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SPEAKING FREELY
US complicit in its own
decline
By W Joseph Stroupe
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
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China is
rising, economically, diplomatically and militarily, to
threaten a displacement of the United States as the
dominant power in Southeast Asia. Europe is increasingly
choosing the course of independence from the US: it
currently rivals US gross domestic product (GDP) and is
making joint economic and strategic diplomatic
agreements with US competitors Russia, China, India,
Iran and others, while the US looks on warily.
South Korea is increasingly irritated with the
US military presence and diplomatic posture on the
Peninsula and is looking ahead to a settlement of the
Korean crisis that could significantly lessen, if not
eliminate, US presence and influence. Japan likewise is
displaying increasing irritation with the US diplomatic
posture and military presence in the region and is
moving rapidly in the direction of remilitarization,
independence and self-assertion, making its own
energy-security deals with Iran and Russia over US
objections. Taiwan is also becoming more assertive,
risking a conflagration with China, and obliging the US
to make diplomatic moves toward China, away from
longtime ally Taiwan, in an effort to avoid the
conflagration, in which the US would most likely be the
prime geopolitical loser.
Russia, in the face of
proliferating US military presence throughout the
traditional Russian sphere of influence, is becoming
much more assertive, charting a course often directly
opposed to the US. Russia is making strategic economic
(oil/gas) agreements and conducting weapons sales in
every strategic region of the world, while the US looks
on guardedly at Russian political and diplomatic
influence on the rise.
The majority of the oil
states of the Middle East have adopted a decidedly
anti-American stance in the aftermath of the Iraq
invasion, and consequently, US influence in the region
is suffering a very significant setback. In the past
year collective international opposition to the US has
been consolidating at the United Nations and within its
Security Council, marginalizing and isolating the US
internationally. The continuing trends are mostly
against the US and are even picking up steam in that
direction.
In the face of all these regional and
global developments, can the United States maintain its
current position of global dominance?
Conventional wisdom says the US cannot be
displaced from its position of global dominance any time
soon, in spite of the current negative trends noted
above. Very confidently, those touting such conventional
wisdom proclaim that the United States simply has far
too much power to be displaced. However, the track
record of conventional wisdom is such that we owe it to
ourselves to check the assumptions upon which it is
based, to see whether they stand up to scrutiny. If they
do, then we will have confirmed for ourselves that US
dominance is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
But what if those assumptions begin to crumble in the
face of a logical and factual analysis? Would you want
to continue to subscribe to conventional "wisdom" if it
were proved to be based on fragile foundations?
Most, if not all, of the negative trends noted
above have come about either directly or indirectly as a
result of US hegemony, most often exercised with little
sensitivity or concern for the interests of its
subjugates. The United States has often acted as if
everyone else on the geopolitical chessboard is destined
to be a subjugate of it, as the last superpower.
However, the US is finding out that those "subjugates"
do have options beyond mere passive acquiescence to the
will of the global hegemon.
A careful
examination of precisely how the US exercises power,
where that power derives from, is very enlightening in
view of the subject at hand.
'It's the
economy, stupid!'
The essence of US global power
is its economic wealth. Every other form of its power is
a derivative of that wealth. The US has been able to
influence all the other players on the geopolitical
chessboard because it leads the global economy, and
historically, it can therefore greatly reward or
severely punish in ways and to an extent that no one
else can. This fact endows the US with tremendous
political and diplomatic power and influence. It can
develop and deploy the most awesome and effective
military machine in the world, enabling the projection
of its power around the globe - all because it can
"afford" it economically while no other nation can. The
standard of living and the freedoms enjoyed by its
people give the US tremendous social and cultural
influence across the globe - all rooted in its economic
prosperity. In every way US power derives from its
economic capital.
Even the enemy terrorists
realize the truth of this. Hence they attacked the very
symbolic heart of America's economic power on September
11, 2001, in an effort to damage the real source of US
power. If that true source of power is ever spoiled
significantly, or if the US economy could be throttled
by an outside force, then the last superpower will see a
decline in the potency of all its derivative forms of
power and influence. As a matter of fact, the evidence
strongly indicates that decline is already happening.
How so?
It has been correctly noted that oil is
the very lifeblood of the industrialized economy.
Completely opposite of popular assumptions circa the
late 1990s and up until around 2002, during this most
recent period in which global oil prices have rebounded
and are currently soaring, the US economic engine is
still exceptionally vulnerable to oil price shocks. It
is now well known and appreciated that in the past 30
years, since the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, every
global oil price "shock" has been followed closely by a
US economic recession. The link between the two is
indisputable. What applies to the US economic engine
also applies to the global economy as well. However, US
economic vulnerability to the global price of oil is now
significantly greater as compared with the vulnerability
of most other economies. How is that true?
The
US has been steadily transferring its economic wealth
and the power that goes with it to other nations,
directly as a result of its enormous debt. The US is
frighteningly dependent upon foreign cash inflows to
finance its huge deficit. This increasingly places the
very solvency of the US economy in foreign hands. The US
currently runs an account deficit of 5 percent of its
GDP, a record high, which cannot be maintained
indefinitely. Crude-oil imports account for a sizable
portion of this current account deficit, and become
increasingly significant as the global price of oil
elevates. An orderly decline of the dollar by about 40
percent, far greater than the overall 8 percent (about
20 percent against the euro) seen so far, would be
required to help shrink the dangerous current account
deficit. However, such a decline presents a range of
other problems that are considerable in their impact and
risk.
As the dollar declines, oil producers,
which currently price their exports in terms of US
dollars, seek to hedge against the lessening of their
real profits resulting directly from the dollar decline.
They do this by pegging the price of exports to a more
stable currency with fewer structural problems, the
euro. Evidence compiled by James Turk, founder of
Goldmoney.com, strongly indicates they may already have
established a de facto but undeclared peg to the euro.
As a result, oil producers artificially inflate the
price (in dollars) of oil to hedge against a weaker
dollar, and that puts increasing upward pressure on the
US current account deficit, which puts further downward
pressure on the value of the dollar. A vicious cycle has
already ensued. The likely effect is an eventual
not-so-orderly decline in the value of the dollar. This
can have a catastrophic impact upon the US economy and
upon the global economy as well.
In fact, the
only reason the decline of the dollar has not been
disorderly (or even catastrophic) already is the fact
that the Asian economies, most notably Japan and China,
have so far continued to purchase enormous amounts of US
debt in an effort to keep their own currencies from
escalating out of control against the dollar. Notably,
private investors who formerly purchased US debt have
mostly abandoned that practice out of fear of holding
too many dollars, and that slack has, so far, been taken
up by the Asian central banks. The entire situation for
the US economy is very unstable and filled with risk.
The fact is that there currently exist so many
imbalances, many firmly centered in the US economy, but
extending outward to affect the global economy, that no
one can say with any authority precisely what all the
risks are, or what the future holds, with much accuracy.
However, one thing that is certain is that because there
exist so many deep structural weaknesses and very
considerable risks, the US economy no longer commands
the global respect and confidence it once did.
In fact, doubts about the stability and
permanence of US wealth are deep and wide. The dollar is
in steep decline over concerns about the structural
integrity of the US economy. The rest of the economies
of the world are increasingly concerned about having
their economic security hitched so permanently and
intimately to the US economy alone. "The neighbors are
beginning to talk" about the need to pursue a course of
increasing economic independence from the US. What they
are saying is evidence that the formerly unquestioned
economic power and earned global trust of the United
States is in serious decline.
As everyone knows,
economies operate on trust as a foundation. The US
foundation is already seriously damaged, as evidenced by
global nervousness and fear of a serious, or even
catastrophic, US dollar decline. The US is doing very
little, if anything, to reassure the world and calm the
jitters. In fact, it is continuing to spend itself into
an indebtedness "oblivion", spending on hugely expensive
domestic programs, on an ever-increasing military budget
and on hugely expensive military invasions and
nation-building. All the while, deep tax cuts have also
been enacted. How much longer can the economic charade
continue, while the United States refuses to make needed
reforms and to take other required actions to
strengthen, rather than weaken, its own economic
strength?
US unwittingly participates in its
own decline
The United States is helping to
create severe problems for itself by participating in
the transfer of its wealth overseas, and at the same
time, by pursuing a militarized foreign policy that
alienates it from traditional friends and allies, and
which creates an atmosphere of distrust of its real
intentions and its underlying motives. The US is
therefore helping to marshal opposition to itself,
helping to consolidate such opposition and continuing to
give impetus to collective moves on the part of its
friends and rivals alike, designed to limit US power and
intensify their own. In essence, the US is unwittingly
causing the accelerated creation of a multipolar world,
where US global dominance is no longer desired, no
longer accepted as inevitable. Now, the US is finding
that it no longer possesses the influence among the
global community of nations that it once had.
