As the world is undergoing a profound transformation, what role will the US play in a post-American century?
Empire
Last Modified: 02 Jan 2012 15:36
The US has the world's biggest economy, the most influential culture, and the most potent military machine, with a budget that equals that of all other nations combined. It is the only power with a global project defended and supported by more aircraft carriers, Fortune 500 companies, and more successful media-tainment conglomerates than any other.
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America's post-Cold War optimism has given way to pessimism, forecasting a declining power and more crucially, the end of "the American era".
The rise of new regional and global powers, coupled with Washington's recent war fiascos and financial crisis have worsened the outlook for the future of the US.
Countless books have been written prophesying the end with titles like: Suicide of a Superpower; The Empire Has No Clothes; Taming American Power; Nemesis: the Last Days of the American Republic; Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire; and Selling out A Superpower.
So, is all this talk of the US decline premature? And if not, what role will the US play in a post-US century?
Empire finds out.
Guests: Tom Engelhardt, editor, Tomdispatch; Susan Glasser, editor-in-chief, Foreign Policy; Professor Stephen M. Walt, International Affairs, Harvard University; Professor Cynthia Enloe, author, The Real State Of America.
Interviewees: Professor Nicholas Burns, former US under-secretary of state; Professor Andrew Bacevich, International Relations, Boston University; Professor Scott Lucas, American Studies, Birmingham University; Martin Wolf, chief economist, Financial Times; Professor Linda Yueh, economist, Oxford University; Kate Bulkley, technology and media analyst.
| This is the transcript for the Empire episode The decline of the American empire (Thursday, December 29, 2011) Narrator Its power is felt in every corner of the globe. Its military spending equals the rest of the world but has Washington finally over-reached with its debt sky-rocketing, its infrastructure crumbling and its competitors vying for influence? The world is undergoing a profound and complicated transformation. Economist The developing economies will surpass the developing economies. Narrator Is all the talk of American decline premature? Barack Obama Let's show the world once again why the United States of America remains the greatest nation on earth. Narrator Or is the sun finally setting on the American century? Marwan Bishara This is Empire. Hello and welcome to Empire. I am Marwan Bishara. The United States has the world’s biggest economy, strongest military and the most influential culture. It’s the only power with a global project defended and supported by more aircraft carriers, Fortune 500 companies and most successful media-tainment conglomerates than any other. But America’s post-cold war optimism, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, has given way to pessimism, forecasting a declining power and more crucially, the end of an American era. The rise of new divisional and global powers, coupled with Washington’s recent war fiascos and financial crisis have worsened the outlook for America’s future. Countless books have gone beyond recent developments to illustrate a persistent decline with titles like Suicide of a Superpower, The Empire Has No Clothes, Taming American Power, Nemesis, The Last Days of the American Republic, Colossus, The Rise and Fall of The American Empire and Selling Out a Superpower. But how serious are the Doomsday scenarios? Is this decline temporary or reversible and what does it mean to America and the rest of the world? Well joining me to answer these questions and more are Tom Engelhardt, editor of the American Empire Project and a popular website Tomdispatch, the author of the United States of Fear. Susan Glasser, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, former editor at the Washington Post and co-author of Kremlin Rising Vladimir Putin’s Russia And The End of Revolution. And Cynthia Enloe, professor of woman’s studies and international development at Clark University, the author of The Real State of America Atlas, Mapping the Myths and Truths of the United States and Bananas, Beaches and Bases, Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Last, but not least, Stephen Walt, professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, the author of Taming American Power and co-author of the Israel Lobby. Our starting point is US strategic overstretch.
Narrator
What exactly is the United States afraid of? This ship is part of
what is called a carrier battle group, it consists of an aircraft
carrier, cruisers, destroyers, scores of combat aircraft … and a
multitude of long and short range missiles and other weapons. It is so
large the entire thing requires roughly 10,000 military personnel to
operate. The United States boasts a dozen carrier battle groups of this
size. No other nation on earth has one. The question is why?
Professor Nicholas Burns – former US under-secretary of state
We are absolutely keeping America safe. The world is so complex right
now, there's so many threats and challenges to our national security.
You can't meet them in Boston in Los Angeles, you have to go out to meet
them to defend the country.
Narrator
But for many this idea of going out to meet these challenges is precisely the problem.
Professor Andrew Bacevich - international relations, Boston University
If you look at the period since 1990, over 20 years now, it really is
a period of enormous and continuing American military activism in all
parts of the world for all kinds of purposes. I find that troubling.
Professor Nicholas Burns
If you were drawing back to the continental United States and saying
we're no longer gonna be engaged in the world because it's too hard, or
it’s too expensive, isolation is a recipe for failure in the 21st
century.
Narrator
And yet another recipe for failure is economic calamity and that puts funding squarely in the spotlight. In the fiscal year 2012 the United States government has $1.34tr to play with. Currently, $553bn has been allocated to the defence budget. But as Washington has learnt the hard way, winning hearts and minds doesn't come cheap. In other words, is the money well spent?
Professor Andrew Bacevich
Heavens no, I mean absolutely not. I'm all for strong defence, I'm
all for having a very capable, well resourced military that keeps
America safe, that can prevent anything like 9/11. But the way we've
gone about trying to prevent a recurrence of 9/11 is absurd.
Narrator
But what about challenges at home? The economic dimension cannot be
ignored. The US military is a major domestic employer. The entire
defence industry turns over billions upon billions of dollars every year
and the link between the strength of the American economy and the
strength of the American military cannot be ignored. And critics are
quick to point out the perils of such a symbiotic relationship.
Professor Andrew Bacevich
There is in a sense, a partnership, probably goes too far to call it a
conspiracy, 'cause it's wide open but there's a partnership between
members of congress, the armed services and large scale defence
contractors, all of whom benefit in different ways by maintaining very
high levels of military spending.
Narrator
And that's why, during times of economic peril, politicians often resemble cheerleaders.
Joseh Biden – US vice president
You're the ones ensuring this alliance remains effective in meeting
the challenges of the 21st century from countering North Korea's nuclear
programme, to building up ties and trade and investment and generate
jobs back home to promoting democracy and human rights. You do it all,
you're the full package.
Narrator
And of course there's the matter of prestige, the projection of
strength. Any drastic changes to American hard power will create a
vacuum and it's impossible to predict, in today's world, how that will
be filled or by whom.
Professor Nicholas Burns
We can't just retreat to fortress America you know and bring up the
drawbridge and hope to defend our international security interests by
bringing all the troops home.
Narrator
And thus the cycle is endlessly perpetuated. Wars need funding,
funding creates jobs, jobs strengthen the economy. So perhaps the most
important question of all, is whether geo-political instability is the
excuse, rather than the justification. This is the essence of real
politics.
Professor Andrew Bacevich
Not am Empire in the old fashioned sense, but I think that there was a
clear desire and is a clear desire on the part of senior US officials
to want to ensure that the regimes that are in place are relatively
deferential to the United States, they will pursue policies that are
consistent with our policies. Basically to put us in a position where
we’re gonna be able to call the shots and that's a form of imperialism.
Narrator
Because with the global economy the way it is these days, imperialism is very good for business.
Marwan Bishara
Stephen you've written a lot about this whole overstretch, I mean
overstretch could actually also be good for business, it's not only a
burden, what do you think?
Tom Engelhardt – editor, Tomdispatch
I think we've had an enormous stimulus package abroad. We've been
spending money like crazy, we put about 1.2 trillion a year, maybe
that's conservative. I think it's proved to be a kind of squandering of
resources and I think if you look at the United States and you look at, I
mean you've got several things, you've got a kind of industrialisation,
you had the financialization that led to 2007/2008 and you had this
third thing which is our urge to kind of take the world, to create a pox
Americana and I think it too, has been a factor that's squandered
American treasure.
Marwan Bishara
But it's good for business, pox Americana.
Professor Stephen M. Walt – international affairs, Harvard University
I think that's a mistake. Whenever the defence budget comes under
pressure you hear the argument that this is necessary to keep the
American economy rolling. Most economists will tell you however, that
Pentagon spending is actually not the best way to stimulate the American
economy. But almost everyone would see that there are other ways to
invest the same amount of money that would create a much bigger economic
payoff here at home. Building infrastructure, whether it's roads and
bridges or internet networks, things that would actually enhance the
productivity of the American economy. So the excessive expenditure, it
has actually been a drag on the United States and we see that now when
we're trying to get a budget deal, right everyone understands that in
order to get the American federal budget back on a sort of stable
course, we’re gonna have to raise some taxes, gonna have to cut some
entitlements and we're gonna have to cut some defence spending. None of
these dramatically, but all of them enough to make it all work. And that
hasn't happened for political reasons, but not because cutting defence
would actually harm the American economy in a big way.
Marwan Bishara
But at the end of the day the defence budget as it it, 600 and some
billion dollars, it's less than 5 per cent of the American GDP, it's not
a huge percent of the American economy.
Professor Susan Glasser – editor-in-chief, Foreign Policy
It's something around four per cent, just under four per cent of
GDP, so it's something that whether you support it or not, we can afford
it and that's part of the reason why it's continue to grow, because the
United States has been so extraordinarily rich and successful, we’ve
been able to finance this astonishing expansion of the military and
associated, you know sort of complex budget. If you look at the numbers,
peoples' jaws always drop when they hear this, but the truth is that US
national security spending, right now, represents awful close to 50 per
cent of all of the world's military expenditures combined. And I think
when people hear that, they are just astonished, the scale and scope of
the militarisation of America's footprint in the world is something that
Americans here at home actually are astonishingly unaware of. That
said, I have to say, I have to comment on your sort of report that you
had, there’s no bad guys in there, the only conversation you know that
we’ve been framed to have is a conversation about American imperial
over-stretch as if we were the Roman empire sort of conquering
territories. And I think …
Marwan Bishara
You're actually far more vast than the Roman empire. Aren't you? I mean how many bases are there around the world?
Professor Susan Glasser
It's a different model, right.
