Posted on 02/04/2008 5:55:15 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Everybody’s homework assignment this week is, first, to absorb Parag Khanna’s breathtaking revisioning of the United States in the world, and, second, to add your comment on the late great American Empire. Can it have come and gone so fast? Parag Khanna will join us in class with James Der Derian, the master of global security and media studies at Brown, on Thursday afternoon.
Parag Khanna: Who Shrunk US Power? Parag Khanna’s scorecard-lineup of the “post-American world” is more striking for appearing counterintuitively in the safe, smug New York Times Sunday magazine. Five years ago in the same spot, Michael Ignatieff’s version at the start of the Iraq war was titled: The American Empire: Get Used to It. The headling on Parag Khanna’s piece was Who Shrank the Superpower? (Answer: GWB and “imperial overstretch.”) The main points, Letterman-style, might be these:
10. The Big Three in the real world these days are China, the European Union, and with a worrisome limp, the U. S. of A.
9. The big-name non-contenders are Russia, Islam and India.
8. The swing-states out there are the nations of what Parag Khanna calls “the second world.” Think Malaysia, Morocco, Venezuela, Vietnam, Turkey, Brazil, Kazakhstan: nations not of the First nor the Third World, but a mix of both: places often with their own “fissured personalities.” Their primary interests seems to be economic inclusion and self-development. Their acquired skill is in playing several angles of international politics at once. “Right now,” writes Parag Khanna, “from the Middle East to Southeast Asic, the hero of the second world — including its democracies — is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.”
7. Our American cultural power is declining with our political charm.
Many poor regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream. Africa wants a real African Union, like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent. Activists in the Middle East want parliamentary democracy like Europe’s, not American-style presidential strongman rule. Many of the foreign students we shunned after 9/11 are now in London and Berlin: twice as many Chinese study in Europe as in the U.S. We didn’t educate them, so we have no claims on their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past…
Parag Khanna: Who Shrank the Superpower? in The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2008. 6. China is the counter-broker of what we have thought of as our unanswerable power. As in: “Every countr in the world currently considered a rogue state by the U.S. now enjoys a diplomatic, economic or strategic lifeline from China, Iran being the most prominent example.”
5. Globalization is a three-way street.
” Globalization is not synonymous with Americanization; in fact, nothing has brought about the erosion of American primacy faster than globalization… The second world’s priority is not to become America but to succees by any means necessary… the new reality of global affairs is that there is not one way to win allies and influence countries but three: American’s coalition (as in “coalition of the willing”), Europe’s consensus and China’s consultative styles. The geopolitical marketplace will decide which will lead the 21st Century.”
Parag Khanna: Who Shrank the Superpower? in The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2008. 4. Russia — being bought out by Europe even as it becomes a petro-vassal of China — is reduced to being “the ultimate second-world swing state… For all its muscle flexing, Russia is also disappearing. Its population decline is a staggering half million citizens per year or more, meaning it will be not much larger than Turkey by 2025 or so — spread across a land so vast that it no longer even makes sense as a country.”
3. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela signals an ideological awakening in Latin America, but Brazil marks out an even more important structural shift in China’s direction, virtually a “strategic alliance.”
Their economies are remarkably complementary, with Brazil shipping iron ire, timber, zinc, beef, milk and soybeans to China and China investing in Brazil’s hydroelectric dams, steel mills and show factories… Latin America has mostly been a geopolitical afterthought over the centuries, but in the 21st century, all resources will be competed for, and none are too far away.
Parag Khanna: Who Shrank the Superpower? in The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2008. 2. “Despite the ‘mirage of immortality’ that afflicts global empires, the only reliable rule of history is its cycles of imperial rise and decline, and as Toynbee also pithily noted, the only direction to go from the apogee of power is down.”
1. We have very little time to adjust our thinking and our policies. “Maintaining America’s empire can only get costlier in blood and treasure. It isn’t worth it, and history promises the effort will fail. It already has.”
Comments please, and push-back questions for Parag Khanna.
Start anywhere. Disprove any of the ten points. I am having a hard time disproving them.
We are on a decline right at this moment. I would not blame Bush and WOT as much as I would globalization and the fact that the rest of the world is starting to catch up with us vis-a-vis technology, information and production.
With the value of the dollar so low the rest of the world is still turning to China and other places to invest.
As long as the USA has big purchasing power and a strong political will then it will not decline to any great extent. China is potentially a far bigger problem going forward than anyone might have thought 10 years ago. Russia is mainly bluster and BS ( with nukes). Europe is awash with Islam and in 50 years or so will (by virtue of the size of the Islamic population) be a virtual Calipahte
Cheers
Mel
The USA is the greatest nation that has ever existed because it was created explicitly by God to be God's country.
And even if this were not the case, you are a treasonous traitor for not claiming that it is perfect now, has always been perfect, and will be perfect forever.
