America's New Face to the World

In the last chapter of The End of the American Century, I write that “a best-case scenario for the future of the United States would have to begin with new political leadership” and that the first thing a new president could do

“would be to mend American relations with the rest of the world and to temper the unilateralism, hubris and militarism that have made it so difficult for the United States to work with other countries in solving pressing global issues.”

The election of Barack Obama is a big first step for the United States in changing our orientation to the rest of the world, and the way the world sees the U.S.

As Britain’s Economist magazine put it, in its endorsement Obama as “the next leader of the free world"--

"Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham.”

He is widely seen as a leader who is open to the views of others, and willing to work with other countries. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a handwritten letter of congratulations to the U.S. President-elect, said

"your election raises immense hope" in Europe and beyond, "of an open America. . .that will once again lead the way, with its partners, through the power of its example and the adherence to its principles."

David Cameron, the leader of Britain's opposition (Conservative)party, said Obama's victory has restored America's status as a "beacon of hope."

Obama enjoys amazing level of support all around the globe. Last summer in Berlin, 200,000 Germans turned out to cheer him—reminiscent of the celebration of President Kennedy during his 1963 “ich bin ein Berliner” speech. A BBC poll of 22,000 people in 22 countries in September found 49% favoring Obama to win, compared to just 12% for McCain. In every single country, more people supported Obama than McCain.

The Economist conducted their own (unscientific) online poll of some 53,000 readers around the world, with Obama winning by a margin of more than five to one. His global victory was even more lopsided if you allocate those votes by country according to size (the way the Electoral College does for states). In this global “electoral college” Obama collected 9115 votes, compared to a paltry 203 for John McCain. In 56 countries, at least 90% backed Obama.

In the Arab and Muslim world, deep skepticism of U.S. intentions remains. But there were voices of hope even in those countries, and marvel at the election of a black man whose father was from a Muslim family. The Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat saw Obama’s victory as “a message” repudiating the policies of the Bush administration.

“Obama’s election was a message against such destruction, against unjustified wars, wars that are fought with ignorance and rashness, without knowledge of their arenas or the shape of their surroundings. . . .It was a message against the pattern that became a burden on the U.S. and transformed the U.S. into a burden on the world.” (Reported in the New York Times).

This language is, to say the least, a back-handed compliment to the U.S. It is also emblematic of the way people in many countries—and not just the Arab world—feel about the U.S. and the global role it has come to play. So the U.S. has a lot of global PR work ahead of it.

Fortunately, President-elect Obama is aware of these problems and committed to redressing them. In his book The Audacity of Hope, he acknowledges that in foreign policy “our record is mixed.” At times, he writes, American policies

“have been misguided, based on false assumptions that ignore the legitimate aspirations of other peoples, undermine our own credibility, and make for a more dangerous world.” (p.280).

He writes there of the need for the U.S. to be more cooperative and multilateral in dealing with other countries, and to rely more on persuasion than intimidation: “No person, in any country, likes to be bullied.” He favors U.S. policies that “move the international system in the direction of greater equity, justice and prosperity” and observing the “international rules of the road.”

“When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following, and robs terrorists and dictators of the argument that these rules are simply tools of American imperialism.” (p.309).

In an article last year on “Renewing American Leadership” in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, Obama acknowledged that “in the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.” But the U.S. could regain that trust by “understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.” If we want to lead the world, he argues, we must do so “by deed and by example.”

Barack Obama often invokes the names, the language, and the ideas of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. These two men, more than any other presidents in this century, inspired citizens of the United States as well as those of many other countries. FDR’s ideals and policies, in particular, helped launch the American Century. Perhaps Barack Obama can begin the process of rebuilding the United States. As he wrote in Foreign Affairs,

“it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story.”

This new story, however, is unlikely to look much like the previous one.

Can the US Regain Supremacy? Should It?

In my CBC Radio interview yesterday (see previous blog post) with Anna Maria Tremonti, there was one question she asked that gave me pause. She had first asked if I thought the U.S. is losing its superpower status. When I answered in the affirmative, she followed up with “Can it regain it?” I said I thought not, and went on to say that in a globalized and interdependent world, both the country and the world are better off without a superpower. But I think this needs some elaboration.

There is, first of all, both a descriptive (factual) and normative (value judgment) aspect to this question. Will the U.S. regain its superpower status? And should it do so. I believe the answer is negative to both questions, but the reasoning behind them are similar.

Some scholars have argued that the world needs a powerful and stabilizing force, and that the United States is the only country in a position to play this role. The British historian Niall Ferguson has made this case in his book Colossus, as has the U.S. political scientist Michael Mandelbaum in The Case for Goliath. And through much of history, there has been a big single power that has played this role in great swaths of the planet—Rome, Britain, Spain, the Ottomans, etc. All of those empires are now gone.