Marwan Bishara
1,000?
Tom Engelhardt
It's approximately 1,000 if you don’t count for instance the 400 odd
that we built in Afghanistan or those 505 that we’ve just given up in
Iraq etc.
Marwan Bishara
So if this is not an imperial outreach, I don't know what is.
Professor Cynthia Enloe – international development, Clark University
One of the problems of this kind of militarisation of security, that
is convincing Americans that in fact the only way that they can feel
secure is to have a fortress and a outreach, you know global fortress.
And I think actually, there's a new discussion in the United States now
and I think actually not far from this studio is one of the occupied
Wall Street camps, and I think that's a discussion about well so what do
you mean by security? Right, whose security? How solid is that
security? How resilient is that security? And I think one of the things a
lot of us are, well some of us have been long convinced of this, but
others are really beginning to understand, that that kind of American
popular culture, of militarised security, is really very shallow and
it's not really secure.
Marwan Bishara
Let's take a look at the states with American bases in them. I mean
certainly you’re more likely to accept an American oil deal or American
business deal of some sort if there's an American base in your country,
no?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
I think it depends very much on a case by case basis. I mean there
are a number of countries around the world who I think are actually very
dependent upon American protection and grateful for it.
Marwan Bishara
Grateful meaning?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Grateful that they appreciate it.
Marwan Bishara
They do business with it.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Well not just 'cause they do business, South Korea likes having
American protection there because they have a bad relationship with
North Korea. Right, Japan likes having American protection because they
are worried about security. But I guess the point I'd make is this,
it's often viewed as a false choice between complete isolationism and
the United States taking over the world. The United States is not gonna
disengage from the entire world, we're not going back to fortress
America. The question is what are the places where the United States
should use its power and how should the United States use its power in a
constructive way? The problem with the last ten years or so is that
we've increasingly used our power in some foolish ways that have been
bad for the United States and not particularly good for the places we've
been using it.
Marwan Bishara
So you don't mind very much if they use power to get business contracts?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
No.
Marwan Bishara
Unfortunately is when they’re useless.
Professor Susan Glasser
But I think that’s a pretty, I mean to say that the exercise of
American power is invalid, you know forcing people to make business
details at the barrel of a gun.
Marwan Bishara
Why forcing, enticing?
Professor Susan Glasser
Right I think that's a pretty nuanced view of the world. I don't
think that Americans are in Afghanistan to make business deals and the
truth is, you know who's in Afghanistan to make business deals, it's the
Chinese.
Tom Engelhardt
I think it would be hard to argue that when the Bush administration
went out into the world they weren't thinking about energy flows, they
were thinking about breaking OPEC, they were thinking about doing a lot
of things and they were thinking about basing us, a kind of a South
Korean model, 30,000 troops maybe, in the heart of the oil lands of the
planet forever. Now the thing is sometimes you go out with guns to get
your contracts and it doesn't work out that way.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
I wanna bring the scale down a bit here and not talk about China and
Japan and the US, but actually talk about people who live around US
bases. There was such an effective anti-bases movement in the
Philippines that they Philippines senate, much against their earlier
inclinations, voted to end the basing agreement with the United States.
It causes a lot of disruption of social life.
Marwan Bishara
It certainly was the justification for getting the American bases out of Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
It's quite clear that part of the reason why al-Qaeda turned its
attention to attacking the United States directly was their perception
that infidels were now on sacred Islamic territory. It was not the only
thing they were upset by, but that was clearly one of them. So our
strategy of leaving five to 10,000 troops in Saudi Arabia as part of
dual containment in the 1990s was one of the things that helped lead to
that. Now among other things, that doesn't tell you the United States
should come home entirely, but it does tell you that having large, on
the ground, military presences in various parts of the world can have,
what Chalmers Johnson used to call blow-back effects, on the United
States itself, which is why we got to be rather careful about where we
deploy forces and try to minimise the American military footprint as
much as we can.
Marwan Bishara
So you’re in favour of deployment around the world, except you want it to be intelligent deployment?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Absolutely.
Marwan Bishara
So you are for empire except that you want to be downsized?
Professor Susan Glasser
Do you think that deployment and empire are synonyms?
Marwan Bishara
Deployment around the world in 1,000 bases.
Professor Susan Glasser
Empire.
Marwan Bishara
Who else around the world does that?
Professor Susan Glasser
No are deployment and empire synonyms?
Marwan Bishara
I mean do the Chinese have bases around the world? Do the Russians,
do they have such bases with the Indians, the Brazilians, the Turks?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Certainly the Soviet Union had bases all over the world, not as many as we did.
Marwan Bishara
A smaller empire?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
And we called it the Soviet Empire.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Yeah one should remember that every base is negotiated and I don't
mean amongst equals, it's definitely not amongst equals and one of the
things that is so irritating to South Koreans, many of whom are nervous
about the North, but are still appalled at the inequality and injustice
of the basing agreement and they're called …
Marwan Bishara
SOFAS.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
SOFAS, Status Of Forces Agreement.
