Stress Test for a Fading Superpower

Townhall.com ^ | February 11, 2022 | Pat Buchanan

[Kaslin]

Because America entered both world wars of the 20th century last, while all the other great powers bled one another, and because we outlasted the Soviet Empire in the Cold War, America emerged, in the term of President George H.W. Bush, as "the last superpower."

We had it all. We were the "indispensable nation." We saw further into the future. We could impose our "benevolent global hegemony" on all mankind. And so it was that we set out to create a "new world order," plunging into successive wars in Iraq, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Syria, Libya, Yemen.

So doing, we bled ourselves, distracted ourselves, exhausted ourselves and sundered ourselves, until half the country was echoing George McGovern's 1972 campaign slogan: "Come home, America."

And as we went crusading for a new world order, Vladimir Putin's Russia gradually recovered from its crushing Cold War defeat, and China began to move out of America's shadow to become the most powerful rival modern America had ever faced.

Now, U.S. hegemony is being everywhere challenged -- in Eastern Europe, the Near East, Southeast Asia, East Asia. And the challenges arise from autocrats united in their resolve to reduce the power and the presence of the United States in their part of the world.

All of America's adversaries have something in common: They want us out of their neighborhood.

After resident Joe Biden's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ukraine is the site of the latest challenge, triggered by Russia's deployment of some 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders.

Given that he caused this crisis, Putin is unlikely to withdraw all his forces without visible assurances that Ukraine never becomes a member of NATO. And, given that no NATO ally or neighbor of Ukraine has shown a disposition to fight Russia for Ukraine, Putin is likely ultimately to prevail.

Neither Georgia nor Ukraine will soon be invited to join NATO, no matter the "open door" policy of the alliance.

And as Putin is committed to creating a sphere of influence where no next-door neighbor is a NATO ally, we are probably only at the beginning of a series of crises over the exclusion of nations from the alliance.

A second member of the global anti-American front is Iran.

The U.S. and Iran are said to be close to renewing the nuclear deal from which former President Donald Trump walked away. Yet, the persistent threat from Iran and its radical allies like the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Shia militia in Syria and Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon is likely to complicate any U.S. effort to extricate ourselves from a Middle East that has consumed so much of our attention and resources since 9/11.

In East Asia, China has begun anew sending military aircraft into the Air Defense Identification Zone of Taiwan, and it has never relinquished its claim to that island of 24 million and former U.S. ally. After the Ukraine crisis is resolved, Taiwan is likely to soon be back on the front burner.

If we would not fight Russia on behalf of Ukraine, why would we go to war with China to defend the independence of Taiwan, when, 50 years ago this month, President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger declared Taiwan to be "a part of China"?

North Korea has resumed testing its cruise and ballistic missiles. And Pyongyang is not going to hold off forever the testing of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The question here is how far off is the next confrontation. And, as there is no U.S. national disposition to fight for Ukraine, it is hard to believe that, 70 years after sending 350,000 troops to South Korea, we would send an army of that size to again fight the North.

Bottom line: The balance of power is constantly shifting. And in this new century, it has been shifting in favor of America's adversaries, all of whom wish to see us diminished.

Where former President George W. Bush warned of an "axis of evil" that included Iraq, Iran and North Korea, its successor today includes Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, a far more formidable axis. Moreover, America's relative power and willingness to use it is far diminished from what it was in George Bush's day.

The new correlation of forces:

North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power with intercontinental ballistic missiles that can hit the USA. Russia's armed forces are more imposing than they were two decades ago. China has swept past every rival power to the United States, while America's allies are less powerful and less united behind it.

Meanwhile, America has run up a national debt larger than the entire U.S. economy. Its trade deficits are at record levels. Its borders are being overrun by migrants from all over the world. And its disposition to intervene, engage and fight for democracy has rarely been lower.

The global stress test of the last superpower is on, and it is not likely we will pass it with a grade as high as the one we had earned by the Cold War's end.

[CIB-173RDABN]

They want us out of their neighborhood.

---

Until they need us... except we will not be able to help

Beware of what you wish for, you may get it. The world wished for a weaken America and they now have it.

There is now no big brother to come to their rescue when the neighborhood bully takes their lunch money.

[nathanbedford]

Meanwhile, America has run up a national debt larger than the entire U.S. economy. Its trade deficits are at record levels. Its borders are being overrun by migrants from all over the world. And its disposition to intervene, engage and fight for democracy has rarely been lower.

This paragraph has been tacked onto the foot of Pat Buchanan's insightful analysis almost as an afterthought leaving the unguarded with the impression that our weakness is the exclusive result of our foreign military adventures rather than of our domestic and trade foolishness.

If one asks, which has had the more deleterious effect on America's position as superpower, foreign wars or our domestic spending and trade policies, the question might be close but the answer ultimately is we have weakened ourselves primarily by our spending and squandering at home and by our mindless trade policy abroad.

If we were to stop our international adventurism, if we were to refrain from engaging in Ukraine and elsewhere, we would still be hurtling toward the cliff edge. The problem is our economy but the solution is not simple isolationism. Yes, we must refrain from enervating foreign entanglements just as George Washington warned but we must engage when our national interests are really at stake. And we must be able to do so.

To be able to engage when critically necessary, we must have the economy providing the means. Cure the economy, because coming home alone won't save us.

Put that paragraph at the top of the article.

[TakebackGOP]

Buchanan keeps writing the same article.

[bankwalker]

maybe because most haven’t heard him yet ...

[bert]

——We were the “indispensable nation.——

Actually the Golden Decades following WW II result from the fact that America was the only nation. That was a historical anomaly that is still changing as other nations come online and compete

[MattMusson]

The Pax Americana is over. The US has exited the Global Management Business.

Now, instead of 1 superpower, countries will have to placate a host of regional powers. Border wars and neo colonialism are back.

AMF YOYO. Adios MFs. You’re on your own.

[webheart]

It was only the end of the first paragraph when talking about American global hegemony that I knew it wasn’t doctrinaire conservative thinking. Aha! Patrick Buchanan. You all enjoy your article and comments and stuff. I want nothing to do with Buchanan.

[otness_e]

Yeah, I’d personally blame the trade bits far more than the military adventurism abroad (and in that case, other than the Gulf War, the only true military adventurism we actually engaged in was during the Clinton Years, especially with how CNN literally decided the missions we’d undertake, not to mention, ironically enough, the few instances that actually WOULD warrant an actual military mission like, I don’t know, assassinating Osama bin Laden often ended up aborted randomly by Clinton).

Of course, that said, I also think isolationism is NEVER the answer, and if anything would make our precarious situation even worse. We tried isolationism during the 1930s. Let me put it this way: The USSR despite America’s isolationism during that time [to such an extent that we literally withheld ANY funding to various European countries, including the Germans, causing Nazi Germany to be born as a result] came the closest to actually TURNING us into a proxy of the USSR, especially when most of the State Department, portions of the military, heck, FDR’s own Vice President at the time, Harry Dexter White, were full-blown commies. I also disagree slightly with Washington ultimately regarding foreign entanglements. Personally, I think we should have fought the Jacobins and stopped them, and also made sure we did it WITHOUT siding with the British. That would have gone a long way to actually ENSURING Communism never got a foothold in existence. Thanks to our inaction, not only did the French Revolution, DESPITE the Reign of Terror, Robespierre’s death and Napoleon, ultimately have good PR, it ended up inspiring Communism to be a gorier remake of the Reign of Terror, per Marx’s own admission repeatedly. In one sense, since we failed to actually do a thing to stop the Jacobins even when it became extremely apparent that they were NOT like the Minutemen, we are effectively responsible for Communism being born and widespread.