Introduction
When the question “Is America in a state of decline?” the first and foremost idea that comes to mind is our current economic situation. However, there multiple perspectives that must be observed to properly consider this question. Based on the research and opinions found, I have seen two analyses of today’s state in America. It is without a doubt that we have suffered set back within the last decade to some degree at the very least. There are those that say we are most definitely in a decline culturally, economically, and politically. Others compare our current situation to mere indigestion. In this paper I will review evidence supporting both view points and potential policies which could be implemented to recover.
Evidence supporting decline
As I mentioned before, the idea of decline is something relative that must be viewed from multiple perspectives. In regards to being in a state of decline, there are a couple points I would like to highlight. The two key issues revolve around being involved militarily around the world and the economic crisis of 2008. For many years now, the United States of America has been the global hegemon in many aspects. Our nation has since had extremely well established hard and soft powers on a global level. This was firmly established particularly after World War II. Since then, our military can reach out and have boots on the ground anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. The United States has not only had the biggest stick on Earth, but it has also had a powerful way of swinging it both physically and diplomatically.
That said, we have been officially tied up in conflicts for over a decade across southwest Asia through Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, we have been involved militarily in several other asymmetrical conflicts in the Philippines, Libya, Djibouti, and other countries in Africa. Much of these other conflicts are only vaguely covered in the news, if at all. Because of all these various conflicts over the last ten years, starting with September 11, 2001, some scholars are saying that we have overstretched our reach. Some historians like Frank Cerruti, a professor at Northern Virginia Community College, compare the United States to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire being a large imperial nation whose ambitions led to its own downfall. Robert Gilpin refers to this as the hegemonic cycle. The hegemonic cycle states that a nation’s economic order plays to the international scene. Eventually, the global hegemon’s power deteriorates over time through over extending and over spending.
The Hill newspaper recently conducted a poll in October 2011 in which 69% of Americans now believe the United States is in a state of decline (O’Reilly, 2011). As Bill O’Reilly explains, the collapse of America’s “Don’t Tread on Me” traditions began with the Vietnam War. This was the first time the average American could witness an uncensored reality of war. Compared to the controlled footage shown at movies during World War II, this was a significant difference that came about with the modern news reporter. This only intensified feelings that Americans, particularly young Americans, experienced in regards to war. Furthermore, the Vietnam War was a vaguely defined conflict. It was an asymmetric conflict in which a body count did not make a difference in the way Americans were used to. Even prior to World War II, the United States has a history of attempting to install democracy in foreign nations.
That said, I quote an interesting question posed by Christopher Coyne, an Assistant Professor of Economics at West Virginia University. “Can a liberal democracy be exported at gun point?” His answer to this question is that we have focused solely on military occupation and reconstruction instead of exporting our values and ideas through trade and non-intervention. This has been shown in the history of U.S. foreign policy through Cuba, Somalia, Vietnam, and several other nations. This answer applies directly to our conflicts we have experienced over the last ten years. However, Operation Enduring Freedom is currently the United States’ longest ensuing conflict which involves both occupation and reconstruction (Coyne, 2008).
Ultimately, war is economically inefficient. It may provide temporary benefits and jobs, as witnessed in World War II, but it is not necessarily a sound long term investment. That said, we have been performing something unsustainable for a decade now. Undoubtedly, our current conflict in Afghanistan and our enduring presence in Iraq has contributed to our economic issues and our national debt in the trillions. Albeit a much smaller portion of our deficit in reality than the average American believes. From this point of view, the United States has definitely overstretched its reach as the global hegemon. The question that remains is what our recovery to a peacetime nation will be like. Will our withdraw from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom be a graceful maneuver or will it signify a retreat to the world?
How we handle the withdraw will have a significant impact on both our soft power and hard power. To begin with, our soft power has already come in to question by different nations. According to a Pew poll listed by Al Jazeera, in 15 out of 22 nations surveyed, people believe that China will replace or has replaced America as “the world’s leading superpower.” Even more ironically, many of the negative opinions came from some of our long time allies including Japan, Turkey, Latin American countries, and other countries in Eastern Europe (Nye, 2011).
In terms of our military power, it will largely depend on where future budget cuts are made and how the military plans to handle it. In 2009 I worked in Recruiting for the United States Marine Corps. At that time, the entire U.S. Armed Forces had not only met its recruiting quota, but it had surpassed it as well. At that point, the Marine Corps had reached its highest numbers around 210,000. Today, with the given economic situation and the end of combat operations in Iraq, the U.S. military is beginning the process of force restructuring.
That said, Congress has mandated that the Marine Corps must reduce its numbers to 185,000 by 2013. The other branches are experiencing cuts proportionally similar to this as well. This will mean that the United States will have a significantly smaller stick than it has had over the last several years. If the military’s numbers are ultimately reduced in the same way they were during the Clinton administration we may suffer similar inconveniences when it comes time to mobilize again. Therefore, our hard powers have decreased and are still decreasing at least in terms of sheer numbers.
