Lecture on the Rising Powers and the Decline of the US

On April 1, I gave a lecture on "The Rising Powers and the Decline of the U.S." as part of the Foreign Policy Association's "Great Decisions" series, sponsored by the Mid-North Shepherd's Center in Indianapolis. A video of this presentation (50 minutes) including pictures of the slides in my powerpoint presentation, is viewable at this link. (You might want to fast-forward through the first few minutes, where we struggled with the microphones and audio!).

The End of the American Century Appears in Chinese

Welcome to the Chinese readers of The End of the American Century! I hope some of you will visit this site, and contribute to it.

The book has just appeared in Chinese, published by the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House, and translated by Professor Ni Lexiong and Sun Yunfeng of the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

(See my 4/28 post on Shanghai Conference on The End of the American Century)



Further information and some Chinese reviews and commentary on the book are available (in Chinese) at this link.

Spanish Court Questions U.S. Use of Torture

Last week, a Spanish court took the first steps in opening a criminal investigation against Bush administration officials for violating international law in providing the legal framework for the U.S. government’s use of torture. Among those the court is expected to indict are former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who is now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

John Yoo was the author of the so-called “torture memos” which justified the use of torture and argued that the U.S. should ignore the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly prohibit torture.

The United States is a party to the Geneva Conventions, and also to the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which is binding on 145 countries, including the U.S. Torture is explicitly prohibited in numerous other international treaties, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Human Rights; and the American Convention on Human Rights. Most scholars also believe torture violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

So there is plenty of legal precedent to assert that Gonzales, Yoo and other Bush administration officials—probably even the president himself-- were in violation of international law.

The Spanish initiative comes on the heels of two damaging new reports on the Bush administration’s use of torture. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating whether the legal advice of Yoo and others “was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys,” according to Newsweek. If Attorney General Holder accepts the report, it could be forwarded to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action.

An even more damning report by the International Red Cross on the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo has been brought to light by Mark Danner, in a short article in the New York Times and a longer one in The New York Review of Books. The Red Cross reports—basically verbatim accounts of interviews with Guantanamo prisoners—makes absolutely clear, according to Danner, “that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush administration, including the president himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact.”

Danner concludes, as I have done in The End of the American Century, that the U.S. use of torture not only eroded our own values, but further poisoned the global reputation of the U.S. and stimulated the recruitment of terrorists around the globe. The decision to torture, writes Danner,

“harmed American interests by destroying the democratic and Constitutional reputation of the United States, undermining its liberal sympathizers in the Muslim world, and helping materially in the recruitment of young Muslims to the extremist cause. By deciding to torture, we freely chose to embrace the caricature they had made of us.”

Of course it was not just at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo that prisoners were tortured. Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, convincingly shows that the use of torture was a central tool in the battle against terrorism. Even though President Bush denounced the use of torture, the tactics he denounced were exactly the same as those he had authorized and encouraged in the extensive worldwide network of secret prisons set up to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists. As the distinguished historian Alan Brinkley wrote in a review of The Dark Side:

"it would be difficult to find any precedent in American history for the scale, brutality and illegality of the torture and degradation inflicted on detainees over the last six years; and it would be even harder to image a set of policies more likely to increase the dangers facing the United States and the world.”

By almost any measure, the decisions of Yoo and Gonzales were legally incompetent. At the very least, their recommendations, and the decisions taken by President Bush, were violations of international law. They come close to crimes against humanity. They should be brought to account in this country, under American law. But Yoo, far from facing indictments in the U.S. continues to teach at one of the most prestigious law schools in the U.S., and continues to find a hearing for his views in the pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Perhaps it will take a European court, in the end, to have him, and other Bush officials, account for their decisions. For a Spanish court to indict them will be largely symbolic, of course, since the U.S. is unlikely to extradite them to Spain. But symbols are important. And one of the most important symbols of all was President Obama’s categorical assertion, in the first weeks of his presidency, that

“under my administration, the U.S. does not torture.”

Andrew Bacevich on The Limits of U.S. Power

Andrew Bacevich’s book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, has much in common with my own book The End of the American Century but is, if anything, even more pessimistic about the outlook for the United States. Bacevich, a retired military officer and currently professor of history and international relations at Boston University, recently visited Butler as part of the Drew Brahos lecture series.

The Limits of Power sees three interrelated crises afflicting the U.S.: the crisis of profligacy; the political crisis; and the military crisis. The guiding ideological light in his book is the early 20th century American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr (who I also quote in my book). During the Cold War, Niebuhr complained about U.S. tendency to hubris and sanctimony, which Bacevich views as even more prevalent now, becoming “the paramount expressions of American statecraft.”

As Bacevich sees it, our failures abroad (including especially the Iraq War) are a function of our unending consumer appetites at home. “The collective capacity of our domestic political economy to satisfy those appetites has not kept pace with demand. As a result, sustaining our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness at home requires increasingly that Americans look beyond our borders. Whether the issue at hand is oil, credit, or the availability of cheap consumer goods, we expect the world to accommodate the American way of life.”

“Centered on consumption and individual autonomy, the exercise of freedom is contributing to the gradual erosion of our national power.”

The Iraq War is just the latest step in the gradual erosion of U.S. power, weakening us both externally and internally as we refuse to face up to our own problems. He includes a wonderfully revealing quote from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from October 2001:

“We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we change the way they live. We choose the latter.”

Bacevich is scathingly critical of the American political system, which he sees broken and corrupted by an imperial presidency, a “feckless” Congress, and an incompetent national security structure. Our democracy has been hijacked, he says, by a political elite who “have a vested interest in perpetuating the crises that provide the source of their power.”

