While definitely not coming from what could be considered by even a long-shot the most reliable of news sources, China’s Xinhua news agency, their assessment of the global balance of power, on a fundamental level, hit the nail on the head. A result of the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the stock market fluctuations this fall, not to mention unilateral international policies the last eight years, have all indicated that the United States’ power is perhaps on the wane. While too early for this year’s history to say how much the balance of power has shifted, it should be noted that this isn’t unprecedented or surprising.
Fareed Zakaria in his most recent book, The Post American World, details several reasons for the American decline in power and influence. First of all, the economic situation has changed since the end of World War II. The United States rode out in front of the wave of the flurry of economic growth that was spurred in the immediate post-war period, also gaining tremendous popularity in Europe as a result of the post-war rebuilding period, The Marshall Plan. During this period of riding off a wartime economy while maintaining supremacy in the fight against Communism on an economic level among free-world nations, the United States made its most significant rise to global prominence. Only in recent decades have economic booms in countries like China, Japan, and India occurred that have started to tip the tables of economic power out of favor for the United States.
That’s the view at least from America’s perspective. For other countries, it represents a rise onto the global stage. Where during the better part of the Twentieth Century the opportunity and gold in the world lay on the shores of the U.S., countries like India and China are now able to provide their own opportunity. So rather than it being a decline in U.S. power that we’re witnessing, it’s a rise in the power, influence, and prominence of the rest; hence “the rise of the rest” as Zakaria puts it.
“The rise of the rest” is not a bad thing in and of itself, in reality what this means is that all of the countries that are now rapidly industrializing have taken note from the U.S. playbook and are following largely by example what we’ve done to get to where we are today. While some in America might feel emasculated by having so many countries challenging, perhaps legitimately, our economic stature, this really is a good step for the world to be taken. Industrialization increases the standard of living for people in third world countries and is effectively the bridge that takes them to becoming a first world nation. The higher the standard of living, the less poverty there is, and the more stable our increasingly global civilization becomes (taking note that some of the greatest atrocities being committed currently are in countries like Sudan, Zimbabwe and Pakistan (harboring terrorists), all of which have high populations living at or below the poverty level.)
The only downside is that this is all happening at a time when the image of America has been tainted abroad. This is in large part to a very unpopular war in Iraq spurred on by a very unpopular President who’s diplomatic strategy consists of “bring em on!” Granted that only adds to the appearance that the United State’s is losing power, but just remember this: the whole reason we’re trying to build that missile defense shield in Europe is to defend THEM, not US, from inbound missiles from Iran. Europe might be organizing into a continental government, but they are still a ways a way from being able to defend themselves without the protection offered by ‘Team America, World Police.’
Things to keep in mind when our largest Communist rival makes claims about the status of our superpower-dom.
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Image posted on Flickr by mockstar on Aug. 31, 2006. url: http://flickr.com/photos/58289749@N00/230325961