The second major piece of evidence supporting the idea that the United States is in a state of decline is our current economic crisis. As every American is aware of, we entered an economic recession in 2008 and the recovery has been somewhat troubled. Although there are currently many Americans protesting through the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, there is much more that caused the economic crisis than the executives on Wall Street.
The economic crisis America is experiencing arguably began as early as 1971 when President Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. From here on out was the beginning of a US Dollar backed by nothing but the word of the government. Essentially, the US dollar became a receipt for something that did not exist.
This practice of American assets not being backed by anything carried in the late 1990’s when cheap credit became easily available. In reality, much of this was a result of direct foreign investment in the United States particularly from China. This cheap credit that became available to virtually anyone who wanted it resulted in inflated assets. This trend continued in to the late 2007 and 2008 time frame. These assets came particularly in the form of the U.S. housing market. Essentially, Americans began purchasing homes that they could not realistically afford. This in turn caused the housing bubble to burst in the United States and thus was the first symptom of the American and global economic crisis (McGlinchey, 2011). The United State’s proverbial house of cards built with money and assets that did not exist in the first place came crashing down.
In the long run this is another aspect that has damaged America’s soft power. Essentially, what our enormous outstanding debt has signaled to the world is that our government is unreliable. It has affected our national image. Between the economic crisis and the Global War on Terrorism, we have tried to spend our way out of the problem. This also supports Robert Gilpin’s concept of the Hegemonic Cycle I mentioned earlier, providing evidence supporting that the United States may indeed be in a state of decline. The current administration has attempted to spend our way out of this crisis through a variety of methods.
After President Obama was elected, our government took on more interventionist economic policies. They attempted to resurrect the economy by providing economic stimulus and bailout funds to various major businesses. Since then, the administration has introduced more plans in order to recover beginning with Obamacare in an attempt to provide health insurance for the public. Following that, there have been a number of federal and state level job acts and economic recovery acts. The idea behind these plans is to fix the economy and fix the approximately 9% unemployment rate. However, all of these plans are ultimately inefficient and are only pushing America further towards declination (BLS, 2011).
As supporting evidence of this, one could argue that America is slowly falling down Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom.” As his book shows, it begins by war forcing national economic planning. In doing this, individual freedoms are given up. One could compare this to various legislations like the Patriot Act that resulted from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Since then, the “blank check” that was given to President Bush has continued on with the spending and planning of this administration. As Hayek says, the government continues to plan a utopia for all. However, a utopia is ultimately subjective to each individual person. Some may argue that this is conspiracy theory, but it is certainly worth consideration.
As I mentioned before, the Global War on Terrorism has played a part in building up our national deficit. Furthermore, when many Americans are asked what should be done to help the economy, a common answer is to end the war. It is true that America’s conflicts are expensive. However, in reality the war only makes up 20% of the national budget (Anonymous, 2011). The entire war, not including things like the troop’s base pay, is funded under the United States budget’s discretionary funds. The rest of the military makes up a much smaller portion of the mandatory funds.
It is here where America has the large elephant in the room that makes up for over 50% of the national budget’s mandatory funds. The elephant that no one wants to discuss and has the largest cumulative amount of expenditures is comprised of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (Anonymous, 2011). All three of these programs are unsustainable at their current rate. Furthermore, their expenditures will continue to rise as America’s Baby Boomer generation begins to retire.
All of this data based primarily on the current economic crisis and the global war on terrorism points to the idea that America is currently in a state of decline. Furthermore, this data supports Robert Gilpin’s theory of the Hegemonic Cycle which says the United States is on its way out. However, for every argument, there is a counter argument.
Evidence showing only temporary issues
The resounding two opinions supporting the idea that the United States is only experiencing minor technical difficulties are interrelated. The first point is to look at our overall history and see that we have experienced substantial troubles before. Additionally, our current problems are only being further exacerbated by poor decisions made by our current and previous presidential administrations.
As Joseph Nye’s article on Al Jazeera shows, Americans have quite a long history of underestimating their powers. When everyone thought that the Soviets would best us in the space race, arms race, or Cold War, America pulled through. Later in the 1980’s everyone thought Japan’s industry would overtake ours. Today, everyone is worried that China will best the United States. Even through our current economic recession, America still has a very productive economy. Additionally, America still ranks first in research and development expenditures, university rankings, Nobel prizes, and entrepreneurship. That said, the one thing that has pushed America as far as it has gone so far has been innovation. Even today we are still the front runner in rapidly emerging industries such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. People still want to come from all over the world to experience success in the United States (Nye, 2011).
Although our military is beginning the process of downsizing, it is still highly unlikely that we will lose our edge especially given the innovation America has. The military’s manpower may decrease, but we can still swing a big stick from across the globe when we need to. Along with this war has come the unmanned aerial vehicle. These are being widely used today as a lethal and efficient tool throughout our conflict areas. Take for example our recent strike in Yemen.
