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Radnor Geopolitical Report
London
The pursuit of peace and
progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of
peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its
setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.
- Dag Hammarskjold
Sometimes the good news is hidden
in the bad news. Sometimes it’s the other way around. The good news for the
United States coming out of the January World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, may be an example of bad news hidden inside good news. What do I
mean?
I had breakfast with an old friend the day after he returned from Davos. He was
brimming with the good news that the anti-American tone prevalent in recent
years was absent this year. But is that good news? You decide.
Consider the theme of the meeting: Shaping the Global Agenda: The Shifting
Power Equation. The presentations at Davos make clear that this conference
was all about the expected (even hoped for) shift of power and importance from
the United States to Europe and Asia, especially to the European Union and
China. That was the message from Davos. So the lack of anti-Americanism this
year was because the U.S. was largely ignored, with no featured, high-level
speaker. The world, it seems, may have moved on. Most Europeans think that is a
good idea. Are they right?
Almost uninterrupted economic growth
Since World War II, the United States has been the world’s economic and military
leader and has tried to use that dual superiority to promote peace and
prosperity. These years have seen Europe experience almost uninterrupted
economic growth and sustained political peace. As Europe recovered and America
prospered, economic advancement rippled across the world. Asian nations, led by
Japan, became engines of productivity and increased personal freedom.
The world has never experienced such prosperity. In the five decades beginning
in 1950, the global economy expanded by a factor of six. Trade expanded 20 times
and growth rates were well beyond historical experience almost everywhere.
Living standards exploded. Average incomes have multiplied about 16 times in
South Korea, nearly 12 times in Japan, six times in Spain. Germany’s living
standards increased by a factor of five and France’s by four.
Under the umbrella of Pax Americana, democracy flourished in Western Europe and
Japan. It spread to South Korea, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Thirty years ago,
there were 89 autocratic regimes in the world and 35 democracies, according to
the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the
University of Maryland. Two years ago, there were only 29 autocratic regimes and
88 democracies.
Some, especially European politicians and academics, now tell us that all this
would have occurred spontaneously. Economists tell us that such thinking is
unrealistic. The Marshall Plan, advanced by President Harry Truman after World
War II, was a stabilizing influence. Europe rebuilt and became strong. Together,
North American and Europe began to provide the world with global currencies,
lower tariffs and the worldwide flow of investment capital. Technology and
management skills spread around the world. This led to more and more open
markets. The U.S. financed much of the expansion. In fact, to this day, the U.S.
supports economic growth in faraway countries by tolerating huge trade deficits
without imposing debilitating import restrictions.
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Over 60 million people died in World War II. Only four subsequent
conflicts have had more than one million deaths—the Civil War in the Congo
took three million lives; Vietnam took nearly two million lives; the
Korean War took over one and a quarter million lives and China’s civil war
took nearly that many.
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To Americans, the lesson of World War II was that to prevent a repetition, the
United States had to promote global stability. This meant the acceptance of
short-term costs and burdens to stave off larger long-term costs. The policy
seemed to work. Then, the Soviet Union collapsed and some said that event marked
'the end of history' - democracy and free markets would spread, unabated,
forever. The United States was the only super power.
Military strength is not power
Of course, the flaw in all this theorizing was to mistake strength for power.
Statistically, the United States remains the world’s strongest nation, with the
world’s richest economy, triple the size of the economy of Japan. Its
all-volunteer military is the best trained and most technologically advanced in
the world. No other nation is building nuclear powered aircraft carriers,
stealth fighters and unmanned aerial vehicles at the same time. But strength is
not power, no matter how impressive that strength may be. Power is the ability
to get others to do what you want. Here America is weak. Iraq reminds us that
religious and ethnic loyalties dim the appeal of democracy, freedom and
commercialism.
Asymmetrical threats routinely neutralize conventional advantages. Once again,
Iraq has confirmed what Americans should have learned long ago.
The U.S. military edge declines each time a renegade power acquires nuclear arms
- or appears to be on the verge of acquiring those arms. Any actions against
such a country could result in a nuclear exchange. The existence of one new
nuclear power might convince that power’s neighbors to develop their own nuclear
capacity. Terrorists may acquire the bomb.
So it appears that the end of the Cold War reduced, not increased, American
power. With the Soviet threat gone, Japan and especially Europe felt less reason
to follow U.S. leadership.
Anti-Americanism is wearing down Americans. The United States is regarded as
arrogant and a source of instability. Americans are blamed for global warming,
Islamic militancy, globalization and a host of other things. Americans are tired
of it all. Increasingly, Americans view Europeans as critics with no solutions.
European nations have made great strides in economic unity - but they bicker and
draw differences with each other on issues involving world leadership.
China for China?
Certainly, China will have to change markedly before it can assume America’s
role. Unlike the policies that guided the United States for half a century,
China’s policies are for China, not for a stable world order. China is altering
the world. Its economic policies are mercantilist; it subsidizes its exports
with an artificially low exchange rate. It is attempting to tie up world energy
supplies.
No empire lasts forever and the United States may lack the will or ability to
play world peacekeeper in an ever more complex world. The United States may be
ready to withdraw from the responsibilities of leadership. Social welfare
spending, already twice defense spending, will only grow. Younger Americans - by
a margin of three to one - do not believe that the United States should take the
lead in solving international problems. Remember, today’s college freshmen were
infants when the Berlin Wall fell.
Who will lead? We may be headed into one of those periods of instability out of
which emerges a ruthless empire, such as Nazi Germany out of the lack of
effective political leadership after the First World War. Seldom, out of those
periods, has a well intentioned but bumbling leader arisen. Now that well
intentioned but bumbling empire is receding.
Perhaps, people who now celebrate America’s decline will realize too late that
America’s failures were not as significant as America’s successes. Perhaps they
will wish that the United States - or a benevolent country like the United
States - will rise again. It is doubtful, however, that any nation will have a
people so willing to give so much to so many beyond their borders.
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Interested in attending a Radnor political or legislative briefing? Please
call Sarah Scotch at +1 202 659-4300 for more information.
Our next briefing, by Louis-Lyonel Voiron, will concentrate on the coming French
presidential election.
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Meantime, also in January, McDonald's reported the best results in decades, led
by huge sales abroad. Chinese customers are wolfing down more and more Big Macs
and France is the No. 2 profit center for McDonald's after the United States.
Last year, the French manager of McDonald's said, 'We are an icon of the United
States. When you enter a McDonald's restaurant, you enter America.'
Unfortunately, the U.S. government is not so nimble as American business.
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copyright © 2007 Radnor Inc.
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