These are powerful charges and surprisingly radical, coming from someone who has been part of the establishment and who considers himself a conservative. When Butler faculty and students met with him over breakfast, we raised the question of whether the capitalist system itself was broken, given the arguments he made in his book and his lecture. However, even though he sees little hope for any kind of economic or political recovery in the U.S., Bacevich maintains a firm commitment to capitalism and democracy. Many of us found this to be paradoxical. If the system is broken and can’t be fixed, shouldn’t we be searching for some alternative?

The Limits of Power is a powerful and sobering analysis and critique of the American prospect. The message is similar to that of my book, though there are differences. Bacevich focuses more on the U.S. itself, whereas I link what is happening in the U.S. with broader international and global trends. While both of us decry American consumerism, he focuses more on the cultural (and even spiritual) aspects of this, while I spend more time on the economic and social consequences of it. Neither one of us is terribly optimistic about the outcome, but the last pages of my book offer some inklings of hope, whereas the last paragraph of The Limits of Power is thoroughly downbeat. He quotes, once again, Niebuhr to the effect that social orders inevitably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible. “Clinging doggedly to the conviction that the rules to which other nations must submit don’t apply,” concludes Bacevich,

“Americans appear determined to affirm Niebuhr’s axiom of willful self destruction.”

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project)

The Middle Kingdom Reasserts Itself

China has also suffered from America's economic meltdown, but the country's leaders continue to assert themselves on the global stage, both economically and politically. Some Chinese even see the problems in the U.S. as an opportunity for China to fill the void being left by the U.S.

The latest example of China's new confidence is a remarkable story buried on page A5 of this Tuesday's New York Times--"China Urges New Reserve to Replace the Dollar."

"In another indication that China is growing increasingly concerned about holding huge dollar reserves, the head of its central bank has called for the eventual creation of a new international currency reserve to replace the dollar."

The official argued that a new currency reserve system controlled by the International Monetary Fund would be "more stable and economically viable."

As the Times observes, "the proposal suggests that China is preparing to assume a more influential role in the world."

This is a theme I develop in The End of the American Century, where I describe China's opposition to "hegemonic" and "unipolar" power politics--code words for U.S. domination--and the country's growing efforts to promote its "soft power" influence in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. The "peaceful rise" of China is supported by the population as well: in a 2003 poll in the country, 40 percent picked China as "the most prominent country in the world."

As London's Economist observes in its cover story on "How China Sees the World," "there is a sense in Beijing that the reassertion of the Middle Kingdom's global ascendancy is at hand." Prime Minister Wen "no longer sticks to the script that china is a humble player in world affairs" and now talks of China as "a great power."

The main reason for the proposal for a new international currency is China's growing concern about the safety and stability of its own vast holdings of the U.S. currency. China holds an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. government debt, the world's largest holdings. Earlier this month, the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, publicly expressed concern about the "safety" of these investments and asked the Obama administration for assurances that these securities would maintain their value.
(See the New York Times story "China's Premier Seeks Guarantee from U.S. on Debt").
Last January, Mr. Wen criticized the "unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption." There was no question about which country he was referring to.

When Premier Wen hosted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Beijing in February, it was clear that this was a meeting of equal, sovereign states. Next month, at the meeting of the "G20" economic powers in London, the most important business will be that between Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao. The Middle Kingdom is back.

Leonhardt rebuts Sorkin on AIG Pay

As an addendum to my previous post, the day after Andrew Sorkin's New York Times column defending executive bonuses ("The Case for Bonuses"), the much more astute and sensible NYT economics columnist, David Leonhardt, published a piece entitled "Paying Workers More To Fix Their Own Mess." While Leonhardt did not specifically mention Sorkin's column, he did quote from it, and it is clearly a response and counterpoint to Sorkin's nonsensical defense of big bonuses for incompetent executives. As I have suggested before, Leonhardt is one of the few economics writers who seems to understand the depth and breadth of the current economic crisis.

The "Brainiacs" and "Talent" at AIG

Washington is finally catching on to why people are so upset with these million dollar bonuses for executives who drove their companies into the ground and swindled American taxpayers. But Wall Street apparently still doesn't quite understand the fuss, and the folks there continue to make the argument that these bonuses are necessary to "attract and retain talent." This "talent" are the greedy, immoral,short-sighted scoundrels who bankrupt their own companies, stole the retirement funds of million of Americans and drove the global economy to the brink of depression. Some talent.

The most stupefying assertion of this ridiculous argument about talent comes in the form of a New York Times column by Andrew Ross Sorkin, entitled "The Case for Bonuses at A.I.G."

Sorkin writes that "as unpalatable as it seems, taxpayers need to keep some of these braniacs in their seats" so they can help fix the mess they made and "to prevent them from turning against the company."

Braniacs at A.I.G.?????? These "braniacs" are colossal blunderers and incompetents, just like most of the CEOs at the other companies that went bankrupt based on hugely risky and irresponsibly stupid investment decisions.

Edward M. Liddy, the new (supposedly improved) CEO of A.I.G., perpetuates this shibboleth:

"We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff" the company "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."

This argument about attracting and retaining talent has two major problems. First, it is clear by now that such a strategy did not work. Big money didn't attract talent, but greed. And selfish greed doesn't benefit much of anybody except those few who practice it.

Second, if multimillion dollar payouts are necessary to attract "talent," then how do you explain the influx of very talented, dedicated, public-spirited people into the federal government, especially with the new Obama administration? Washington is inundated by people, young and not-so-young, wanting to hitch their stars to a noble vision and public service. How many of them are being offered million dollar salaries? None.

So let THEM take over administration of these discredited and disgraced financial institutions.