, especially on military build-up, is the single most important reason for the decline of any great power. The costs of the wars in?Iraq?and?Afghanistan?were as of 2017 estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion, which Kennedy deems a major victory for?Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to humiliate America by showcasing its casualty averseness and lack of will to persist in a long-term conflict in Iran along with Afghanistan.
By 2011, the U.S. military budget — almost matching that of the rest of the world combined — was higher in real terms than at any time since WWII.
Kennedy made similar assessments about American decline in his book?The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers?in which he projected "a need to 'manage' affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States' position takes place slowly and smoothly".The book was published in 1989, three years before the?dissolution of the Soviet Union?and several years before the bursting of the?Japanese asset price bubble, leaving the United States as the sole remaining superpower and the dominant political and economic power internationally.
The year 2003 was marked as the beginning of a succession of "colour revolutions" -- the Rose Revolution held in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a "central role" in these "regime changes." The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called "People Power Revolutions."
In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.
The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries' activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing "a world free of chemical weapons."
◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an "Indo-Pacific Strategy" onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.
◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries such as Afghanistan, South Korea and Japan and fabricates a false narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism" to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first "Summit for Democracy," which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another "Summit for Democracy," which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.
II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force
Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
The two-decade-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of the probably 47000 Afghan civilians and 66000 to 69000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the "Kabul debacle" in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered "pure looting."
In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.
The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.
III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation
After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centred around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including "approval by 85 percent majority," and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar's status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting "seigniorage" from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America's political and economic strategy.
◆ The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help of "seigniorage." It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100-dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollars of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.
◆ The hegemony of the U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hikes, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows.
This was exactly what Nixon's secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision,
"The dollar is our currency, but it is your problem."
◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions for their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America's strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.
◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America's strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called "three lost decades."
◆ America's economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and "long-arm jurisdiction," the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world's population. "The United States of America" has turned itself into "the United States of Sanctions." And "long-arm jurisdiction" has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.
IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression
The United States seeks to deter other countries' scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.
◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.
In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan's semiconductor industry, the United States launched the "301" investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed a larger market share.
◆ The United States politicizes, and weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.
The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China's high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.
The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.
◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the "chips alliance" and "clean network," the United States has put "democracy" and "human rights" labels on high technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China's 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the "5G clean path," a plan designed to build a technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect "cyber security." The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.
◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an "empire of hackers," blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as "Prism," "Dirtbox," "Irritant Horn" and "Telescreen Operation" are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that "do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honour or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules."
V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives
The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.
◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.
There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world's market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.
◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in "direct intervention," but also in "media infiltration" and as "a trumpet for the world." U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.
U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter's public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler's directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a "white list" to amplify certain messages.
◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.
◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate "peaceful evolution" in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.
The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its champion-wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries' internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.
According to American public intellectual?Noam Chomsky, America's decline started shortly after the end of?World War II, with the "winning of China" followed by the?Indochina Wars. By 1970, the United States share of world wealth had declined to about 25%, which was still large but sharply reduced
Chomsky discharges and dismiss the "remarkable rhetoric of the several years of triumphalism in the 1990s" as "mostly self-delusion". However, Chomsky clashed in argued in 2011 that power will not shift to China and India, because these are poor countries with severe internal problems, and there will be no competitor for the multinational, multinational, international and global hegemonic power else than Beijing whose recognition, honour and credit is the Seoul is the source of Beijing stating South Korea carrying globalization.
According to?Jeet Heer, U.S. hegemony has always been supported by three pillars: "economic strength, military might, and the soft power of cultural dominance."
American political scientist?Aaron Friedberg?cautioned that just because the declinists were wrong in the past does not mean they will be incorrect in their future predictions, and that some of the arguments by the declinists deserve to be taken seriously
According to the 2021?Asia Power Index, within?Asia, the United States still takes the lead on?military capacity,?cultural influence,?resilience,?future resources,?diplomatic influence, and?defence networks, but falls behind?China?in two parameters:?economic capability?and?economic relationships
Some scholars say that the perception of decline, or declinism, has long been part of American culture.
