Il declino dell’impero americano

DO-NOTHING POLITICS

The United States has been and can continue to be the world’s most important source of new ideas, big and small, technical and creative, economic and political. (If it were truly innovative, it could generate new ideas to produce new kinds of energy.) But to do that, it has to make some significant changes. The United States has a history of worrying that it is losing its edge. Today’s is at least the fourth wave of such concern since World War II. The first was in the late 1950s, a result of the Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik satellite. The second was in the early 1970s, when high oil prices and slow growth convinced Americans that Western Europe and Saudi Arabia were the powers of the future. The third one arrived in the mid-1980s, when most experts believed that Japan would be the technologically and economically dominant superpower of the future. The concern in each of these cases was well founded, the projections intelligent. But none of the feared scenarios came to pass. The reason is that the U.S. system proved to be flexible, resourceful, and resilient, able to correct its mistakes and shift its attention. A focus on U.S. economic decline ended up preventing it.

[ad]The problem today is that the U.S. political system seems to have lost its ability to fix its ailments. The economic problems in the United States today are real, but by and large they are not the product of deep inefficiencies within the U.S. economy, nor are they reflections of cultural decay. They are the consequences of specific government policies. Different policies could quickly and relatively easily move the United States onto a far more stable footing. A set of sensible reforms could be enacted tomorrow to trim wasteful spending and subsidies, increase savings, expand training in science and technology, secure pensions, create a workable immigration process, and achieve significant efficiencies in the use of energy. Policy experts do not have wide disagreements on most of these issues, and none of the proposed measures would require sacrifices reminiscent of wartime hardship, only modest adjustments of existing arrangements. And yet, because of politics, they appear impossible. The U.S. political system has lost the ability to accept some pain now for great gain later on.

As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. What was an antiquated and overly rigid political system to begin with (now about 225 years old) has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia — politics as theater — and very little substance, compromise, or action. A can-do country is now saddled with a do-nothing political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving.

It is clever contrarianism to be in favor of sharp party politics and against worthy calls for bipartisanship. Some political scientists have long wished that U.S. political parties were more like European ones — ideologically pure and tightly disciplined. But Europe’s parliamentary systems work well with partisan parties. In them, the executive branch always controls the legislative branch, and so the party in power can implement its agenda easily. The U.S. system, by contrast, is one of shared power, overlapping functions, and checks and balances. Progress requires broad coalitions between the two major parties and politicians who will cross the aisle. That is why James Madison distrusted political parties, lumping them together with all kinds of “factions” and considering them a grave danger to the young American republic.

Progress on any major problem — health care, Social Security, tax reform — will require compromise from both sides. It requires a longer-term perspective. And that has become politically deadly. Those who advocate sensible solutions and compromise legislation find themselves being marginalized by their party’s leadership, losing funds from special-interest groups, and being constantly attacked by their “side” on television and radio. The system provides greater incentives to stand firm and go back and tell your team that you refused to bow to the enemy. It is great for fundraising, but it is terrible for governing.

THE RISE OF THE REST

The real test for the United States is the opposite of that faced by Britain in 1900. Britain’s economic power waned even as it managed to maintain immense political influence around the world. The U.S. economy and American society, in contrast, are capable of responding to the economic pressures and competition they face. They can adjust, adapt, and persevere. The test for the United States is political — and it rests not just with the United States at large but with Washington in particular. Can Washington adjust and adapt to a world in which others have moved up? Can it respond to shifts in economic requirements and political power?

The world has been one in which the United States was utterly unrivaled for two decades. It has been, in a broader sense, a U.S.-designed world since the end of World War II. But it is now in the midst of one of history’s greatest periods of change.

There have been three tectonic power shifts over the last 500 years, fundamental changes in the distribution of power that have reshaped international life — its politics, economics, and culture. The first was the rise of the Western world, a process that began in the fifteenth century and accelerated dramatically in the late eighteenth century. It produced modernity as we know it: science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the agricultural and industrial revolutions. It also produced the prolonged political dominance of the nations of the West.

The second shift, which took place in the closing years of the nineteenth century, was the rise of the United States. Soon after it industrialized, the United States became the most powerful nation since imperial Rome, and the only one that was stronger than any likely combination of other nations. For most of the last century, the United States has dominated global economics, politics, science, culture, and ideas. For the last 20 years, that dominance has been unrivaled, a phenomenon unprecedented in history.

We are now living through the third great power shift of the modern era — the rise of the rest. Over the past few decades, countries all over the world have been experiencing rates of economic growth that were once unthinkable. Although they have had booms and busts, the overall trend has been vigorously forward. (This growth has been most visible in Asia but is no longer confined to it, which is why to call this change “the rise of Asia” does not describe it accurately.)

The emerging international system is likely to be quite different from those that have preceded it. A hundred years ago, there was a multipolar order run by a collection of European governments, with constantly shifting alliances, rivalries, miscalculations, and wars. Then came the duopoly of the Cold War, more stable in some ways, but with the superpowers reacting and overreacting to each other’s every move. Since 1991, we have lived under a U.S. imperium, a unique, unipolar world in which the open global economy has expanded and accelerated. This expansion is driving the next change in the nature of the international order. At the politico-military level, we remain in a single-superpower world. But polarity is not a binary phenomenon. The world will not stay unipolar for decades and then suddenly, one afternoon, become multipolar. On every dimension other than military power — industrial, financial, social, cultural — the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from U.S. dominance. That does not mean we are entering an anti-American world. But we are moving into a post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and by many people.

There are many specific policies and programs one could advocate to make the United States’ economy and society more competitive. But beyond all these what is also needed is a broader change in strategy and attitude. The United States must come to recognize that it faces a choice — it can stabilize the emerging world order by bringing in the new rising nations, ceding some of its own power and perquisites, and accepting a world with a diversity of voices and viewpoints. Or it can watch as the rise of the rest produces greater nationalism, diffusion, and disintegration, which will slowly tear apart the world order that the United States has built over the last 60 years. The case for the former is obvious. The world is changing, but it is going the United States’ way. The rest that are rising are embracing markets, democratic government (of some form or another), and greater openness and transparency. It might be a world in which the United States takes up less space, but it is one in which American ideas and ideals are overwhelmingly dominant. The United States has a window of opportunity to shape and master the changing global landscape, but only if it first recognizes that the post-American world is a reality — and embraces and celebrates that fact.
Fareed Zakaria is Editor of Newsweek International. This essay is adapted from his book The Post-American World (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., © 2008 by Fareed Zakaria).

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_future_of_american_power.html

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Posted by: Michal Zapendowski
Comment: #1
Apr 24, 11:02 PM
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The biggest difference between America today and Great Britain a century ago is the world surrounding them.

America today exists in a global community that is mostly democratic, and that is the main reason U.S. power will decline.

Britain in 1908 existed in a world of force. Few third-world nations were independent, most were the occupied colonies of more powerful nations. The other great imperial powers (France, Germany, Russia, Japan) were all building up their military arsenals and competing for territory. Britain dominated this kind of world, because through the Royal Navy it was able to exert more global force than any other great power. There was a direct connection between military and economic strength, on the one hand, and global domination on the other.

Fast forward to 2008. Large-scale global military force has largely become irrelevant. Witness the fate of America’s last two major invasions – in Vietnam and Iraq. What stands out is the supposed “superpower’s” utter ineffectiveness. Military power is not able to control the world, it is not even able to control a single third-world nation anymore. Where a century ago most of the world was kept in line by fear of British military force, there are few who truly fear American force today. And while the British people in 1908 supported the imperial project, the American people’s quick loss of patience in Iraq and Vietnam (the public turned against both wars after 2 years) demonstrates that the U.S. public does not support a global imperialist project.

The reason the United States accounts for 50 percent of the world’s defense spending today is not that America towers like a titan over the rest of the world, but simply that the rest of the world is no longer interested in military spending. Russia and China are simply too poor to compete militarily, but the powers that are wealthy enough to compete with America – France, Germany, Japan – are uninterested. The global community has embraced a vision of perpetual peace. In anyc ase, the spread of democracy has made 90% of the world un-invadable.

A democratic world community will inevitably grow to reflect the voices of all of its members. The direct link between global military and economic power and global influence that existed in 1908 doesn’t exist anymore in 2008. The age of the colonial power has ended, and the age of the superpower is ending as well. As global democracy spreads, America’s share of world power will shrink to reflect it’s share of the global population – roughly 4.5%. And that’s as it should be. Because the one thing more universal than the power of any one nation is the logic and appeal of peace and international democracy.

Posted by: UT Gov PhD ABD
Comment: #2
Apr 25, 12:54 AM
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Brilliant essay, except the problem with today’s politics isn’t special interests or hyper partisan politics. These aren’t causes but effects of a nearly equally divided electorate in a separated powers system with only two parties. Unify the government AND increase the marginals, ie: let either the Republican or Democratic president have 60 seats in the Senate and +60 seats in the House and you’ll get ‘bipartisan’ politics and innovation. Until the American people decide (or are led) to making this happen we’ll keep getting stasis. Good news is that America is due for our once every 3o some year, 7th generation, ‘partisan realignment’ any time now.

Posted by: joe in chicago
Comment: #3
Apr 25, 01:04 AM
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I have to disagree with UT, not that the article was quite well done and well-reasoned, but what I believe is his confusion over cause and effect – or is this a chicken & egg discussion? he suggests that the cause of political dysfunction is the equally divided electorate, but I would suggest, with the author, that the supposedly ‘equally divided electorate’ is rather a product of the very sensationalist media that thrives on hyper partisanship. There are divides, to be sure, but it’s not a bipolar cold war within the electorate. There are many groups, but they are driven sometimes against their will and against their better judgment to vote on specific issues that may not affect their immediate lives, but respond to symbols that make them feel like they’re affecting the process. Special interests play a part in this, as does the media, mostly because democracy depends on an infromed electorate. The internet in the last decade has done wonders to both deepen information and simultaneously harden partisanship, a quirk of the medium, but the potential in the former is still greatest.

Posted by: A.J. Toynbee
Comment: #4
Apr 25, 01:14 AM
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I’ve got to get some of what you’re smokin’ Michal Z. Islamic nut jobs will most likely nuke America in our lifetime. China must sink one of our carriers (to make people like you cry boo-hoo and force us to go home) and subdue Formosa (lets get used to calling it that again) to fulfill its nationalistic pride. Russia is rich with oil money and mad we moved NATO’s boarder 400 miles east. Mexico is slowly invading us with an eye towards payback for 1846… And you’re drinking the pacifist pink cool-aide and singing kumba-ya with a bunch of gray-haired summer-of-love-ers who look forward to American decline while calling themselves progressives.

Wow! Y’er about stupid.

Posted by: UT retort
Comment: #5
Apr 25, 01:32 AM
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You give me increased marginals and I’ll give you special interests and we’ll see who wins.

Whether you call them ‘factions’ (as did Madison), ‘parties’ (dominant 1840s-1960s), or ‘special interests’ (today) there have always been forces bent on (and particularly good at) dividing and polarizing the electorate for their own gain. Every 30 years or so (1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932, 1980) the electorate throws out one hegemonic bunch for another. We’re just at the end of a particularly evenly divided cycle. Once the coalitional foundations of the parties realign, we’ll all be asking ourselves what was all the fuss about back in 2008… just like we’ve totally forgotten that divisions over the ‘gold standard’ had everyone tut-tutting about the impossibility of change (in 1896).

Best, cn