Waving Goodbye to Hegemony

[Nono]

Parag Khanna in the New York Times

(...) Europe’s influence grows at America’s expense. While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Many poor regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream. Africa wants a real African Union like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent. Activists in the Middle East want parliamentary democracy like Europe’s, not American-style presidential strongman rule. Many of the foreign students we shunned after 9/11 are now in London and Berlin: twice as many Chinese study in Europe as in the U.S. We didn’t educate them, so we have no claims on their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past. More broadly, America controls legacy institutions few seem to want — like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself. The U.S. has a hard time getting its way even when it dominates summit meetings — consider the ill-fated Free Trade Area of the Americas — let alone when it’s not even invited, as with the new East Asian Community, the region’s answer to America’s Apec. (...) The web of globalization now has three spiders. What makes America unique in this seemingly value-free contest is not its liberal democratic ideals — which Europe may now represent better than America does — but rather its geography. America is isolated, while Europe and China occupy two ends of the great Eurasian landmass that is the perennial center of gravity of geopolitics. When America dominated NATO and led a rigid Pacific alliance system with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Thailand, it successfully managed the Herculean task of running the world from one side of it. Now its very presence in Eurasia is tenuous; it has been shunned by the E.U. and Turkey, is unwelcome in much of the Middle East and has lost much of East Asia’s confidence. “Accidental empire” or not, America must quickly accept and adjust to this reality. Maintaining America’s empire can only get costlier in both blood and treasure. It isn’t worth it, and history promises the effort will fail. It already has. (...) There are currently more musicians in U.S. military marching bands than there are Foreign Service officers. (...)

That last sentence says it all.

This article is a fine analysis of some of the reasons why the US is on the skids and how it is that Americans and the people they choose to govern them view (to borrow a phrase from Churchill) the outside world through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.

I think Obama understands this, though if elected he'll still face the power of the corporate media and probably also a congress half full of half-bright rednecks -- both constantly trying to derail him.

If McCain is elected, he will proceed to bang all sorts of new nails into America's coffin.

[Sonart]

.

And what the EU isn't influencing and taking over, China is.

Attaboy George... yessiree, the Neo-Con idea of throwing our weight around in a super-power play, making Iraq our new bitch in the Mideast worked like charm. You betcha!

I hope you, Dick, Rummy and William Kristol choke on it for the next 20 years, cuz that's how long it will take America to recover... if ever.

.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Sonart . And what the EU isn't influencing and taking over, China is. Attaboy George... yessiree, the Neo-Con idea of throwing our weight around in a super-power play, making Iraq our new bitch in the Mideast worked like charm. You betcha! I hope you, Dick, Rummy and William Kristol choke on it for the next 20 years, cuz that's how long it will take America to recover... if ever. .

Dick Cheney's actions make much more sense if you take into account that he's old and has heart trouble and hence doesn't care about the world in 20 years, or five for that matter.

Maybe after America has collapsed Europe and China will outsource jobs to us for the cheap labor.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Sonart And what the EU isn't influencing and taking over, China is. Attaboy George... yessiree, the Neo-Con idea of throwing our weight around in a super-power play, making Iraq our new bitch in the Mideast worked like charm. You betcha! I hope you, Dick, Rummy and William Kristol choke on it for the next 20 years, cuz that's how long it will take America to recover... if ever.

Nono is correct, it's not just the Right, or GW, after all, NAFTA, and similar policies were implemented by the Clinton/Gore team.


It is all of the seditious morons Armericans are comfortable voting in at the behest of the corporate driven media.


Ron Paul is the only candidate that even addressed the issues related to this article.


I notice even Nono still fails to recognize the true diplomat in the race for the Presidency.


Ron Paul 08

[Compugasm]

While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit.

Out of curiousity, like who? Are they talking about the Euro Currency, or are they implying the satelites are becoming a unified nation?

America controls legacy institutions few seem to want — like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself.

Like what? I don't get why control of the global financial system is shunned in favor of a nebulous "sophisticated model".

There are currently more musicians in U.S. military marching bands than there are Foreign Service officers

I get what they're trying to imply, but are more FSO's needed? Doing what, where, how so? All that needs to be explained, otherwised, it is just a snarky observation that holds no real weight. Europeans should be doing far better than they claim, if they're basing accomplishments on the size of our marching bands.

[Technosoul]

The use of word like "hegemony" is not one we use much when we sit about the kitchen table trying to figure what we can drop in order to buy enough gas to get to work next week.

Perhaps in intellectual circles such concepts are of concern, but I doubt if any of our canidates will concider those ideas even after elected, and I doubt if people who have such insights will work for the government because they can get paid more elsewhere for their intellectual abilities.

And yet I do not see anyone other then the wealthy businesses packing up to go overseas to those better adjusted places, the rest of us would prefer to stay here and tuff it out.

As odd as it seems, our intellectual forefathers created a government where intellectural supervision could be displaced by what we now have.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Compugasm Out of curiousity, like who? Are they talking about the Euro Currency, or are they implying the satelites are becoming a unified nation?

The EU is just going to keep growing and growing until something changes and membership is no longer profitable. Romania and Bulgaria are the newest, and Turkey is trying to join. The rest of the Balkans are thinking about it. Israel and Morocco have also expressed interest and the EU may have to rename itself soon.

And while I do not know if America really needs more diplomats, its clear America needs more diplomacy. Dragging our allies into Iraq was really unpopular.

[Alive]

It's true that the US is acting pretty stupidly these days, but the end to hegemony was always inevitable. When you get strong by being innovative, all people have to do is copy you to reach your level (and it doesn't help to stop with the being innovative part). The line "Africa wants a real African Union like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent" is pretty funny in that regard. The US became powerful by not being a bunch of squabbling states going to war between themselves every few decades.

It's great that others are reaching and even surpassing our level.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Alive It's true that the US is acting pretty stupidly these days, but the end to hegemony was always inevitable. When you get strong by being innovative, all people have to do is copy you to reach your level (and it doesn't help to stop with the being innovative part).

If Americans hadn't supported the war and the crooks in charge, they may have saved a lot of lives and $$$$. One man's innovation may be another's bill to pay.

Grandpa h.

[Nono]

Khanna: While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Compugasm: Out of curiousity, like who? Are they talking about the Euro Currency, or are they implying the satelites are becoming a unified nation?

Those it can lock into the euro zone, yes. Those it can't can still be satellites. The idea is to have countries on your borders that have their own stake in your peace and prosperity.

Khanna: America controls legacy institutions few seem to want — like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself. Comp: Like what? I don't get why control of the global financial system is shunned in favor of a nebulous "sophisticated model".

The IMF no longer "controls" anything. Washington's excessive ideological zeal has discredited the institution.

Are more FSO's needed?

The United States's name is mud right around the planet.
You figure it out.

[Compugasm]

Quote by: Nono The United States's name is mud right around the planet. You figure it out.

Alright then. I'm still convinced "europe" (and miscellaneous satelites it entails) is irrelvant when compared to China in 20-40yrs.

[Nono]

Not I.

1) China's current success is based on a worldwide economy that requires every blessed item to be continuously shipped all over the planet. A combination of rising oil prices and human-induced climate change that can no longer be ignored will put an end to that economy.
Where will China stand then?

2) China faces increasingly acute problems: demographic, environmental, political (wealth disparity, regional friction, etc.) and so on.
There are -- despite the glossy surface -- acute dangers lurking for the Chinese juggernaut.