If we say it enough ... over and over again ... maybe while clicking our heels together ... it we always be true.
“With the value of the dollar so low the rest of the world is still turning to China and other places to invest.”
The Chinese currency is pegged to the dollar.
And the United States receives the single lion’s share of foreign direct investment, at least by the last figures I viewed.
His points are, by and large, valid, in terms of the manner of competition we face. His proclamations about America’s degree of decline to this point, and China and — bogglingly — the E.U.’s rise are wildly overblown. Terming the E.U. a “superpower” without batting an eye, and playing up the idea that they have a “big waller” because of their market size, as though the U.S. does not possess the same, is fairly mind-boggling.
“And even if this were not the case, you are a treasonous traitor for not claiming that it is perfect now, has always been perfect, and will be perfect forever.”
I’ll never understand this attitude. Either everyone must believe everything is perfect, or you must accept any proclamation, no matter how stunningly long-winded and hyper-negative, without complaint?
The reason that money is running towards Emerging Market countries is simple: the US economy is about 1/4 of the entire world economy but is growing at less than 5% per year. This quarter it may have stopped growing. Other countries start from a far smaller base, but are growing at double digit rates.
To put it in perspective, Google trades more shares, as measured in dollar volume, in a single day then the entire Argentina stock market does in a week, at least according to a piece I read in Barrons.
There is a Dark Side to the rush to buy shares of Emerging Market companies: too much money chasing too few stocks. It doesn’t take many billions of new money in dozens of Emerging Market mutual funds before the flood has caused prices to really pop on those small markets, creating a bubble in their own right. And EMs are EMs for a reason. For example, Bolivia has had a change of government and the new leftist president has reduced the value of mining in that poor country by raising royalties.
The entire Chinese economy totals is less then then growth in the US Economy in the last 4 years. EU? Nice in concept doesn't seem to be working out too well in fact.
Military? Don't make me laugh. The CURRENT US Military could kick all their butts combined. God help any of them if they really make us mad.
Economics? We are their biggest market. Our economy sneezes, the whole world catches cold as is witnessed by the bursting of the US housing bubble.
More of the usual wishful thinking of the Hate America 1st crowd. Said this same crap about Japan in the 1980s. Where is Japan now?
How much of the U.S.'s "wealth" is in equity? What would it take to lose that equity?
I don't think the U.S. is dying. I think the U.S. is laying stagnant allowing others to catch up.
These clowns screamed the same ultra ignorant dogma about Japan during the 1980s. Same clowns, new countries, same ignorant hysteric song.
“I don’t think the U.S. is dying. I think the U.S. is laying stagnant allowing others to catch up.”
Then you don’t really agree with the linked article. The premise of this articles, and others like it, is that the U.S. has flatly declined, both relatively and absolutely, against rising powers such as China and the E.U. (and the sillier articles include Russia, which usually underscores that the author is has not even basic economics knowledge), both because we have “fumbled around” under Bush and because they have risen/coalesced so quickly. In short, even if we had kept our eye on the ball we’d had declined relative to them because they are forces too massive, too powerful, to great for us to influence or control.
Total BS. The entire Chinese Economy right now is less then just the growth in the US Economy in the last 4 years. The reason China seems so awesome NOW is they have so much unrealized potential they are meetings. They will make the same mistake the Japs did. Massive over expansion based on the assumption these growth rates will continue forever. They will not. You people screamed the same ignorant dogmas during the 1980s about Japan. You were wrong then, you are wrong now.
His whole premise, based wholly on his emotion based hate for the USA, is all these disparage interests will all magically unite by some means to gang up on us. Never going to happen. They are far more likely to end up fighting each other for shares of our domestic market.
Wishful thinking on the part of the author
First of all, the attack on America by the author is proof that he knows we are number one.
One of the most basic demographic reasons that America will continue to crush all other powers is the relative youthfulness of our population. China, India, and Europe will soon be crushed by demographic tidal waves that make our Medicare crisis look like a minor economic cost.
US military hardpower continues to far exceed all other rivals
Your response is more hysterical ... as always.
I know. Don’t bother the Chicken Littles with the lousy stink’ FACTS! They have their doom and gloom dogmas and they will cling to them with rabid intensity no matter what the truth is.
And "success by any means necessary" is a priority not confined to the second world. It is very much American. It is a priority of the Democrat Party, which half the U.S. population supports.
“However correct or incorrect I don’t see any hysterics in what was written”
If you don’t see hysterics in the form of hyperbole in the article, I don’t know what to say. On a third read, the piece becomes even less coherent in terms of describing either two peer competitors (which he is saying China and the E.U. are now - peers) or the framework of economic and diplomatic arrangements that have been created to contain American influence, either out of a desire to do just that or a desire to insulate the creators from the fallout of America’s problems (and imminent demise).
It’s kinda odd how he points out that Russia’s population is dwindling, but fails to mention that the same thing is happening in Europe.
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