The 21st century world is different in several important respects. First, power and influence are more diffuse. There are numerous “rising powers”—China, India, Brazil, Iran, Russia, South Africa—and they are spread all over the globe. None of them want or need a super powerful country encroaching on their turf, or telling them how to behave.

Second, the world is more interdependent, particularly in economic terms—“flat” in Thomas Friedman’s evocative phrase. Prosperity and security are being built on trade, cooperation and compromise. Some countries are bigger and wealthier than others and will naturally play a more substantial role in this globalized community. A “superpower”—economic or military—distorts and destabilizes such a system.

Third, the most important issues facing the globe now require cooperation, consultation, compromise and diplomacy rather than brute strength or intimidation. Global warming, environmental deterioration, epidemics, famine, and drought are the most pressing threats to humanity. All of them require the participation of all states, regardless of their wealth, power and ideology. A superpower, with its tendency to unilateralism and arrogance, can only hinder such cooperation.

For all of these reasons, the U.S. will not, and should not, play the dominant and directing global role that it did through most of the 20th Century.

In addition to these global factors are domestic U.S. ones. In the American Century, the U.S. had the world’s biggest economy, its richest citizens, the best schools, the finest system of medical care, and the most successful democracy. It can no longer make such claims, both because of our own decline in the past two decades, and because other countries have been catching up. Most developed countries now surpass the U.S. in the quality of life, health care delivery, and education, and have much lower levels of poverty, inequality and violence. The vaunted U.S. economy (which for so long was a house of cards built on multiple levels of debt) has now begun an inevitable decline. Until the encouraging results of last week’s election, even the U.S. political system was rickety, with low levels of voting and participation, very unequal representation, erosion of fundamental rights, and questionable electoral outcomes.

So whereas in the 20th Century, the U.S. carried global influence because of its own domestic model of success (in addition to its military strength), it can no longer make those claims of exceptionalism. The rest of the world has caught up.

The U.S. has already lost the status of sole superpower. Even if we wanted it, other countries don’t recognize or accept it. And both the U.S. and the rest of the world will be better off if we don’t regain it.

The End of the American Century and the Post-American World

David Mason and Fareed Zakaria were interviewed this morning (Thursday) on Canada's CBC Radio program "The Currents" with Anna Maria Tremonti. We each discussed themes of our books, The End of the American Century and The Post-American World and how those related to the tasks facing the Obama presidency. You can hear the half-hour program at the program's website a this link.

An Historic Day, for Indiana and the World

I went to vote this morning at 6am. It was dark, and there was already a long line outside the polling place at St. Thomas Aquinas elementary school. My daughters went to that school, and as the line snaked through the main hallway, I studied the pictures of the (graduating) 8th grade classes from over the years, and saw their faces--young, innocent, happy and hopeful.

I have never seen such a line for an election in this country. By 7am, I had filled out my ballot and fed it into the optical scanner--it showed that I was the 89th voter in that precinct. My friend Mike, an election official, observed that this was more than one vote per minute since the polls opened.

This is an historic day, for many reasons, but first and foremost because Americans have reclaimed their democracy. After years of embarrassingly low voter turnout levels--far lower than most other democracies--record numbers of people are voting today. This in itself is good for America, and a sign of hope.

In the past, poor people, young people, and minorities were far less likely to vote than rich, older White people. This skewed the political system and made it unrepresentative. This was one reason Chapter 5 of The End of the American Century is titled "Ailing American Democracy." Today, all those groups are voting, probably in record numbers, restoring a truly representative democracy.

But it is momentous as well because of the person that has moved them to turn out today--a young, vibrant, biracial man with an unusual name, who speaks of "community" and says that change must come from the grassroots. When the United States elects this man as their President, it will send a message around the world that the U.S. has rejoined the global community.

Indianapolis Star Neutral on Presidential Endorsement

The Indianapolis Star decided to withhold endorsing either Obama or McCain for President this year. This was the first time since 1964 (Lyndon Johnson) that the Star had not endorsed the Republican candidate for President. Dennis Ryerson, the editor of the newspaper, wrote that the editorial board was not able to reach consensus, so they simply "decided to agree to disagree" and to withhold an endorsement.

Indiana is one of "swing states" in the electoral campaign, with polls in the state showing the Obama-McCain contest to be a tossup. The latest statewide poll conducted by the Star shows Obama with 45.9% and McCain with 45.3% support among Hoosiers. If Indiana votes for Obama, it will be the first time the state's electoral votes have gone for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson's landside victory of 1964.

