That would be great if this punishment for corruption was applied throughout China and not, you know, one time to make a foreign relations point. I have no doubt he was guilty as hell, but he flew though that kangaroo court for the sake of business. That is not something I particularly want to see happen.
This is the tremd that bothers me-like the Spain of Philip IV, we seem to think we can get by without MAKING anything here. how long the lopsided China trade can go on for, is an open question.
Evertbody ,I am sure,knows .the long term effects of moving our manufacturing and middle and upper class jobs abroad. But, the counterbalance is huge short term profits to those doing it. To the wealthy that is tradeoff they are happy to make. It will have huge future impact on the country. The change to America is deliberate. It answers short term goals.
Of course, because the wealthy are busy diversifying so that their wealth is not tied to America.
I think people have a skewed idea of decline because they think of it geographically. Wealth is moving into a globalized state, where the wealthy are not really locked to a geographic position, but the poor are. That is why places like Detroit are becoming third world, while Shanghai is becoming first world. It’s evening out and distributing all over the place with centers in cities moreso than nations. You can see this in San Juan Puerto Rico which has grown a lot in recent years. It is a sort of hub centrally in the Caribbean.
Has anyone in this thread read the last couple of books by Chalmers Johnson? They’ve been on my list for awhile but I haven’t gotten around to it. He speaks directly on this topic, at least re: America as an empire and its decline. One of the themes is that you can either have an actual democracy or you can have an empire – you can’t have both, and that America will soon reach a tipping point either way.
“Decline” depends on what we’re talking about of course, and those who compare the lives of an Englishman in 2007 compared to 1907 have the right priorities IMO. Even if our version of empire is shattered, we’ll be better in 3007 than in 2007. We have too many educated people, too many resources, too much of an advanced technological society to not be well off in the future.
The only likely ways we could decline so the above is not true is if there’s a massive economic collapse or our questionably democratic republic is replaced by a dictator wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, or maybe it can just be one giant banana republic. I view both as distinct possibilities and it seems we’ve been drifting down the road on the latter since the end of WWII.
I think the American people would be quite happy with a dictator, or an extremely strong executive with a rubber stamp Congress with an illusion of democracy, provided the breads and circuses continued. I feel that the spirit of our democracy is weak and bleeding compared to many other advanced societies. In many other places the government is afraid of the people. Over here…I don’t see it, not at the federal level. If it were true, things would be much different. The polls have been consistent on many issues for many decades and yet nothing changes because it’s not in the interests of The 1%. The propagandized MSM hurts us even further.
I think it’s pretty obvious our form of empire is declining. We simply don’t have the means to influence other countries the way we could during the Cold War. Entire regions of the world are rebelling against us – South America has practically broken free, despite the coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002, and there’s serious trouble in Asia what with all the energy diplomacy and partnership going on.
If they transported the ecological, wage and work environment rules that were part of the original proposals for globalization ,I might look at them more friendly. We are permitting, which is the same thing as causing, horrible wage and work condititions to be allowed in our so called competition.
I think the most key signs that America is in decline would be economic ones.
I think a sign of decline is how a society faces challenges. I can’t think of any single issue facing America where we are not delaying dealing with it. Massive debt coupled with tax cuts, education, electoral reform, take your pick; there doesn’t seem to be any will among the populace to make the hard decisions and the sacrifices needed to correct any major issue. I don’t think a society that is not in decline would constantly decide to ‘punt.’
this isn’t new.
When the Founding Fathers wrote the constitution, they faced the deep issue of slavery…and what did they do? They “punted”, and wrote a clause to legally prevent anyone from doing anything about it for the next decade.
It seems to me that the American nation usually begins to decline somewhere between 40 and 60 years of age - that’s the age of the person who things things have gone to hell in a handbasket. You’ll know we’re on the way out when someone starts talking about how much more dedicated and hard working and honest people used to be.
The U.S. has always been a bit up and down. The end was nigh during the 70s, when we were running out of oil and the Japanese were going to control everything.
IMHO, you’ll really know we’re well on the way down when other countries don’t point to the U.S. as the devil or the land of milk and honey, or simply ignore us altogether.
Yeah, at this point it doesn’t really matter much what you believe about it. My personal goals are related toward building more local power structures to deal with it, but a lot of people are stuck on a centralized model and can only imagine top-down solutions. Unfortunately the entrepeneurial spirit in this country has been seriously diminished. I think that’s one of the biggest evidences of decline. You rarely see people seeing a need and filling it. The people I see who go into business either try to climb some corporate ladder, or build a business with the intent of selling it to a Venture Capitalist later.
So, “Europe” is going to supplant us? Guess again.
A few months ago, the Iranians took a group of British military personnel hostage. What did their fellow “Europeans” do about it? Absolutely nothing. Even if “Europe” had any military power to speak of, there’s no sense of kinship among the different nations of the E.U. Hence, when a group of Britons are captured, the Dutch shrug and say, “That’s England’s problem, whaddya expect US to do about it?”
“Europe” wants the respect and deference due to a superpower, but has shown no willingness to do any of the things it would take to make them a superpower. And that’s not likely to change any time soon.
astorian I think you have a point, but I think your example is the wrong one to use. Everyone knew that the hostage taking was grandstanding and that Iran would give them back. They also knew that there was no need for a common defense because they could rely on the strong arm of the United States government if need be. If not, the British could have mounted a rescue, and if the rescue attempt was botched the two US carriers would have bombed Iran into the stoneage. Everyone on all sides knew this.
So, the grand strategy of “Europe” is, “Don’t worry about it- the Iranians are probably just grandstanding. So do nothing, and it might just blow over… and if anything REALLY bad happens, the Americans will handle it.”
That’s NOT the way a superpower thinks.
Now, lest anyone think I’m just a standard jingoistic American, I happen to AGREE that America is far from omnipotent (not that we ever WERE). We don’t have the resources, the money, the manpower or the will to dominate the globe militarily or economically. Does that mean we’ve “declined” since the 1950s? Of course, but that was inevitable.
The question is, does our (relative) decline translate into some other country becoming the new superpower that supplants us? Well, I can only think of four possible contenders:
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China
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India
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A resurgent Russia
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“Europe”
All have their undeniable strengths, but none is in a position to become the superpower America once was. All have difficult demographic problems (rapidly aging, shrinking populations). And all three of the four have ethnic/racial conflicts that would make concerted action on the world stage extremely difficult, if not impossible.
There’s a lot to love about Europe, but is “Europe” really a superpower? Not militarily, not by a long shot. And making that happen will be tough. Is there anyone in Belgium who’d be eager to go to war on behalf of England? Anyone in France who’d willingly send his kids to die for Spain? When push comes to shove, “Europeans” will feel no loyalty to other nations within the E.U.
Even economically, getting Europe united is incredibly tough. From an economic standpoint, Frenchmen regard Poles as a threat to be avoided, not as fellow Europeans to be embraced. And the few European countries with young populations and growing economies (Ireland, for instance) have absolutely nothing in common with nations that have older populations and just want to maintain their current welfare states without too much change.
I disagree. When you develop a strategy you want the problem to be solved. If the problem’s solution is apparent, then no action need be taken. It is costless for you, and yet the problem is solved. It was a problem for the UK, and the UK could handle it. If it ever went really far awry it would have been handled by the UK’s ally, the United States.
Jumping up and down hysterically so that people think you are a superpower is ‘NOT the way a superpower thinks.’, it’s not the same as face in the schoolyard. Prison rules do not apply. It’s about cost benefit analyses, weighing the situation. The countries did nothing because they didn’t NEED to do anything. You are imo inflating the importance of the hostage standoff. Other countries did act diplomatically. They didn’t need to act militarily so they didn’t. There is no central European military, and none of the individual European nations is a military superpower. If the United States Military power were to decline to the point where Europe felt threatened by military aggression, they would arm themselves. The United States, and Europe are comfortable with the status quo of the US being the world’s policemen.
The word omnipotence has very little relevance to anything. No country will ever have all the power in the universe. What we are looking for is called ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’. It is not omnipotence, it is just being the most powerful nation in every sphere. We want to be the best, economically, militarily and have the best intelligence. What is gained by this is that you can call upon anyone at any time and make demands/requests. You don’t NEED to have total domination. Total domination is well, not possible, it’s just not a term that describes how politics works. No Empire was ever totally dominant. The United States has more power over world politics in the entire world than any Empire that has preceded it, due to our economic influence, our vast intelligence apparatus, and our ability to project overwhelming military force anywhere on the planet.
Also, we are BY FAR more powerful than we were in the 50s, both in relative and absolute terms. The peak is now, not in the past. You can see the rise of other powers in the world right now, and the US has hit a glass ceiling.
The US isn’t in decline relative to other nation-states. It is in decline relative to its own institutions. Giving corporations the ability to have permanent charters with open-ended goals has changed the playing field, and is threatening the role of the nation-state as the dominant institution. What is threatening the United States is not other countries, but the need of corporations to bring money into the US economy, or lack thereof. Multinational corporations do not owe allegiance to any one nation. The decision to move the headquarters of Halliburton to Dubai is an excellent example of this.
Again, too much focus on the nation-state. This is one of the reasons Putin is working to tightly control Russian industry, so that it doesn’t become part of the system of international oligarchs that owe allegiance to no particular nation. Did you know that they are selling off a big toll-road in Indiana to a Spanish concern? Roads in America owned by foreign corporations.
