Sunday, July 08, 2007

Economist.com - America Still No. 1

The Economist looks at a number of things that are weighing on the American psyche:
  • Iraq and Afghanistan
  • China emerging as a rival
  • Russia's increasing belligerence
  • North Korea and Iran getting nukes
  • EU apathy for President Bush's policies
among others, and comes to the conclusion that even though we are going through a period of difficulty America is as strong as ever:

Yet America is being underestimated. Friends and enemies have mistaken the short-term failure of the Bush administration for deeper weakness. Neither American hard nor soft power is fading. Rather, they are not being used as well as they could be. The opportunity is greater than the threat.

It is hard to deny that America looks weaker than it did in 2000. But is that really due to a tectonic shift or to the errors of a single administration? Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld reversed the wise Rooseveltian doctrine, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. After September 11th the White House talked up American power to an extraordinary degree. In that brief period of “shock and awe” when Americans were from Mars, their Venutian allies were lucky to get invited to the show (indeed, in Afghanistan some “old” Europeans were initially turned away). Meanwhile, Mr Bush declared a “war on terror”, rather than just on al-Qaeda, broadening the front to unmanageable dimensions (and paving the way for Guantánamo).

While the talk was loud, the stick was spindly. Defying his generals, Mr Rumsfeld sent too few troops to Iraq to pacify the country. Disbanding the Iraqi army compounded the error.

...

Yet in one way Mr Bush is unfairly maligned. Contrary to the Democratic version of history, America did not enjoy untrammelled influence abroad before he arrived. The country that won the cold war also endured several grievous reverses, notably Vietnam (where 58,000 Americans were killed—16 times the figure for Iraq). Iran has been defying America since Jimmy Carter's presidency, and North Korea for a generation before that. As for soft power, France has been complaining about Coca-Cola and Hollywood for nearly a century.

From this perspective of relative rather than absolute supremacy, a superpower's strength lies as much in what it can prevent from happening as in what it can achieve. Even today, America's “negative power” is considerable. Very little of any note can happen without at least its acquiescence. Iran and North Korea can defy the Great Satan, but only America can offer the recognition the proliferating regimes crave. In all sorts of areas—be it the fight against global warming or the quest for an Arab-Israeli peace—America is quite simply indispensable.

...

The surveys that show America's soft power to be less respected than it used to be also show the continuing universal appeal of its values—especially freedom and openness. Even the immigrants and foreign goods that so worry some Americans are tributes to that appeal (by contrast, the last empire to build a wall on its border, the Soviet one, was trying to keep its subjects in). Nor is it an accident that anti-Americanism has fed off those instances, such as Guantánamo Bay, where America has seemed most un-American. This is the multiplier effect that Mr Bush missed: win the battle for hearts and minds and you do not need as much hard power to get your way.

That lesson is worth bearing in mind when it comes to the challenge of China. China is likely to be more and more in America's face, whether buying American firms, winning Olympic gold or blasting missiles into space. Merely by growing, China is disrupting the politics of the Pacific. But that does not mean that it is automatically on track to overtake America. Its politics are fragile (see article) and America's lead is immense. Moreover, economics is not a zero-sum game: so far, a bigger China has helped to enrich America. An America that stays open to China—an America that sticks to American values—is much more likely to help fashion the China it wants.

If America were a stock, it would be a “buy”: an undervalued market leader, in need of new management. But that points to its last great strength. More than any rival, America corrects itself.

...

America recovered from the 1970s. It will bounce back stronger again.

source: Economist.com


Which is precisely what I tell people when they start complaining about things.

The nice thing about the American system vs. the Parliamentary system is that it is self leveling. By maintaining the separation between legislative and executive branches if one side goes to far the people can balance it in an intervening election by changing the composition of the legislature or the presidency. One doesn't depend on the other.

Further balance is added by the multi-layer judiciary and the deference that America gives to judicial precedent. I am not a lawyer but I have read that outside Britain, Canada and the US that isn't the case. Where precedent here guides the legal system, in other countries it is an "eh, whatever" kind of thing. I don't always agree with the precedent, but it does add a needed stability to the legal process.

This isn't to say America can't be improved. In some ways the libertarians have the right idea, government is too big, too intrusive and too expensive. It needs to be trimmed back, but it has to be done judiciously.

We need to identify what areas actually impact the national interest versus state and local interests and concentrate on those. Some are obvious - National Defense. Others less so - Education, without a well educated populace, and education is not limited to college, we can't maintain the standard of living America is accustomed too. Another is a national industrial plan - not to control industry but to encourage it. I am not a protectionist by any means but I would far prefer that goods were manufactured here than in China. The question is how do we make that happen.

Anyway the whole piece at the Economist plus the accompanying articles, "The Hobbled Hegemon" and "Democracy, Hu needs it" are interesting reads.

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