Marwan Bishara
That's Iraqis …
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Yes and they are, for the most part, they are classified, which means
I got a call from people in an unidentified south Asian county, asking
me if I knew the small print in the SOFA agreement between their
government and the United States because it was not available to local
citizens. So that what you have is you have every base is negotiated to
reinforce the message that one your citizens don't matter, 'cause
they're not gonna find out what we've just given away. And two, that
you are not really secure in your own citizen rights because of this
basin agreement. So these SOFAs are not just burrs under the saddle,
they really destroy a sense of civic culture, in every country they're
in.
Professor Susan Glasser
I think you did make a very important point about the fact that these
are negotiated with governments, that there are reasons that these
occur. It's not you know an invasion force suddenly swoops down, lands
on your territory and says you know here's my Kalashnikov, you know I’d
like to have a base on your territory.
Tom Engelhardt
Sometimes it happens like that, but you're right.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
It's also worth noting that the United States was unable to negotiate
the kind of status of forces agreement that it wanted to get in Iraq
and one of the reasons that the American ground force presence is now
leaving, completely is …
Tom Engelhardt
It's called defeat.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Well and by the way it reminds us of something else that's important.
Some of these very one sided agreements in the past were negotiated
between the United States, what were essentially military dictatorships,
as countries become more democratic, as they have to pay more attention
to what their populations feel, the balance of political power and
negotiating those arrangements begins to change and I think that’s what
we're seeing in Iraq. However imperfect the Iraqi government may be,
they felt they could not negotiate a one-sided agreement, they actually
wanted the United States out or either staying on Iraqi terms or out.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Untenable.
Tom Engelhardt
There's a kind of a madness to the situation which we're discussing
very rationally in a way, and that is this, I mean in the Cold War, a
genuine major enemy, a giant nuclear arsenal, the Soviet Union, a giant
army, an imperial power, that was that moment. Now, the Soviet Union
disappears one day and the resulting period we end up with a national
security state, a Pentagon budget, a military intelligence bureaucracy, a
national security state that’s staggeringly bigger in a world in which,
at most, there are a few thousand scattered terrorists who wanna do
something to us. We're dealing with unsuccessfully with a couple of
minority insurgencies in the greater Middle East. I mean its
extraordinary to imagine that somehow we ended up with this gigantic,
call it what you will, imperial …
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Behemoth.
Tom Engelhardt
Behemoth.
Marwan Bishara
Who else in the world has a world project? No-one has a world project
but the United States and who is there to protect that world project?
Call it free trade, call it capitalism, call it neoliberalism, whatever
name you would like to attach to it, but who's to defend it? It's the US
and NATO.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
But our biggest trading partners are Canada and Europe and you know I mean they're not the countries…
Professor Susan Glasser
They're not forced at the barrel of a gun, most of trading relationships are you know…
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Or even by the wire of a base.
Marwan Bishara
Well didn’t just the Americans tell the Chinese pay attention we are a pacific power?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Right but that has, I think, almost nothing to do with American
economic interests in the short or medium term. I think that is a
concern over rising Chinese power, possibilities that China will attempt
to, either push us out or establish its own sphere of influence, not
immediately but down the road. But it's not because we are depending
upon the US navy to get us markets in Vietnam, or get us markets in
Singapore.
Marwan Bishara
Okay.
Professor Susan Glasser
It's opportunistic as well, right? I mean there's a sense that you
know in the regional competition for power between China and India,
China and Japan, that the US has an opportunity to forge closer
relationships with some of those countries that are anxious in their own
region about the rise of China.
Marwan Bishara
this is actually a problem and that should take us to our second half
of the show. But before we go to a news break we will take a look at
America's soft power and perhaps American prestigious universities are a
good case in point. Let's watch.
Narrator
America's education system is broken. If children are a country's
future, then the US appears to be squandering it. It has one of the most
unequal education systems in the developed world.
And yet some American universities and colleges continue to shine.
America boasts 17 of the world's top 20 universities and this is
according to the Chinese rankings.
It has seven of the top 10 most influential think tanks over all fields.
And 70 per cent of the world’s Nobel Prize winners are employed by American universities.
And they're not just ivory towers. With close links to industry,
elite universities in the US are the essential cogs in the economic
engine. Facebook was born in Harvard. And Stanford was the midwife to
Cisco, Hewlett Packard and Google. However, whilst it might be good at
the top, many schools remain under funded and critics say that they turn
out under skilled graduates.
Barack Obama - US president
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that countries that out-educate us today, they will out-compete us tomorrow.
Narrator
And to maintain its advantage the US attracts the best professors and students to its top schools.
There are 700,000 foreign students studying the America way.
Foreign Student
This kind of environment is better for my like development.
Narrator
And it's a symbiotic relationship. Overseas students not only bring
$20bn worth of foreign reserves, but their ideas help fuel Uncle Sam’s
most competitive high-tech industries.
52 per cent of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants.
And foreigners account for 25 per cent of American patent applications.
But it is definitely a two-way street. Foreigners educated in America
help to spread the gospel of US capitalism when they return home.
Foreign Student
If we learn some knowledge here and we can bring it back to China, in that way we are make benefit to our country.
Narrator
And America is determined to maintain the upper hand when it comes to
soft power. It spends twice as much as Europeans and four times as much
as China on research and development. So chances are, that the next
Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates will still be American for a little while
longer.
Marwan Bishara
Welcome back. The collapse of the Soviet Union has the most
threatened viability and durability of a super power lies in the
strength of its economy, not its military. With its share of the world
economy shrinking over the last half a century from half to a quarter of
the total many claim that America's skyrocketing debt, dwindling
productivity, exhausted middle class and decaying infrastructure do not
bode well for a 21st century super power. And yet, there is much the
world's foremost start-up nation can boast about.
Narrator
America is the engine of the global economy. It boasts a GDP on nearly $15tr and it's home to the world’s reserve currency.
Scott Lucas
In America there is a chant that you always hear "USA, USA we're number one, we’re number one".
Narrator
But many are starting to question that belief.
Scott Lucas – American Studies, Birmingham University
When it doesn't quite pan out that way, when you have economic
problems at home, when you're challenged internationally in a political
crisis, you still want to believe we're number one.
Narrator
And they're certainly being challenged right now.
Martin Wolf – chief economist, Financial Times
This is the first really big financial crisis, when it all goes into
reverse then you get a crash. Because this was a super boom, the crash
element is very, very, very bad.
Professor Scott Lucas
Certainly there was a shift in power relations because of the
economic changes at the end of 2008, but the first thing to say is this
isn't new.
But just because we have a power shift, doesn't mean you have all of a sudden American decline and new superpowers.
Professor Linda Yueh – economist, Oxford University
The US is ten times richer than China, it’s still the leader in lots
of things but it has to get used to the fact that lots of countries
around the world could look to Beijing as well as to Washington. It has
to get used to the fact it won’t be the only driver of global growth.
Narrator
But the American president is not quite ready to concede the point.
Barack Obama – US president
Let's meet the moment, let's get to work and let's show the world
once again why the United States of America remains the greatest nation
on earth.
Martin Wolf
The country itself has huge assets but you can't say that the
domestic policy agenda looks positive. The really big question is can
the US get its own house in order?
Narrator
Over the last four years American household income has declined by almost 10 per cent. One in ten adults is unemployed and one in six is living on food stamps.
The recent occupy protests are just the latest to question the American dream.
Protestor
We rattled their cage and now they're cracking down.
We go into the Middle East, be like hey we're gonna spread democracy
and here we are, our government's suppressing democracy, it's just like
how much hypocritical can that get?
Narrator
But while America Inc. may have lost it’s AAA rating, American brands
still dominate the globe. Coca Cola has a global revenue of $35bn per
annum, Microsoft, $69bn and Apple a whopping $100bn.
Kate Bulkley – technology analyst
Rumours of the collapse of the US tech sector innovation is let’s say overblown. I think that there’s a lot of innovation still in Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of innovation in America full stop. You can’t count out the companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, you know they just keep coming.
But even this dominance is falling away. In 2007, the top five global
corporations were American. Today there are only two and the world is
catching up fast.
Kate Bulkley
I don’t think that that means that innovation is over in the United
States. It just means that there is you know growth happening in a
different way and at a different magnitude in some of these other
markets, particularly in Asia.
Narrator
But whether it's the decline of the west or the rise of the west, the dollar is still seen as the safest bet, giving economists some reason for optimism.
Martin Wolf
At the moment the US dollar wins the ugliness parade. As long as the
Americans do not completely mess up the domestic situation, I think the
dollar survives as the global reserve currency because there simply
isn't anything else.
So, it's a mixed balance sheet. Since the middle of the 20th
century no other country has come close to rivaling America’s economy
and yet it’s decline, however long it takes, now seems almost
inevitable.
Professor Linda Yueh
If you thought the US economy was going to rebound quickly, like after recession, you'd be sorely disappointed.
Professor Scott Lucas
For all the problems that the United States has had, whether we talk
about economically or politically, there's always a point from which you
can start again, rebuild, grow. Other countries don’t have that
luxury. So yes, America, for all the talk of decline, is not going to
implode.
Marwan Bishara
Susan, we've heard this before, right? American decline, decline of
American economic power, you were in Moscow after the collapse so soon
and is America facing anything similar? Is America really collapsing
economically?
Professor Susan Glasser – editor-in-chief, Foreign Policy
Well you know that's an interesting comparison. Russia, after the
collapse the Soviet Union was facing an existential crisis of the sort
that is certainly not yet upon us, but it is certainly a conversation
that Washington pundits are having, that you know TV talk shows are
having. That you know there's a whole book shelf you could fill up, you
know if you're so inclined this holiday season, there's about 20 books
you could buy about the decline of America. How quickly is it happening?
Has China actually already overtaken the US economically? Or what's the
date when that's gonna happen? This is a robust debate that's
occurring, we have a future decline watch on our site and in part it's
to make fun a little bit of the media's obsession with this.
Marwan Bishara
Seriously?