It depends on whether or not the threat is to Europe itself or to European concerns overseas. The kidnap of British sailors is quite different from landing troops in England. The reality is that the kind of total war that we expected in the 20th century is quite remote. War in the future is going to be fought more through espionage, targetted assassinations, terrorism and surgical strikes. No country is in the position to threaten Europe militarily except the United States, and Russia, both of whom have no real incentive to do so. Any other possible military threat could easily be put down by the European military. However, the real European defense force at the moment is NATO.
Yes, nationalism is a problem for economic integration, but it’s occurring anyway. France just put in Sarkozy because their previous way of doing things was driving their economy down. I don’t know that it’s that big of a deal though. California, New York and Texas are all singularities within the United States, they each have an identity that is almost on par with nationalism, each individually is among the largest economies in the world. They have very little in common with depressed states like Michigan or Iowa, and yet it works out just fine. People will do business where there is opportunity to do business. It’s about removing barriers to trade, not necessarily about creating a homogenous monoculture.
My problem is not that America is simply in decline, but that it is deliberate. Our international corporations have no loyalty in keeping us strong and solvent. If profits are increased by gutting our middle class it will be done. If we can be compelled to spend ourselves into bankruptcy to make a short term profit ,it will be done. We spend billions in wars and cut taxes. How can that make America more stable. Our international policy is designed to make the world better for big business ,but will result in terraforming our world. We are just another factor in a money making policy. Nothing special about us. Because we started so high our drop will be the sharpest.
First you have to define “America”, a daunting task in itself. But if you limit it to things that could decline, that leaves you with:
1: The American empire, a global force dominant in economic/military power and influence
2: The American democratic ideal, a republican-style liberal democracy with an emphasis on civil liberties
3: The traditional American culture, which many consider as caucasian, Judeo-Christian, English-speaking, middle-class populist.
When people talk about the decline of America they are often concerned with only one of the dimensions above, while some see them all as linked.
In my opinion, here is what the following would look like:
1A: When the US is no longer able to project military force to influence trade and economies in ways favorable to itself, then it is in decline. I do not think being defeated in a succession of insurgent wars is necessarily a sign of this. It would be a full-blown state-to-state conflict, or outright inability to project force in a critical area, that would define this. Point blank I do not see this happening unless the US economy collapses. The military dominance of the US is almost impossible to overstate.
1B: When the economy becomes unstable, and in particular when foreign governments stop using the dollar as a reserve currency, then you can start worrying about the decline of the US economy. People keep talking about foreign economies dumping their US dollar reserves and converting into something else, but to date there is still no answer to the question, “to what?” The economy, while not as rosy as some would like to believe, has shown an incredible resilience in the face of huge oscillations and uncertainty.
2: The democratic ideal appears to be in dire straits. Individuals have lost a significant amount of control over both local and national politics which are now driven by unaccountable corporate interests. Accordingly, civil liberties are abrogated on a widespread and daily basis. No party appears to be in a position to change this even if they were inclined to do so. This may not be such a big deal in a country with a large middle class that apparently will tolerate any amount of insult to civil liberties so long as there is no significant threat to property rights, economic freedom, or religious liberties for the majority.
3: American culture, narrowly defined as above, is unquestionably being pushed out. The only question is when the dominant groups will no longer consist mainly of midage to elderly white males, and what “decline”, if any, this in fact signifies.
Nothing is exactly what they should have done under the circumstances. The UK was perfectly capable of resolving the crisis on its own, as events proved. What could France or Germany have usefully contributed?
That’s not entirely their fault, you know. Keeping Europe, or any of its states, from emerging as a major military player in its own right has been a focal point of American foreign policy for decades, including the post-Soviet period. See this thread and the article linked in the OP, which I strongly encourage you to read.
There has been some talk of forming a real pan-European military force, but that runs up against an obvious stumbling block: NATO still exists, and the U.S. would have no place in any purely European force that would supplant it.
In other words, the rest of Europe shrugged and said, “Screw it, that’s England’s problem.”
Which is fine and dandy if Germany and France are merely England’s neighbors. But in the Grand New Europe, they’re supposed to be more than that. They’re supposed to be virtual countrymen.
In reality, Frenchmen and Germans feel absolutely no kinship with the English. That makes creating a real Euro fighting force… problematic, to say the least.
That may have been so in the past, it might even be so still, but it is bound to change. In The United States of Europe, T.R. Reid describes a new generation of young Europeans who all speak English, at least as a second language, and who think of themselves more as “European” than as French or German or whatever. They will come to power eventually – everywhere in Europe; and their children will be even more cosmopolitan than themselves – and will, eventually, intermarry with Europe’s Arabs and Turks.