In a 2021 poll of 1,019 Americans, 79% of those surveyed said that America is "falling apart". At the same time, a similar proportion of survey respondents indicated that they are "proud to be an American".
Political scientist?Matthew Kroenig?argues Washington has "followed the same basic, three-step geopolitical plan since 1945.
Hegemons are destined to be short-lived. Though varied in the way of destruction, they all brought fate on themselves. As pointed out by the famous British historian Toynbee, the common feature of the fall, drop, downfall and decline of kingdoms lies in?the excessive expansion of power and growing internal distortion in society.
First, the United States assembled, constructed, formed and built the current,?rules-based international system... Second, it welcomed into the club any country that played by the rules, even former adversaries... and third, the U.S. worked with its allies to defend the system from those countries or groups that would challenge it."
The Final Fall of the U.S. Military Defence
According to the 98 pages report by National Defense Strategy Commission concludes "America's longstanding military advantages have diminished" and "The country's strategic margin for error has become distressingly small. Doubts about America's power to impede and if necessary, defeat opponents and honour its global commitments have proliferated." The report cited "political dysfunction" and "budget caps" as factors restraining the government from keeping pace with threats in what the report described as "a crisis of national security." The report wrote that to neutralize American strength, China and?Russia?were trying to achieve "regional hegemony" and were developing "aggressive military buildups".
American decline is the idea that the United States of America is diminishing in power geopolitically, militarily, financially, economically, demographically, socially, morally, spiritually, and culturally, in matters of healthcare, and/or environmental issues
?In 2018, Air Force General Frank Gorenc said that the United States VS China's airpower advantage over Russia and China was shrinking. US debt of probably $31T
United States announces itself as a Debt country with 43% of the total GDP
As of January 2023, federal debt held by the public was $33 trillion. Debt held by the public was estimated at 96.19% of GDP, and approximately 33% of this public debt was owned by foreigners. The United States has the largest external debt in the world.
?According to?Loren Thompson, the military's decline began when defence secretary?Dick Cheney?stopped a hundred major weapons programs 25 years ago when the?Soviet Union collapsed.
?The report cited "political dysfunction" and "budget caps" as factors restraining the government from maintaining, controlling and keeping pace with threats in what the report described as "a crisis of national security." The report wrote that to neutralize American strength, China and?Russia?were trying to achieve "regional hegemony" and were developing "aggressive military buildups".
In 2018,
Air Force General Frank Gorenc said that the United States' airpower benefit and honour over Russia and China was shrinking.
?According to?Loren Thompson, the military's decline began when defence secretary?Dick Cheney?stopped a hundred major weapons programs 25 years ago when the?Soviet Union collapsed.
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Paul Kennedy?posits that continued deficit spending, especially on military build-up, is the single most important reason for the decline of any great power. The costs of the wars in?Iraq?and?Afghanistan?are NOW?estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion, which Kennedy deems a major victory for?Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to humiliate America by showcasing its casualty averseness and lack of will to persist in a long term conflict. By 2011, the U.S. military budget — almost matching that of the rest of the world combined — was higher in real terms than at any time since WWII.
Kennedy made similar assessments about American decline in his book?The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers?in which he projected “a need to ‘manage’ affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States' position takes place slowly and smoothly”.
?The book was published in 1989, three years before the?dissolution of the Soviet Union?and several years before the bursting of the?Japanese asset price bubble, leaving the United States as the sole remaining superpower and the dominant political and economic power internationally.
According to historian?Emmanuel Todd, an expansion in military activity and aggression can appear to be an increase in power, but can mask a decline in power. further explanation is needed ?He celebrates and marks that this emerged with the?Soviet Union?in the 1970s and with the?Roman Empire,
There were 38 large and medium-sized?American facilities spread around the globe?in 2005—mostly air and naval bases—probably the same number as Britain's 36 naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898.