Professor Susan Glasser
You know but in part it's also a serious conversation that we're
having and you know I would say the sort of polite conventional wisdom
in the centre here has really centred around the debate of is this a
period of relative decline that the United States is embarking in, in
which we basically keep the same international order but expand it to
fill those of rising powers, particularly democratic powers such as
Brazil and Turkey, which while we have occasionally friction with them,
are after all very close American allies and do share a set of values.
Or is this a kind of implosion? It's hard to see you know that there's a
moment where we're gonna fall off the cliff, like in one of those
cartoons.
Marwan Bishara
Is it a soft landing or is it falling over the cliff?
Tom Engelhardt – author, The United States of Fear
Well the pay off, I mean it wouldn't have to be anything but a soft
landing, I mean I think decline seems obvious to me at some level, but I
think the answer is that we are still an immensely rich country, we
have a lot of resources, there's no reason that we should go over a
cliff. However, there's not reason but the path looks eerily cliff-like.
I mean just politically in the United States I see no reason to believe
any 2012 election results, no matter what they are, favouring what
party, could lead to anything but more of a country, you know we used to
talk about ourselves as a can do country. As a kind of a can do country
through 2016. I just don't see, I mean Stephen was talking about
rebuilding infrastructure, which is of course an absolute necessity, the
Soviet Union went down partially because it's infrastructure tattered
while it was in a war in Afghanistan and pouring money into it's
military. But there’s no evidence that there's any way say between now
and 2016 that the US is gonna put real money into its infrastructure, no
matter what happens. So I say hard landing.
Marwan Bishara
Before we do yes we can, no we can’t, is that an American problem or
is just the world rising way beyond America’s capabilities as well
Professor Stephen M. Walt – author, Taming American Power
Well I think that first of all this concern American decline has been
perennial, right? You see it in the fifties, you see it in the sixties,
you see it in the seventies and the eighties, Japan was gonna take over
and that didn’t transpire. The United States' relative position has
declined from World War II, when we had half the world's economy, but
that was inevitable. We've had roughly a quarter for 20 or 30 years so
the decline is very …
Marwan Bishara
I tell you Stephen, China is not Japan.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
No, no I understand that but China will face many problems of its own
in the years to come as well, an aging population, some significant
internal adjustments, real problems with pollution and infrastructure of
their own. So it's not gonna be easy for China and that gets to your
main point is, I think if you wanna be worried it's not so much about
decline in the United States, it's rather that virtually every part of
the world now is facing real challenges. Europe is in, I think, a real
crisis condition with the future of the Euro is very much in doubt and
untangling that mess is gonna be very difficult, there's virtually no
prospect of rapid economic growth in Europe any time soon, right? The
Middle East has been convulsed by the Arab Spring, that's gonna I think
continue to be an issue for many Middle Eastern countries for many years
to come as well. China, as I just said, will face real problems of its
own. Japan has been in an economic slump for 20 years now, really.
Marwan Bishara
So America is living the honeymoon then?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
So there's good news and bad news. If all you care about is America's
relative position, I suppose that’s good news that other places are
having problems. But if you care about American prosperity, if you care
about the ability of Americans to trade and invest and do well
themselves, then you do have to worry that we are in a period of
history, which may last a decade or more, where many parts of the world
are troubled and all of them essentially hold each other back. And the
problem there is that the politics then, when you have Japan, Europe,
United States, maybe some other parts in a prolonged slump, the politics
start to turn very ugly and that I think is really worrisome over time.
Professor Cynthia Enloe – author, The Real State of America
I think really this setting up the world as if it were a hockey
match, complete with the enforcers, is really not a very useful way to
try and think about it, that is thinking about America decline. I mean
one of the things that has really fed American popular culture is this
kind of anxiety about not being number one. Whereas, if you talk to the
Dutch, they're not worried about not being number one, I mean maybe they
were after the 1600s but …
Marwan Bishara
Let along being liked or not by the rest of the world.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Yeah right, but it really has corrupted American public culture, it
means that we can't talk about things reasonably and one of the things
that happening and we're about to have a major discussion about what do
you think of public life? What do you think of public investment? And
that means government as well. But that has to happen across the whole
country in order to not only just build bridges, but to re-establish a
much more realistic sense of America in the world.
Professor Susan Glasser
Well I think you've made a really important point about the status
anxiety of being number one and it’s interesting because so far the
conversation is oh Barack Obama, the triumphalist, we saw him speaking
to the State of the Union address and saying hey we're still at number
one. But actually, his republican challengers are pretty much united
only in one thing right now, which is to beat up on Barack Obama as
somehow being an apologist for the United States that they are very much
having a discussion about whether Obama and the Democratic Party are
sufficient believers in American greatness. Back in 2009, Barack Obama
said well I believe in American exceptionalism, just like I'm sure the
Brits believed in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believed in
Greek exceptionalism.
Marwan Bishara
That didn't go down well.
Professor Susan Glasser
That didn't go down well, to say the least, but you know that, I
think it's a very important and revealing conversation for your viewers
around the world to understand that belief in this notion of America's
special destiny, the idea that there is something powering our unique
history and yeah it has in fact in a very unusual history. We had a
very, very fast rise to that number one status. We have benefits of
being on a continent surrounded by and protected by two oceans. We have
this economic engine and the benefits of you know the sort of post-World
War II international order being shaped around American economic
institutions. So we have a lot of assets in a fast changing world.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
And part of the debate that really does need to happen is what are the best ways to measure or see American greatness?
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Small g, not big g!
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Yes this show began by showing American aircraft carriers steaming
around and that's a very easy way for Americans to think well we must be
number one, look at this large military footprint we have. But the
point is there is an entirely different way to look at America’s role in
the world and American influence and that would be the influence that
we have by creating a society here, in the United States that others
want to emulate. Not in every way.
Marwan Bishara
But Stephen let's talk about the society.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Okay.
Marwan Bishara
It used to be the society about hard work, it used to be the society
of the community, is it becoming more of a society of entitlement? Lower
taxes, bigger for government, we wanna have it all, consume it all,
invest little in infrastructure and so on. Is this the problem here now?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
That's I think a problem for a very small fragment of Americans.
Americans actually, if you look compared to most industrialised
countries, work longer hours, work more weekends, take fewer vacations,
we're still a society where people work extraordinarily hard. Whether we
are making other decisions, for example on who should pay taxes and
what share of them to balance America's budgets? Or whether or not we
have too much ...
Marwan Bishara
Because the budget is going up and the taxes are going down which creates deficit, I mean as everyone would know.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Exactly right and whether or not we've allowed the wealthiest
American’s to not just have too much money but also have too much
political influence through that money, that’s a genuine debate. But
it's not about Americans suddenly becoming lazy and just wanting to sit
around the house and watch television.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
No, in fact one of the big problems for so many Americans is they're working longer hours and having less economic security.
Professor Susan Glasser
But the question of an opportunity society, 'cause we haven't really
touched on this at all, but what is the role of a political system as
imperfect as the one we have is, versus anywhere else in the world? And
you know the question of soft power as it were, largely resides, you
know historically has resided in the fact that people around the world,
this is where they want to come to. That extraordinary influx of
immigrants, the fact that at least in previous generations, Americans
have shown they can rise from nothing to extraordinary wealth and
influence.
Marwan Bishara
You think this is still the case?
Professor Susan Glasser
There's no question it’s still the case.
Tom Engelhardt
I would argue that the set of protests that we've seen in the last
couple of years, I mean 2007/2008 hit the meltdown, there was a kind of a
silence and then there have been two waves of protest so far, here as
part of a kind of a global protest really, the first was the tea party,
looked like a right wing, older, retired white people. And then the
second one, which is young and someone more diverse, but I think both of
them visibly from their different points of view are protestors in
mourning over the loss of the world that I grew up in, they know they
have a deep feeling that the world that they thought they were gonna
get, that they were promised, that I grew up in, that you grew up in,
that you grew up in, is not going to come back.
Marwan Bishara
So what is that? Is that just some nostalgia for the past?
Professor Cynthia Enloe
They didn't think they were gonna get it as an entitlement.
Tom Engelhardt
Not as an entitlement no.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
They thought if they worked as hard as everybody else they would have opportunity.
Marwan Bishara
But Cynthia is there as least, okay so let's look at the culture of
lack of fairness. It seems a lot of people in the United States feel
nowadays, that big bankers can get away with billions and small people,
unemployed and so on and so forth can't get away with just a few.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
The top three countries in terms of inequality of income, amongst the
developed world, that's the OECD right, the top three are Mexico,
Turkey and the third is the United States.
Marwan Bishara
So what does that tell you?
Professor Cynthia Enloe
That tells you that a lot of the people who are now protesting really
think there's some basic unfairness going on here as well as lack of
public investment.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
I think there are two phenomena here and they can both be correct.
There is a widespread sense in the country that a small segment of
people have managed, essentially write the rules or some of the rules,
in their own favour and that’s the protest against essentially the
financial industry. And moreover that this group of increasingly
unregulated people caused enormous damage to American society and got
away with it. I think that's basically correct. So there is this anger
at a sense of unfairness. At the same time, it can also be the case that
if the American economy is working reasonably well there are greater
opportunities for everyone here.
Marwan Bishara
Do you think the 99 would be happy if just the economy's doing better?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
No they would still dislike the unfairness, but it is still a very
dynamic economy and the thing that worries people is whether or not the
government will manage to get the American economy moving again to the
point that then all that dynamism can come out again.
Marwan Bishara
Which takes us back to your point there Susan, this part of, this
aspect of the American system is not exactly attractive to the outside
world when you can see people getting away, the way people did get away
with major economic crimes if you will, the last two years. None of
them's gonna be prosecuted or anything.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Nor in Ireland, nor in Iceland.
Professor Susan Glasser
Well I mean, right there is a global crisis of capitalism which has
been unfolding over the last several years and that's why you see
literally protests and you know serious assaults to political leadership
across the globe, in every continent and in every way, shape and form.
What’s interesting to me about this conversation is to what extent has
the United States lost its allure as a haven, a magnet for the kind of
immigrants, the kind of people who have powered this extraordinarily
diverse and really many faceted, not just economic but its part of the
political system too. And you know do you see a lot of people saying
well gee China is you know so successful in powering a making this
incredible accomplishment right over the last decade of lifting hundreds
of millions of people out of poverty. It's an incredible
accomplishment, nobody sees it as a city on a hill, nobody sees it as
like you know give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses and
let's go to China where they’re making jobs for people. You know it is
about the political system, as flawed as it is too and the question that
I have is as we come through this crisis, what is it gonna look like on
the other side for people?
Tom Engelhardt
You know I think there's one factor we really haven't brought up
here, when you talk about American decline, you probably should be
talking about decline but everybody can say there’s nothing new under
the sun but in fact we're at a historical moment where there is
something new under the sun. The actual planet is under pressure at this
point. Global warming is no small thing, by the end of this century, if
things don't change, we could have an 11 degree rise in the globe's
temperature.
Marwan Bishara
So you simply don't want to globalise the American model because
consumers and the way it happens here, the way they burn energy, if the
Chinese will do it?
Tom Engelhardt
I don't think it's like the US is going down and you're gonna get a
Chinese empire rising. I think you've got a planet in crisis and we're
just barely beginning to feel it.
Marwan Bishara
The question is, is there an alternative to the American model? Is there an alternative for the American leadership?
Professor Cynthia Enloe
There's an alternative within the United States, I mean that's why
there's a debate in the United States now, actually and there have
always been alternatives within the United States. But the question is,
and this will be electoral politics but also will be cultural politics,
to really kind of give that, well legs if you will and I think to think
about the alternative American model, which would be a fairer model,
which would be a model that had a culture of public life, that would be a
model that didn't shout USA number one, but rather you know looked at
world problems and tried to take part in the solution of world problems.
That’s a really alternative model.
Marwan Bishara
Stephen this is it, do we need to downsize the empire in all its forms and aspirations in order to save the republic?
Professor Stephen M. Walt
I will go out on a limb, I don't know if we'll get as far as Cynthia
is hoping, perhaps, but I think that as a consequence of changes that
are happening in the world, the rise of a number of other powers, as has
been mentioned, as a result of the fiscal pressure the United States is
under here at home, not a disaster but very serious, needs to be
responded to. As a result of all of these things you're going to see a
downsizing of the United States, we're gonna be out of Iraq, we're gonna
be out of Afghanistan, we're not gonna do projects like that again any
time soon. We're already downsized in Europe, we are shifting attention
to Asia, so that's gonna stay there but I would argue that 20 years from
now there’ll be a much more modest American presence. It will not
disappear but it will be more modest and I believe, and this is where
I'm crossing my fingers, I believe there will be a greater effort to try
and rebuild the United States, you know nation building at home as many
people said.
Marwan Bishara
Not in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Right and the only asterisk I'll put on that is if Tom is right about
climate change and its potential global effects, this discussion may
seem like a very minor issue 20 or 30 or 40 years from now, even for the
United States.
Marwan Bishara
Tom, I'll give you the last word, do you think America's adventure or America's interventionist instinct could be put in check?
Tom Engelhardt
I think it is in check. I mean that is I think it's the nature of our
world right now that you know I mean Afghanistan, they're still talking
about you know bases after 2014, 25,000 troops to 2020, whatever it
might be, I think it's gonna turn out to be something of a fantasy. I
mean we won't sustain this, whatever we say, I mean agree.
Marwan Bishara
Base in Australia, the Russians are complaining you're intervening in
their affairs, Iran exposed some kind of drone over their space.
Enlargement in Africa…
Tom Engelhardt
Yes, yes, no, all of this is happening, there's still the urge to
surge somewhere in there for some people, but I think realistically
speaking we're just gonna come up against limits.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
And we'll be healthier for it.
Tom Engelhardt
Yeah, three cheers.
Marwan Bishara
Well that's a positive note that we could end on.
Tom Engelhardt
One and a half cheers.
Marwan Bishara
Gentlemen, Susan, Cynthia, thank you for joining Empire.
Professor Stephen M. Walt
Thank you.
Professor Cynthia Enloe
Thank you.
Marwan Bishara
I will be back for the last thoughts.
Marwan Bishara
America's national emblem and the symbol of its strength, the bald
eagle, might be fierce and majestic but it's the funny Mickey Mouse that
rules with his red shorts, yellow shoes and white gloves. The Pentagon
wastes hundreds of billions on expensive weapons and distant military
bases every year but all too frequently, fails to win wars or achieve US
strategic objectives. On the other hand, Walt Disney, like it or not,
generates tens of billions of dollars annually and in the process has
captured the attention and imagination of countless young people around
the world though a distinctly American cultural narrative. In reality,
America continues to gain more influence through the attraction of its
soft power than through the destruction of its hard power. Many people
have been killed because of the latter, but I have yet to hear about
anyone dying under Mickey's watch. And that’s the way it goes, write to
me with your suggestions to empire@aljazeera.net. Until next time. |