Zakaria's Optimism

Fareed Zakaria is everywhere these days, articulating a message similar to mine in The End of the American Century. But I think he underestimates the seriousness of the situation facing the United States.

Zakaria had the lead article last summer in Foreign Affairs’ issue on “Is America in Decline?” His book The Post-American World appeared shortly thereafter, and soon became a best seller. As an editor of Newsweek, his columns appear there regularly, and the October 20th issue of the magazine featured him on the front cover, with the title “The Bright Side” against a cheery yellow background. He even has his own television show, “Fareed Zakaria’s GPS,” where last week he endorsed Barack Obama as the best hope for America’s future.

Zakaria argues that it is not so much that the U.S. is in decline, but that other powers have risen, requiring the U.S. to deal with them with more consultation and compromise. He believes that the U.S. “has the strength and dynamism to continue shaping the world” (Foreign Affairs) and that “the world is moving our way” (The Post-American World). He sees a “silver lining” in the current economic crisis, in that the country will be forced “to confront the bad habits it has developed over the last few decades” (Newsweek).

These bad habits include spending and consuming more than we produce, leading to record levels of household debt, which has grown from $680 billion in 1974 to $14 trillion today. Spiraling consumer debt has been matched by the government. “The whole country has been complicit in a great fraud,” he writes in Newsweek. He quotes the economist Jeffrey Sachs:

“We’ve wanted lots of government, but we haven’t wanted to pay for it.”

He believes the current crisis will force greater fiscal “discipline” by both families and government, recognizing that “this discipline will be painful for a country that has gotten used to having it all.” It will also be good for our country’s foreign policy. Being the only superpower “has made Washington arrogant, lazy and careless.” Perhaps we could get away with this arrogance when we were on top of the world. But things have now changed.

“We cannot keep preaching to the world about democracy and capitalism while our own house is so wildly out of order.”

My book, and this blog, make similar arguments, and I agree with all of this, but especially that last sentence, which appears near the end of Zakaria’s Newsweek essay. However, I think Zakaria understates just “how wildly out of order” our system has become. Record consumer and government debts and a bankrupt financial system and foreign policy, as bad as those are, constitute only parts of the problem. At the same time that we have been madly spending on consumer goods, wars and debt servicing, we have let languish education, health care, infrastructure, science and technology. We have shuffled to the side the hugely expensive fixes required for Social Security and Medicare. Poverty and inequality are higher in this country than a generation ago, and among the highest in the developed world. Even our vaunted democracy, eroded by money and abuse of executive power, is no longer such a beacon for other countries. A major part of my book shows how all these interrelated problems result in a much more serious situation than Zakaria recognizes.

While we seem prepared to spend a trillion dollars bailing out a financial system led by incompetent billionaires, we need at least that much to fix the health care system, not to mention these many other neglected issues. It is difficult to see where the resources will come from to mend our society, once the banks are taken care of. It will require many years to restore the United States, and a change in America’s mindset, as well as its priorities.

Zakaria concludes his essay by suggesting that

“if we can learn the right lessons from this crisis, the United States will once more be playing by its own rules.”

I am not quite sure what “the right lessons” are, or what our “own rules” are. I think the needed lessons may be deeper and broader than he suggests, and that we may even have to change the rules. I am not as optimistic as Zakaria, but even without optimism, one can always hope. And this election week offers much hope.

The Post American World, by Fareed Zakaria

The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria (Norton, 2008)

Newsweek editor and columnist Fareed Zakaria has written a thoughtful and thought-provoking book about America’s relative decline in the world, and “the rise of the rest”—especially China and India. These emerging powers are following a “third way,” not always the path or model of the United States, and in the process reshaping the international system. They are gaining regional and global influence not with military muscle or political power, but by the force of example, and by sheer economic bulk. Meanwhile, much of the world is moving “from anger to indifference” about the United States—from anti-Americanism to “post-Americanism.”

Zakaria compares this global shift to previous epochal changes, with the rise of the Western world, and the rise of the U.S. He sees the main challenge for the U.S. to get beyond our “dysfunctional” political system that has us debating trivia instead of coming to terms with globalization and a more diffuse international system that requires consultation, cooperation and compromise.

Curiously, though, he still refers to the U.S. as “the single superpower” in a unipolar world, and sees U.S. continued strength based on the dynamism of the U.S. economy. Recent events, however, suggest that even the vaunted U.S. economy may be pretty “dysfunctional.” The trends Zakaria describes may be faster and more dramatic than he expected.

(More on Zakaria coming soon to this blog)