The Decline of US Power: An Eagle Crash Landing?

Columbia, as personification of the United States, carries
civilization westward. This image represents the 'manifest
destiny' of America as well as its expansionist tendency.

The 09/11 attacks were an eye-opener, a moment of revelation. Not so much as a defining moment, but rather as part of a lengthy historic trajectory which entails the decline of US hegemony. The majority of American policy makers, however, responded with denial and anger. They remain attached to the idea of American exceptionalism. To them the American dream is a guiding light for individuals around the world, Americans have a manifest destiny. While these underlying values present useful insights, they are not an exact representation of reality. To understand the world we need to look beyond our dreams; we need to look at the history of the United States and its place in the world. This post seeks to do just that. What do we see when we trace this superpower? How is it that the terrorist attacks and the American response, a 'War on Terror', fit in this pattern?

The truth is that by the turn of the millennium the States already lost their shine. A lone superpower that lacks true might. A leader everybody stopped following. Drifting dangerously amidst a chaos it cannot control.

In the nineties the US economy seemed to do well. Productivity was high, the stock market boomed, both unemployment and inflation were low. The resulting surplus made possible the liquidation of government debt. Many Americans believed this to be an affirmation of the vision and the economic policy of their leaders. What at first seemed to be success turned out to be a bubble. But even bubbles and downturns are deceiving: the world-economy has been in relative stagnation ever since the seventies!¹ For three consecutive decades, the powerful economic loci have tried to shift the losses to each other. Western Europe did well in the seventies, then Japan had its decade, and the States had their share in the nineties. Globally, however, success was dim. The global economic slowdown parallels the decline of American hegemony. Indeed this is no coincidence. And it is all but certain that the US will outshine its competitors in a resolution. An under-the-surface fear is already today shaping American policy.

Central, though not crucial, in both economic and political decline was the Vietnam War. This costly conflict exhausted the American gold reserves at a moment when both Western Europe and Japan experienced an economic upswing. With the abandonment of fixed exchange rates, US pre-eminence in the global economy came to an end. Vietnam was perhaps even more devastating in another way: it was a rejection of the status quo as established by the winning powers of WWII at Yalta. A rejection by Third World nations which wanted to pursue their own way. The social upheaval of 1968 drew upon this. Just like the people of Vietnam, protesting youth contested the collusion of the two superpowers. While the direct political consequences of this 'revolution' were minimal, its intellectual and geopolitical implications were irrevocable. Centrist liberalism, binding conservatives and radicals alike since 1848, fell of its throne. Ideological choices presented themselves as conservatives became again conservative and radicals, radical.

Cartoon depicting US imperialism in the Pacific and the
Americas. Military-driven maintenance of 'empire' denies
the waning hegemony and in fact strengthens this trend.

Conservative tendencies took the steering wheel under the flag of neoliberalism. With the onset of economic stagnation in the seventies, ‘developmentalist’ policies were abandoned. As a political complement violence and rejection became more widespread in the Global South. The US had to rely increasingly on brute force, in itself a sign of growing weakness. Military failures came about in Lebanon (1983) and Somalia (1992), where American troops were effectively pushed out. Success existed mainly against countries without troops, like Grenada and Panama. While the US wasn’t  paying attention, the Soviet Union collapsed. A cause of the liquidation of the Yalta agreements and internal liberalisation. In spite of all Western victory and end of ideology, the collapse of Communism meant in effect a collapse of liberalism. The Soviet threat was the only justification of American leadership over ‘the free world’. Of course the illusion of supremacy persisted, as it does in many ways up till today. As an arbiter in the Middle East the US kicked Iraq’s but in the Gulf War. Yet all the superpower could demand from a medium strength regional player was status quo. An intervention stopped the worst atrocities in Yugoslavia. But the ethnification went on and was indeed legitimized.

09/11 too proved the waning American power. It is not so much that a band of rogue fanatics with relatively little resources managed to scar the number one military power. It is the response that speaks: invading Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, without much international consultation. This only spread anti-American sentiments, even among allies. Different voices are heard in how to deal with this reality. On the one hand there is the isolationist tendency, preaching a withdrawal into Fortress America. On the other hand there is the ‘hawkish’ macho-militarism. Both expressions of American nationalism, they share the same attitude toward others: one of fear and disdain, a belief in the superiority of the own way of life. Involvement in the quarrels of others is only permitted if we can impose our ways. Without a real possibility to bend the downward trajectory, however, the United States have chosen to ignore the trend. A policy prevailing from Vietnam till today that only hastens the decline.

¹ World-economy is a term borrowed from world-systems analysis. For our usage here it can be equated to the global economy. When we say this global economy is in relative stagnation we mean that it is not expanding at as fast a rate as before, hence the 'relative'. For a general introduction to the underlying mechanism and the supposed consequences, see World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction.