Foreign Policy magazine–American Decline, This Time It's Real

This is the cover article of the issue of Foreign Policy that contains the interesting James K. Galbraith piece on the retirement age, which we featured elsewhere. As the title suggests, this is a careful look at the assumption that America is, in effect, bulletproof — that American decline cannot occur — by looking at the underlying myths of that assumption. It's an excellent read, and a careful (and not overly long) examination.

Those myths, with the author's one-sentence comment, are these; they form effective section heads for each of the parts of the discussion:

• "We've Heard All This About American Decline Before." This time it's different.

• "China Will Implode Sooner or Later." Don't count on it.

• "America Still Leads Across the Board." For now.

• "Globalization Is Bending the World the Way of the West." Not really.

• "Globalization Is Not a Zero-Sum Game." Don't be too sure.

Here's a bit of the discussion from the section "Globalization is not a zero-sum game":

Successive U.S. presidents, from the first Bush to Obama, have explicitly welcomed China's rise. Just before his first visit to China, Obama summarized the traditional approach when he said, "Power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another.… We welcome China's efforts to play a greater role on the world stage."

But whatever they say in formal speeches, America's leaders are clearly beginning to have their doubts, and rightly so. It is a central tenet of modern economics that trade is mutually beneficial for both partners, a win-win rather than a zero-sum. But that implies the rules of the game aren't rigged. Speaking before the 2010 World Economic Forum, Larry Summers, then Obama's chief economic advisor, remarked pointedly that the normal rules about the mutual benefits of trade do not necessarily apply when one trading partner is practicing mercantilist or protectionist policies. The U.S. government clearly thinks that China's undervaluation of its currency is a form of protectionism that has led to global economic imbalances and job losses in the United States. Leading economists, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the Peterson Institute's C. Fred Bergsten, have taken a similar line, arguing that tariffs or other retaliatory measures would be a legitimate response. So much for the win-win world.

And when it comes to the broader geopolitical picture, the world of the future looks even more like a zero-sum game, despite the gauzy rhetoric of globalization that comforted the last generation of American politicians. For the United States has been acting as if the mutual interests created by globalization have repealed one of the oldest laws of international politics: the notion that rising players eventually clash with established powers.

In fact, rivalry between a rising China and a weakened America is now apparent across a whole range of issues, from territorial disputes in Asia to human rights. It is mercifully unlikely that the United States and China would ever actually go to war, but that is because both sides have nuclear weapons, not because globalization has magically dissolved their differences.

As I said, thoughtful. It's easy either to accept our decline, as some reflexively do, or to dismiss it reflexively, without giving thought to the reasons behind either position.

If you're in the dismissal camp (the "we're bulletproof" contingent), the article is a must-read. And if you're in the "of course we've had it" camp, the author makes clear why each of these myths is nonetheless prevalent in American policy practice, and why each is wrong.

GP