The US is also working to undermine
international confidence in its economy as it
facilitates corporate fraud, a la Enron, WorldCom
and many others, seemingly without end. These
scandalous, gigantic corporate failures have a serious
effect on investor confidence worldwide. There are other
places to put one's money, and when such monumental
failures occur in the heart of the US economy, investors
are forced to hedge their bets, to diversify their
investments for fear they will lose everything in the US
system. They have already begun to put their money
elsewhere, on a large scale. Unfortunately, few in the
United States understand, or even see, such trends. But
they are continuing briskly, even accelerating, thereby
weakening the US economy by undermining international
confidence in it.
Strategy to counterbalance
the US in motion
While all the aforementioned
trends and problems continue apace, certain other
players on the geopolitical chessboard are apparently
arranging an economic "check" (if not also eventually a
"checkmate") of sorts of the United States by
controlling the global availability and price of oil and
gas. At the center of those efforts is Russia, which is
working very diligently to extend and solidify its
control over global oil and gas production and
transport.
Already Russia is the world's
second-largest oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia, with
which it has signed a wide-ranging cooperation agreement
on crude-oil production. With Saudi Arabia's de facto
control over all of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia's growing monopoly
over oil and gas production in most of Europe and Asia,
the two partners are already in effect controlling the
global price of oil by tightly managing production
levels. Russia is also making moves to bring Japan under
the shadow of dependence upon Russian oil. Rather than
building a proposed oil pipeline to northeastern China,
Russia has virtually decided to build one to the Pacific
coast to serve Japan. This is a wise strategic move on
Russia's part. It already has China firmly under its
shadow. Now it seeks to bring Japan under the same
shadow of energy dependence. Japan has very little
choice but to seek oil where it may be acquired, since
it must import about 90 percent of the product.
Notably, US oil companies have recently decided
that the environment in Iraq, which possesses huge
proven reserves of oil, is too unstable for their
involvement at present. They will hold off any
significant involvement for at least a year. However,
the Iraqi Governing Council has already sent strong
signals that it is interested in wide-ranging agreements
with Russia for oil production and marketing.
Ironically, with respect to control of Iraq's oil
reserves, Russia appears to be coming out the winner
instead of the US. Russian oil companies are poised and
ready to come into Iraq in a very large way. But that is
not all.
In a strategic move, Russia is now
significantly extending its already considerable control
over world gas production, engineering a monopoly over
that energy resource in addition to its currently
growing crude-oil monopoly. Iran has huge known deposits
of gas, and Russia has entered into strategic
cooperation agreements with Iran to explore, produce and
bring to market that resource. Russia and Iran account
for at least 49 percent of the world's known gas
reserves. Further, Russia and China have very recently
signed a strategic agreement with Saudi Arabia for the
exploration, production and marketing of its similarly
huge deposits of gas. Other Arab oil states will no
doubt soon follow suit. The loss of US influence in the
region is becoming painfully evident in various ways,
not the least of which is its access to energy resources
and energy security. Globally, gas is playing an
ever-more-important role as oil becomes more expensive
and harder to obtain.
If we simply stand back
from a distance and observe the clear overall pattern of
these energy-resource developments, we can see a
distinct and indisputable blueprint emerging. It is a
blueprint of economic encirclement of the US by means of
an oil/gas monopoly. A monopoly over the very lifeblood
of industrialized nations, namely oil and gas, is at the
same time an effective throttle on the economic wealth
of a nation, even of a superpower.
Often when
this subject is brought up, the reader tends to think
only in terms of the "oil weapon", where by means of an
embargo oil is severely curtailed in an effort to crash
the target economy. However, what Russia is engineering
for itself is much more sophisticated than that. It is
currently more of a tool than it is a weapon. It is a
tool that is being used to conduct the massive transfer
of wealth, and with it, power and influence from one
geopolitical "pole" to another. It is also a tool being
used to exploit pre-existing weaknesses in the US
economy for the purpose of producing increased
instability in that economy and in its currency. It is
therefore a lever to power for the one wielding it.
Though it certainly has the potential for being used as
a weapon in the not too distant future, its current
adroit use as a tool is very effective indeed, without
the likely violent repercussions if used as a
weapon.
Russia and its strategic
partners
Is it really a case of Russia
deliberately positioning itself at the center of such
developments concerning global oil and gas production
and pricing, developing and executing a coherent
strategy with a global monopoly as the goal, or is it
merely a very weak and mostly inconsequential Russia
reacting to events and trying to make the most of a very
weak position?
The "experts" remind us that any
such global monopoly will be short-lived as
oil-dependent nations develop alternatives under an
environment of high oil prices. Consequently, such
"experts" tend to discount severely the existence of any
such strategy on the part of Russia, and if such a
strategy does exist, they discount its long-term
effectiveness. In defense of their conventional wisdom,
they also like to point out Russia's comparative
economic, political and military weakness - they insist
that Russia is a mere shadow of the former Soviet Union
and cannot, therefore, play any role to threaten US
global dominance seriously. Finally, they also point out
the many statements coming out of Moscow to the effect
that Russia wants to work with the US in a strategic
partnership. In summary, they say, Russia is simply
unable and unwilling to be a serious threat to US
dominance. On the surface, their case seems very solid.
But is it?
In the classic story of David and
Goliath, the giant laughed at little David, and likewise
the United States tends to think a scenario of a serious
Russian challenge to US dominance is laughable too. And
it is certainly true that Russia is much like little
David in comparison to the American Goliath. But swift
and crafty little David, despite appearances, was in
fact a serious threat to overconfident, unwieldy
Goliath, whose defenses were mostly down. In the end,
Goliath "lost his head" in the face of David's
apparently laughable onslaught. And that is where the
danger lies for the last superpower - its deep-rooted
tendency toward overconfidence, its underestimating the
potential for danger, and its lack of a clear, coherent
and workable strategy to ensure the retention of its
dominant global position, all combine to put it at
significant risk in confronting the array of resourceful
and crafty little "Davids" currently challenging its
global dominance.
Ancient David successfully
wrought his strengths against Goliath's weaknesses. That
was asymmetrical rivalry at its very finest. Every giant
does have exploitable weaknesses. If those weaknesses
can be effectively targeted and exploited before the
giant can react successfully, then the entire giant is
at the mercy and control of the attacker(s). Very
interestingly, when one carefully analyzes precisely
what the weaknesses of the American Goliath are, and
compares those to the pattern of actions and strategy of
"little" Russia and her "little" partners, the fit is
remarkable indeed.
What are US weaknesses, and
are they really being targeted in a coherent and
deliberate strategy? The reliance of US commerce and
banking and of the US military upon computers and
networks is legendary. Russian hackers are well known to
be the global elite, those best able to penetrate and
compromise US networks. Microsoft Windows security
problems are also legendary, which places the bulk of US
commercial and military networks at significant risk.
Information (cyber) warfare is clearly a strategic
problem, because fixing the current network insecurity
will take tremendous effort over a period of many years,
and the problems are just beginning to be addressed.
Currently, the US is without wide-ranging and
effective network defenses. This situation is far more
serious than US officials like to advertise, for obvious
reasons. They do not wish to encourage hackers and they
don't want to erode confidence in America's
commercial/financial and military infrastructure. Both
Russia and China have elaborate cyber-warfare programs
in place specifically designed to exploit US weaknesses
while insulating their own networks from such attacks.
In cyber-warfare attack and defense simulations carried
on under the direction of the North American Aerospace
Defense Command (NORAD) prior to September 11, the
"enemy red team" evidently scored significant successful
"hits" against the "blue team", showing up just how
vulnerable the United States is. The modern-day little
"Davids" have been actively studying the American
Goliath's computer-network vulnerabilities very
carefully.
US military platforms, while very
formidable, are also comparatively expensive, large and
unwieldy, and are much like sitting ducks in the face of
a whole new generation of Russian-made ultra-quiet
diesel-electric attack submarines, supersonic anti-ship
cruise missiles, supersonic torpedoes, sophisticated
air-defense/anti-missile systems, laser-guided anti-tank
weapons and anti-ship and land-attack short-range
nuclear-capable ballistic missiles designed for
in-theater use. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) has described Russian supersonic missiles as the
most dangerous on the planet, and for good reason. There
exists no effective defense against them. Interestingly,
the US has no supersonic cruise missiles deployed
anywhere in the world. Current US aircraft-carrier
battle-group anti-missile defensive measures consist of
ECM (electronic countermeasures) and, at the last few
moments, the Point Defense System, radar-guided
high-speed, high-capacity machine-guns that lock on to
incoming missiles and attempt to destroy them. Such
defenses are very effective against incoming subsonic
cruise missiles.
However, in the case of the new
Russian missiles, US naval defenses, if they detect the
incoming missiles at all (AWACS aircraft are the only
practical means for doing so), will have less than three
seconds thereafter to shoot them down. They can be
launched from aircraft, surface ships, or submerged
submarines. They travel at Mach 2.5 (about 2,980
kilometers per hour, or about 830 meters per second),
much faster than a high-powered rifle bullet. They skim
only meters above the ocean surface, do not give away
their presence by emitting any form of radiation as they
approach their target, are hardened against ECM, and are
nuclear-capable. Russia and India are now deploying and
marketing the "Brahmos", a jointly developed supersonic
anti-ship cruise missile, based on the Russian design.
Russia also possesses a nuclear-capable supersonic
torpedo that travels faster than the speed of sound
underwater - therefore it cannot be reliably detected
and tracked by a conventional sonar detection system,
because it travels faster than the sonar waves do.
Russia has also developed and deployed
sophisticated air-defense and missile-defense systems
capable of managing and destroying scores of targets at
once. Russian diesel-electric submarines are
ultra-quiet, and can detect enemy ships and submarines
at a distance of four times that at which they
themselves can be detected. Russian anti-tank weapons in
use in Iraq scored a number of "kills" against the most
advanced tanks in the world. Russia has sold many of
these weapons systems to China and others. Russia and
India have also developed an ultra-long-range air-to-air
missile designed specifically to attack AWACS (Airborne
Warning And Control System) and JSTARS (Joint
Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) aircraft that
the US and Israel use in warfare to extend their vision
and reach. The downing of AWACS and JSTARS aircraft will
in effect blind the United States in any conflict
without necessarily having to resort to the downing of
the US satellite constellation. This is true because
virtually all battlefield assets are managed by the
AWACS and JSTARS systems. Without the AWACS and JSTARS
aircraft, the ability of the US military to see any air
or land target is severely reduced.
These
asymmetrical weapons systems are all designed to exploit
the vulnerabilities, the Achilles' heel, of US military
platforms, limiting US ability to project military power
by forcing those platforms to stand off at such a
distance that US strikes are either impossible or very
risky. Since China has purchased many of these systems
from Russia, US naval operations in the vicinity of the
Taiwan Strait in any future crisis will be significantly
complicated and limited. According to the facts,
"little" Russia has proved itself very resourceful in
countering the almost overwhelming, yet significantly
vulnerable, military power of the US giant.
Other US vulnerabilities targeted
US
dependency on oil imports is another very significant
weakness of the American Goliath. As noted above, Russia
is making strategic moves to extend its global monopoly
over energy resources. A practical measure of the extent
and effectiveness of that monopoly is the fact that
since 1999 (for almost five years now) global oil prices
have continued above the minimum level Russia considers
to be in its strategic interests - that level is about
US$22 per barrel. Russia and its partners in OPEC,
especially Saudi Arabia and Iran, have managed expertly
to throttle oil production so as to control its price.
As the Russian monopoly over oil and gas continues to
widen, the global price of oil will remain where Russia
and its partners desire it - not where the US Goliath
would prefer. As noted above, this energy monopoly is a
very effective tool being used to transfer wealth
outside US boundaries and control.
Russia and
its partners are very effectively exploiting another
important vulnerability of the US giant - its
unprecedented international political and diplomatic
isolation resulting from its unilateralist pursuit of an
overly muscular foreign policy. At least since the
spring of 1997, in the wake of the crisis in the Taiwan
Strait and the US bombing of southern Iraq in 1996, both
Russia and China have been making diplomatic moves at
the United Nations and elsewhere designed to promote the
creation of a more stable world order - the multipolar
world order. They have argued publicly and privately
that the unipolar world order of the last superpower is
inherently unstable, unfair and dangerous.
Unwittingly, arrogantly and very shortsightedly,
the US has repeatedly acted to validate the diplomatic
message and justify the strategic moves of both Russia
and China on this issue. Hence we see an array of trends
and events occurring that form a definite, undeniable
pattern - the multipolar world is taking shape as the US
pole is weakened and isolated, and the other, lesser
poles are acting collectively to counterbalance US
global dominance. All this is occurring apace, and even
accelerating, in spite of the fact that the US giant is
still, at this time, the dominant force in the
international system. In spite of that fact, the trends
and forces are mostly moving against the American
Goliath. The little "Davids" know that only by
collective action can they hope to bring the giant under
control, and consequently that is what we increasingly
are seeing - collective moves and action to bring
balance to the international system.
Forecast: A move closer to chaos
Such
pursuit of geopolitical balance may overshoot the mark,
however, actually resulting in a disorderly and rapid
decline of US global power. That is especially likely if
the United States loses its dominant position in the
midst of an international crisis wherein it sustains a
significant economic crash, or in a military conflict
with strategic partners Russia and China that leads to
the US military suffering significant loss of men and
assets as a result of dangerous and effective
asymmetrical warfare against it.
The real
problem with the current international system is that
structurally, as it moves toward multipolarity, most
factors weigh very heavily against an orderly decline of
US economic and/or military power. Immensely important
vulnerabilities and weaknesses exist that make a
disorderly, or even a chaotic, loss of US economic
and/or military power much more likely. Consequently, in
such a scenario, widespread international chaos would be
the most likely eventuality, since no single power could
step into the position of global dominance then
chaotically vacated by the US.
Attempts may
certainly be made at such a time to seat a collective
power, an alliance of sorts, as the geopolitical and
geo-economic successor to the US. No doubt that sort of
last-ditch attempt to restore and salvage order in the
international system would be centered in the UN and its
Security Council. However, considering mankind's
history, it is extremely doubtful such a solution would
be able to maintain its own unity for long, keeping the
divergent interests of the parties to that alliance in
check and submissive to the need for international
order. Rapid geopolitical fragmentation and extreme
international chaos, on a level never before
experienced, would therefore most likely result if the
US is ever unseated too rapidly from its current
position of dominance that enables it to retain a
certain amount of order in the international system.
Ironically, it is the current global dominance
of the last superpower that both invites collective
opposition in the creation of a multipolar world
(threatening to overshoot the mark of balance and taking
the world into uncontrolled chaos, however), and at the
same time maintains a semblance of order. This is in
spite of a certain level of instability caused by the
militarization of US foreign policy since the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991. Hence we find ourselves in an
extremely dangerous situation where US-caused
instability and the collective counterbalancing (or even
anti-US) reaction is definitely on the rise, perhaps
bringing the world closer to a nightmare scenario
infinitely more dangerous and undesirable than the
unpleasantness and comparatively low-grade instability
inherent in the current US-dominated system.
The
imbalance in the current unipolar system is very
dangerous and risky. But the risks of overshooting the
mark of geopolitical balance, as a multipolar world
order is created by US rivals and competitors at the
significant expense of the US, are also extremely great,
for no one can expect the US willingly to give up its
almost complete dominance over the international system
without a fight. And by "fight" is meant military
invasion in an effort to reassert and solidify its
dominant position if and when it is ever threatened with
imminent loss. And in this dangerous mix, we must place
international terrorism and the proven ability it has to
move nations to resort to extreme measures to protect
and reassert control, ostensibly in the name of national
security. When the international system is analyzed in
the light of these forces and trends, the prognosis is
for much greater instability and the proliferation of
regional wars.
To avoid the considerable risk of
these very unpleasant eventualities, international
multilateral diplomatic effort would be required to
construct deliberately a more balanced world order and
to implement carefully such an order in a fashion that
avoids any disorderly loss of power by the US "pole".
The longer the US refuses to share its global dominance
with other players and the harder those other players
attempt to curtail US dominance, the more risk there is
of pushing the international system "past center", as it
were, resulting in a disorderly or even chaotic reversal
of US dominance as described above. In such a crisis,
restoring international order and balance would be very
difficult, even impossible.
It is extremely
important here to resist the tendency to dismiss
warnings, based either upon a refusal to face the facts,
no matter how unpleasant they might be, or based upon
unfounded confidence in the status quo. Just to
illustrate, remember that in early 2001, huge and
seemingly endless surpluses were forecast for the US
economy. The high-tech sector was booming. Things
apparently seemed very healthy and bright for the US in
an economic sense. But within mere months, it had all
evaporated. Where did it all go? A significant amount of
America's wealth is being transferred overseas, as noted
above. This demonstrates that, even for a superpower,
nothing is assured. And as economic wealth and power
fade, so do all the derivative forms of power - this
truth cannot be refuted.
As an old proverb says,
"The scene of this world is changing." Tremendous
economic wealth and its resulting power can dissipate
very rapidly, especially in a crisis. Certainly that is
true in view of the fact that other powers, in a
concerted effort to bring about their much-desired
multipolar world order, are developing a coherent
strategy to weaken US economic power by transferring
significant wealth outside of US boundaries, and when
the United States itself is unwittingly participating in
its own decline.
W Joseph Stroupe is
editor in chief of GeoStrategyMap.com, an online global
affairs magazine specializing in strategic analysis and
forecasting. He can be contacted at
editor_in_chief@geostrategymap.com.
(Copyright
2004 W Joseph Stroupe.)
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