?Yale historian?Paul Kennedy?compares the U.S. situation to Great Britain's prior to World War I, saying that the map of U.S. bases is similar.
?and that the United States may be going through an equal, comparable, and similar period in time. 119 base sites in Germany; 119 in Japan; 73 in South Korea; 44 in Italy. Others are in Aruba, Bahrain, Cuba, Djibouti, Estonia, Greece, Honduras, Ireland, Jordan, Kenya, Marshall Islands, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Spain, Tunisia, the UK, US Virgins, and Wake Island.
Commentators such as?Allan Bloom,?E. D. Hirsch?and?Russel Jacoby?have suggested that American culture is in decline.
?Samuel P. Huntington?remarked critically on a trend in American culture and politics of predicting constant decline since the late 1950s. As he saw it, diclinism came in several distinct waves, namely in reaction to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik; the Vietnam War; the oil shock of 1973; Soviet tensions in the late 1970s; and the general unease that accompanied the end of the Cold War. According to American historian?Russell Jacoby, the rise of academic?Marxism,?radical political economies, and?critical literary?and?cultural studies?since World War II has contributed to the fall, downfall and decline of American culture.
William J. Bennett?argues that America's cultural decline is signalling "a shift in the public's attitudes and beliefs".
According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, published in 1993, statistically portraying the moral, social and behavioural conditions of modern American society, often described as 'values', America's cultural condition was in decline with respect to the situations of 30 years ago, 1963. The index showed that there has been an increase in?violent crime?by more than 6 times,?illegitimate births?by more than 5 times, the divorce rate by 5 times, the percentage of children living in single-parent homes by four times, and the teenage suicide rate by three times during the 30-year period.
According to?Kenneth Weisbrode, though some statistics point to American decline (increased death rate, political paralysis, and increased crime), "Americans have had a low culture for a very long time, and have long promoted it". He thinks that the obsession with decline is not something new, as something dating back to the Puritans. "Cultural decline, in other words, is as American as apple pie," Weisbrode argues. Weisbrode likens pre-revolutionary France and present-day America for their vulgarity, which he argues is "an almost natural extension or outcome of all that is civilized: a glorification of ego."
Daniel Bell?argued that the perception of decline is part of the culture.
What the long history of American 'declinism' -- as opposed to America's actual possible decline -
USA will never enjoy the world politics hegemony of the year 1991 and 2000
"is that these anxieties have an existence of their own that is totally and quite distinct from the basic and original geopolitical position of our country; that they arise as much from something deeply rooted in the collective psyche of our chattering classes as from sober political and economic analyses."
According to?RealClearPolitics, declarations of America's declining energy and influence have been common since the beginning of the country.
?
According to Australian journalist Nick Bryant, "warnings of American decline are by no means new".
In the 20th century, declinism came in several distinct waves.
?
In a 2011 book,?Thomas L. Friedman?and?Michael Mandelbaum?argued that the United States was in the midst of "its fifth wave of Declinism." The first had come "with the 'Sputnik Shock' of 1957," the second with the?Vietnam War, the third with President?Jimmy Carter's "malaise" and the rise of Japan, and the fourth with the increased power of China.
According to?Robert Lieber?in 2021, “declinists’ proclamations about America have appeared ever since America’s founding" and “it can be instructive to compare current arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with the ideas of earlier eras.”
In a 2011 book,?Thomas L. Friedman?and?Michael Mandelbaum?argued that the United States was in the midst of "its fifth wave of Diclinism." The first had come "with the 'Sputnik Shock' of 1957," the second with the?Vietnam War, the third with President?Jimmy Carter's "malaise" and the rise of Japan, and the fourth with the increased power of China.
?
According to?Robert Lieber?in 2021, “declinists’ declarations, commands, rulings and proclamations about America have appeared ever since America’s founding" and “it can be instructive to compare current arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with the ideas of earlier eras.”
NATO
USA being the strongest allied of NATO | The fall of the US will lead to weaken the NATO
Political polarization
Many commentators and polls have observed an increase in?political polarization?in the US.
Some researchers have linked trends toward political polarization in the United States and other countries to increased?economic inequality?and economic decline.
David Leonhardt?writes that "incomes, wealth and life expectancy in the United States have stagnated for much of the population, contributing to an angry national mood and exacerbating political divisions. The result is a semi-dry functional government that is eroding many of the country’s largest advantages over China."
According to a report by?Oxford?researchers including sociologist?Philip N. Howard,?social media?played a major role in political polarization in the United States, due to computational propaganda -- "the use of automation,?algorithms, and big-data analytics to manipulate public life"—such as the spread of?fake news?and?conspiracy theories. The researchers highlighted the role of the Russian?Internet Research Agency?in attempts to undermine democracy in the US and exacerbate existing political divisions. The most prominent methods of misinformation were ostensibly organic posts rather than ads, and influence operation activity increased after, and was not limited to, the 2016 election.
Sarah Kreps?of?Brookings?points out that in the wake of foreign influence operations which are nothing new but boosted by digital tools, the U.S. has had to spend exorbitantly on defensive measures "just to break even on democratic legitimacy."
Economy
By 1970 U.S. share of world production had fallen from 40% to 25%,
while economist Jeffrey Sachs observed the US share of world income was 24.6% in 1980 falling to 19.1% in 2011.
The ratio of average CEO earnings to average workers’ pay in the U.S. went from 24:1 in 1965 to 262:1 in 2005.
In 2018,?income inequality?reached the highest level recorded by the?Census Bureau
Some centrists believe that the American fiscal crisis stems from the rising expenditures on social programs or alternatively from the increases in military spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both of which would lead to a decline. However,?Richard Lachmann?argues that military or overall spending is not pressuring the U.S. economy and would not donate to the U.S. decline. Lachman describes the real problem as "the misallocation of government revenue and expenditure, resulting in resources being diverted from the tasks vital to maintaining economic or geopolitical dominance."
Kennedy argues that as military expenses grow, this reduces investments in economic growth, which eventually "leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defence."
The war in Ukraine has necessitated a recalibration of US foreign policy as tensions intensify between America, its allies and Russia. The US’s ‘pivot to Asia’ policy has taken a hit in the face of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. As global attention, once again, shifts to the former Cold War superpower, China appears to be reaping all the benefits in the ensuing power vacuum.
There were 38 large and medium-sized?American facilities spread around the globe?in 2005—mostly air and naval bases—approximately the same number as Britain's 36 naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898.
Yale historian?Paul Kennedy?compares the U.S. situation to Great Britain's prior to?World War I, saying that the map of U.S. bases is similar.
Why did Silicon Valley Bank collapse and fail?
why did silver gate collapse and fail?
The problems that faced Silvergate were primarily a result of?less-than-adequate risk management, notably one of relying too much on volatile short-term deposits while lending or investing at a longer duration,
When did Silvergate collapse?
None of that changed in 2023. On?March 8th?Silvergate Capital, a bank that works with crypto firms, such as FTX, went into liquidation. Depositors withdrew $8bn in January, forcing it to fire-sell its investment and asset. And yet the reaction to Silvergate's collapse among crypto traders was muted.
Why did Silvergate collapse? Silvergate Bank's collapse was triggered by?the collapse of FTX, which led to a devastating bank run on the bank. While regulators bear responsibility for not defining a proper framework for the cryptocurrency industry, the management also made mistakes.
Alfredo Toro Hardy’s America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline? is a timely addition, both in terms of what is unfolding presently and the literature that is emerging on the shortfalls of American foreign policy in its dealings with Russia and China. The former Venezuelan diplomat joins the intensifying debate on the emerging reality of a Cold War between the US and China and the broader debate surrounding America’s decline from standing, being as the global hegemonic power and its implications for the country’s international engagement with the rest of the corner of the planet, world on earth.
The book offers a comprehensive diagnosis of American foreign policy by way of a comparative analysis of the US’s Cold War with the Soviet Union with the emerging one with China from the American perspective and seeks to answer two questions: one, how different a strategic competitor is China to the erstwhile Soviet Union and two, how different is the US of today compared to its former self when it confronted and won the Cold War with the Soviets.
Hardy identifies five fundamental issues afflicting US foreign policy in its engagement with China – ideology (or lack thereof), squandered alliances, foreign policy-related inconsistencies, the country’s economic downturn and the containment strategy trap. The author’s key argument recurs throughout the book – that the US is confronting China in the emerging Cold War on a “wrong configuration of factors” and needs to “responsibly explore and analyze the options on the table”
In acknowledgement of the deficiencies facing America’s foreign policy regarding China, the author sets the context and provides readers with a succinct account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergence of the period of US hegemony and the rise of China in the first two chapters. Hardy rightly emphasizes that America is threatened by China’s ascendence – citing research done by the Pew Research Center that showed that 73 percent of Americans viewed China negatively. In the author’s words, “Washington is aggrievedly and forcefully reacting against what it perceives as an existential contention”
Hardy also outlines the Chinese perspective and correctly concludes that Beijing is driven by its experience under imperialist powers during the ‘century of humiliation and economic mismanagement under Mao Zedong. Indeed, this coupled with the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, controversy over Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi between 1989-1990, the Taiwan strait crisis in 1996, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by American forces and more recently, the independence movements in Hong Kong are insightful examples in understanding why the Party and now, Xi Jinping, are in pursuit of relentless centralization of power and authority. Despite China’s adroitness in foreign affairs under Xi Jinping, the country’s great power ambitions are driven by domestic considerations and how the international community perceives these ambitions. The US’s belief in China’s disregard for a rules-based order is what the latter takes offence with – believing the former to be constraining it from taking its “rightful place in the world”. China eschews the American mindset of reverting to the Cold War mentality and instead argues for a more inclusive world where both states are mindful of their responsibilities.
U.S. Economy Crisis
There have been as many as 48?recessions?in the?United States?dating back to the?Articles of Confederation, and although economists and historians dispute certain 19th-century recessions,
the consensus view among economists and historians is that "The cyclical volatility of GDP and unemployment was greater before the?Great Depression?than it has been since the end of?World War?II."
Cycles in?the country's agricultural production, industrial production, consumption, business investment, and the health of the banking industry contribute to these drops and declines. U.S. recessions have increasingly affected economies on a worldwide scale, especially as countries' economies?become more intertwined.
The unofficial beginning and ending dates of recessions in the United States have been defined by the?National Bureau of Economic Research?(NBER), an American?private?nonprofit research organization. The NBER defines a?recession?as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the?economy, lasting more than two quarters which is 6 months, normally visible in the true?gross domestic product?(GDP), real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales".
In the 19th century, recessions frequently coincided with?financial crises. Determining the occurrence of pre-20th-century recessions is more difficult due to the dearth of?economic statistics, so scholars rely on historical accounts of economic activity, such as contemporary newspapers or business ledgers. Although the NBER does not date recessions before 1857, economists customarily extrapolate dates of U.S. recessions back to 1790 from business annals based on various contemporary descriptions. Their work is aided by historical patterns, in that recessions often follow external shocks to the?economic system?such as wars and variations in the weather affecting agriculture, as well as banking crises.[5]
Major modern economic statistics, such as?unemployment?and GDP, were not compiled on a regular and standardized basis until after World War II. The average duration of the 11 recessions between 1945 and 2001 is 10 months, compared to 18 months for recessions between 1919 and 1945, and 22 months for recessions from 1854 to 1919.[6]?Because of the great changes in the economy over the centuries, it is difficult to compare the severity of modern recessions to early recessions.[7]?Before the?COVID-19 recession?began in March 2020, no post-World War II era had come anywhere near the depth of the?Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 until 1941 (which included a bull market between 1933 and 1937) and was caused by?the 1929 crash of the stock market?and?other factors.
Early recessions and crises (1785-1836)
Attempts have been made to date recessions in America beginning in 1790. These periods of recession were not identified until the 1920s. To construct the dates, researchers studied business annals during the period and constructed?time series?of the data. The earliest recessions for which there is the most certainty are those that coincide with major financial crises.[8][9]
Beginning in 1835, an index of business activity by the?Cleveland Trust Company?provides data for comparison between recessions. Beginning in 1854, the National Bureau of Economic Research dates recession peaks and troughs to the month. However, a standardized index does not exist for the earliest recessions.[8]
In 1791, Congress chartered the?First Bank of the United States?to handle the country's financial needs. The bank had some functions of a modern central bank, although it was responsible for only 20% of the young country's currency. In 1811 the bank's charter lapsed, but it was replaced by the?Second Bank of the United States, which lasted from 1816 to 1836.[9]
The author offers a penetrating account of US-China relations – moving from cautious partners with mutual strategic interests to strategic competitors. A pragmatic agreement was drawn up that was mindful of the other’s national interests – the US would recognize the Communist government in China and give it legitimacy and in exchange, China would not seek to limit or challenge the “US’s power projection in Asia”. China’s gains from this arrangement were enormous and translated into divestment from Mao’s model of productivity and economic self-sufficiency, a foothold in Western markets and a World Trade Organization . The diplomat’s insightful analysis of the changing currents in China’s foreign policy and engagement with the US – the global financial crisis and China’s power and command to bossism tiding over it, the success of the Beijing Olympics, the US’s failures in the Middle East and disregard for its allies, China’s military build-up, the South China Sea and Xi Jinping’s leadership – is unparalleled and serves as an excellent prelude to why he thinks the two countries are in an “unavoidable collision course” (p. 35). China’s desire to forge a new status quo and challenge the US’s rules and the US’s and China’s “ perceived sense of mission and superiority” based on their history and national myths as they look into the future, makes the prospect of a major conflict with spill over effects plausible. Here Hardy goes a step further and claims, based on the plausibility of a battle war between the two, that they are already in the midst of a Cold War. In announcing its ambitions to the world, China may have lost the advantage of its hitherto low-profile strategy and believes that American hegemony is on the decline.
To be sure, the author’s analysis of the five deficiencies in American foreign policy forms the most important section of the book. His commentary on America’s notion of its exceptionalism and “crusader foreign policy” is particularly relevant when we look at its response to the war in Ukraine – the US’s network of financial institutions and media conglomerates have been “able to impose international patterns of credibility or ostracism depending on the acceptance or not of the prevailing liberal ideology”.
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America described American democracy as a form of Christianity and there is more than a grain of truth to this when they believe they were ordained by God to undertake the responsibility of exporting democracy to the rest of the world, not unlike the colonial powers; as Hardy keenly points out – “the United States never stopped being what its puritan colonists wanted it to become”. The ideological calculus worked in America’s favour during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. In confronting China, a country uninterested in exporting communism, in relentless pursuit of efficiency and economic development, the US falls considerably short. This section is a succinct account of the erosion of democracy domestically, the political establishment, poor performance in development indicators (specifically, education and infrastructure) and the labour market. As Hardy puts it – “efficiency is the catchword” and the name of the game in the Cold War between America and China.
In building alliances to counter China, US foreign policy has a long road ahead as it recovers from the wars in the Middle East, the Trump presidency, its recent misstep in leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban and now, its conflict escalations with Russia. America’s inconsistencies in maintaining its alliances have put them on the back foot in confronting China and only served to better the latter’s position in the international community through cooperative multilateralism. The author concludes that the worst-case scenario for the US would be a Russia-China alignment. Indeed, in the fourth iteration of the India-US dialogue, the Russia-Ukraine war was the elephant in the room as joint statements from the US and India reflected a sentiment of ‘agree to disagree’. These joint remarks were widely acknowledged to be ‘tame’ in comparison to the statements several White House officials made of India’s position on the matter, most notably that of President Biden’s comment of India being “somewhat shaky” on the Quad and that of Deputy NSA Daleep Singh who warned of “consequences” should India continue to increase its imports from Russia.
The author is critical of the growing divide between the Democrats and Republicans in the foreign policy establishment – referring to them as “inhabiting different foreign policy planets”. Even the consensus on the containment strategy for China is shaky as Progressive Democrats call for restraint. China, on the other hand, is a different story. According to Hardy, China has its eggs in order – a sound national objective, well-rounded foreign policy, cooperative multilateral mechanisms and localized geopolitical ambitions for the moment. China exhibits unwavering focus as it marches towards what it believes is its destiny – to become a world power by 2049. The only downside that the author warns of in China’s strategy is Xi’s presence at the helm. The longer Xi stays at the top, the more the country’s policies will mould around his personality. In the event of his absence, “China may find itself in big trouble”
In comparing the Soviet Union and China’s giant economies, here too the US falls short. During the first Cold War, America had both economic and military advantages and possessed a technological edge that was unmatched. Today, the US might go toe to toe with China and still not emerge victorious. According to Hardy, China will surpass the US’s GDP by 2025 in absolute terms and has already achieved the same in Purchasing Power Parity. It is very likely that China’s military expenditure will far exceed the US’s down the line. It has militarily caught up to the US through asymmetric “armament development” and other strategies. Its advantage also lies in the fact that its military deployment is closer to home compared to the US’s strategy of maintaining a standing presence around the world. However, the analysis in this section falls short of elaborating upon America’s weaponization of its financial power. A major factor in the US being a superpower has been the dollar hegemony it has enjoyed since the 1970s. This aspect is intrinsic to understanding US foreign policy, especially when global FOREX reserves in dollars have declined to 59 percent from 72 percent in the last two decades. Analysts argue that this reflects the decline of the dollar’s dominance in the face of other currencies. Indeed, China, Russia, India and Brazil are working to reduce their dependency on the dollar and shield themselves from Washington’s vagaries.
Washington is playing catch-up with Beijing; inheriting the Cold War mentality and deploying used strategies against a competitor that almost evenly matches the US in all aspects. From Hardy’s commentary on the containment strategy that the US pursued against the Soviets, it is immediately evident that the same cannot be replicated in its confrontation with China. While appreciative of the consistency that the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have shown in dealing with China, the author claims the lack of an overarching strategy and general cohesiveness will not deter China’s ambitions. Considerations of “economic preponderance and geopolitical feasibility” appear to be missing in devising a strategy to counter China. But the author astutely points to the viability of containing China in a region that is of significant geostrategic importance and has historically been its sphere of influence and rightly questions the US’s capability to respond when China has “firm control of the operational theatre” in the region.
Hardy’s sections that delve into the US’s economy, while useful in the context of its military expenditure, do not adequately explain the sheer influence and entitlement that the country enjoys in international organizations like the IMF, World Bank, OECD, WHO etc. and its impacts in its engagement with China. Similarly, the US has historically turned to sanctions as punitive measures against their enemies – indicative of confidence borne out of the dollar hegemony. Insights into how effective sanctions are and why and how the US weaponizes this power would more forcefully drive home the well-rounded strategy that America has pursued as a hegemon. The Ukraine war is just one example in a long line wherein the US has exercised its power and unilaterally imposed severe sanctions on Russia – encouraging even its allies and partners to take the same measures against Russia. Increasingly, it is becoming evident that the US’s unilateral sanctions are having a negative impact on its credibility as a responsible superpower. Nevertheless, the book offers the general reader a comprehensive assessment of the US in the world order presently and more specifically, a comparison of its foreign policy strategies with the erstwhile Soviet Union and China.
Overall, America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline? is a thorough exposition of US foreign policy and draws from experts like Kishore Mahbubani, Mathew Kroenig, Francis Fukuyama, Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer and, unlike most literature on the topic, Hardy does not assume a fatalistic narrative that supports the US’s decline of power. Simply put, with the first Cold War, America had all the right configuration of factors in place. This seems to have changed in the second; if the US is facing China on the wrong configuration of factors, then the results are only a product of successive administrations lacking coherency in putting together a sound strategy. The author, in a reflection of his experience and expertise, incisively concludes that the US must pursue alternatives to a Cold War with China for three important reasons: first, sharing global governance responsibilities would aid in building US credibility as a responsible superpower as well provide cooperative solutions to global problems like climate change; second, US strategy towards China needs to be a choice between adopting a China-centred policy or alliance centred policy geared towards building multilateral cooperation and third, the interconnectedness of the global economic system will ensure that everyone pays the price for an expensive war between the US and China. The US’s only recourse is to focus on building back its credibility, alliances and partnerships. At the same time, it must be realistic and reflect a deeper understanding of China’s national interests and strategic objectives. These two intentions must work in tandem if the US hopes to successfully counter China.
The horrifying?images of desperate Afghans trying to get out of Kabul after the Western-backed government collapsed in August seemed to signify a major juncture in world history, as America turned away from the world. Yet in truth, the end of the American era had come much earlier. The long-term sources of American weakness and decline are more domestic than international. The country will remain a great power for many years, but just how influential it will depend on its ability to fix its internal problems, rather than its foreign policy.
The peak period of American hegemony lasted less than 20 years, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the financial crisis of 2007-09. The country was dominant in many domains of power—military, economic, political and cultural. The height of American hubris was the invasion of Iraq in 2003 when it hoped to remake not just Iraq and Afghanistan (invaded two years before), but the whole Middle East. America overestimated the effectiveness of military power to bring about deep political change, even as it underestimated the impact of its free-market economic model on global finance. The decade ended with its troops bogged down in two counterinsurgency wars, and a financial crisis that accentuated the inequalities American-led globalization had brought about.
Termites in the floorboards
The degree of unipolarity in this period has been rare in history, and the world has been reverting to a more normal state of multipolarity ever since, with China, Russia, India, Europe and other centres gaining power relative to America. Afghanistan’s ultimate effect on geopolitics is likely to be small: America survived an earlier,
humiliating defeat when it withdrew from Vietnam in 1975 but recovered and regained its dominance within a little more than a decade. The much bigger challenge to America’s global standing is domestic.
American society is deeply polarised and has found it difficult to find consensus on virtually anything. This polarization started over conventional policy issues like taxes and abortion but has since metastasized into a bitter fight over cultural identity. Normally a big external threat such as a global pandemic should be the occasion for citizens to rally around a common response. But the covid-19 crisis served rather to deepen America’s divisions, with social distancing, mask-wearing and vaccinations being seen not as public-health measures but as political markers. These conflicts have spread to all aspects of life, from sports to the brands of consumer products that red and blue Americans buy.
America’s influence abroad depends on its ability to fix its internal problems
Polarisation has affected foreign policy direction. During Barack Obama’s presidency,
Republicans took a hawkish stance and scolded Democrats for the Russian “reset” and alleged naivety regarding Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump turned the tables by embracing Putin, and
today roughly half of Republicans believe that the Democrats constitute a bigger threat to the American way of life than Russia does.
Madhav Trivedi: senior fellow at Stanford University?
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline “The end of American hegemony”
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2 年Is India going to replace the USA ?? OR China ????