As another counter to the idea that we are declining, one could argue that we have gotten to where we are because of poor governmental decisions. We are also experiencing turmoil because we are in a political stagnation right now. Much of this could change though based on who is elected in the upcoming 2012 elections. Although there has been an exorbitant amount of expenditures in recent years, this does not necessarily mean that the next administration will fall under this. In fact, based on the history of swinging between Liberal and Conservative, I would say that we will not continue our current spending.
Much of what supports the idea that we are only experiencing temporary difficulties is in of itself. Things will change over time. For instance, according to statistics collected by the Bureau of Labor, the majority of people who are experiencing unemployment are in their 20’s and early 30’s. Eventually, when the baby boomer generation begins to retire, the jobs that are locked up will open to the next generation.
Ultimately the resounding argument supporting the idea that America is only witnessing temporary setbacks is that we simply need to hold on and ride out the crisis. As long as there is still innovation combined with a spirit of entrepreneurship, we can make it through anything. All we have to do is wait and see what tomorrow brings.
Potential Policies
As for policies to amend America’s “decline,” I have come across two approaches to this. The first is called the policy of retrenchment. The second idea is that we need drastic changes in our government’s unchecked and unaudited spending across the board.
According to Paul MacDonald and Joseph Parent, most great powers who adopted retrenchment policies during sharp decline were significantly more successful than states that did otherwise. The strategy begins by retracting grand commitments abroad in an effort to gracefully decline. The core principal of retrenchment involves a great power shifting burdens to allies, reducing military expenditures and personnel, and avoiding militarized disputes.
To support this, history has shown that putting up a façade, catering to private interests, and holding up unrealistic burdens causes these nations to be exploited by the more disciplined opponents. Furthermore, studies have shown that the quicker retrenchment is undertaken, the greater the alliance agreements are and the more swift the recovery will be (MacDonald & Parent, 2011). What this translates to is that a declining hegemon should set itself up for success, not failure. It needs to give itself a chance to maintain credibility in order to maintain posture in the long run.
The second major idea is that we need major spending cuts throughout the entire United States government. Much of this I discussed already in terms of social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These programs are positive feedback loops that have reinforced themselves over the last several decades. The issue with this though is that nobody wants to be the one to say that an older generation should not receive healthcare. Furthermore, anyone who would say that might have difficulty getting elected.
Since the early 1900’s the United States has adopted many social programs that cater to a variety of interests beginning near the great depression. The problem with social programs though, is that if you approve one you have to approve them all in order to keep it “fair.” These spending cuts must happen at some point. The only question is to what degree they will occur. Much of that will be determined by the next administration to come about.
Final Analysis and Conclusion
My own personal opinion takes in bits and pieces of everything. I do not believe that we are in a terminal state of decline. However, I do not believe that this situation is simple as some people say. Others compare this to the great depression in the early 1900’s, but I believe it has the potential to become much worse than that. In this case, we have worked our nation in to a corner with a plethora of policies and legislations held in place by a bipartisan system that refuses to budge.
In order to maintain our position as global hegemon we must remove ourselves from all these military conflicts abroad and make serious cuts to the spending our nation performs. This means that everyone has to be willing to give up their handouts and be willing to improvise, adapt, and overcome the challenges ahead of us. That means that there will be business failures and people without health insurance. I will be the first to admit that the thought is unnerving, but it is something that must happen for the United States to continue on. If this does not happen, I think it is very possible that the next generation will not be as well off as we are. At the end of the day though, Americans want their Starbucks coffee and I believe that we will pull through this one way or another.
Bibliography
Anonymous. (2011) Interview. White House Office of Management and Budget. (I have kept this person’s name anonymous at their request.)
Antle, W. (2011). Is america in decline?. The American Spectator, 30-35. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c785ce89-7e15-4c75-827f-cf9bb144eef4@sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=107
BLS. (2011). Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by age, sex, and race, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Coyne, C. (2008). After war: the political economy of exporting democracy. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Datta, M. (2009). The decline of america's soft power in the united nations. International Studies Perspectives, 10, 265-284. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5f39a527-a714-471f-94d9-03f5c958d513@sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=107
Hayek, F. (1944). The road to serfdom. University of Chicago Press.
MacDonald, P., & Parent, J. (2011). Resurrecting retrenchment:. International Security, Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/isp/0022202/f_0022202_18269.pdf
MacDonald, P., & Parent, J. (2011). Graceful decline?. International security, 35(4), 7-44. Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/is/v35i4/f_0022251_18307.pdf
McGlinchey, E. (2011). GOVT 132 Lecture. George Mason University
Nye, J. (2011). Decline and fall of the us' decline and fall. Al Jazeera, Retrieved from http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011108122558980585.html
O'Reilly, B. (2011, October 29). Dependency leads to a declining u.s.. Retrieved from http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2011_1029dependency_leads_to_a_declining_us/
Prasad, E. (2009). Effects of the financial crisis on. The Cato Institute, 223-235. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n2/cj29n2-1.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment