June 9, 2003
THE END OF HISTORY, FRENCH VERSION
Hasty obituary for an empire (Kathimerini, 5/6/2003)Opponents of US hegemony have been looking hard to see the ogre bleed....
Burgeoning US defiance of international law, and the ease with which US-led troops conquered Iraq, have reinforced fears that America has begun to see itself as a Gulliver that is free, at last, for global power play.
For Emmanuel Todd there’s no cause for concern. America’s decline is ... in the making.
“There is no reason to panic and to condemn the emergence of an American empire which — a decade after the end of the Soviet empire — is actually in a process of decomposition,” the French historian and anthropologist says in his latest book After the Empire ...
If the US is dangerous, he goes on, that is not because it is powerful but because it is losing its grip on power.
America’s resurgent militarism is nothing but the spasms of a crumbling giant.
The US, according to Todd, has reached a point where it needs the world more than the world needs it.
Its faltering economy is dependent on foreign capital, resulting in a trade deficit that more than quadrupled during the 1990s.
“In the period from 1990 to 2000, the [US] trade deficit went up from $100 billion to $450 billion,” explains Todd.
“To pay for this deficit, the US needs to import an equal amount of foreign capital,” he explains.
Did Attila the Hun worry about trade deficits? Did Genghiz Khan concern himself with attracting foreign capital? Why then will the American hegemon?
Implicit in the complacent arguments of the anti-Americans is the recognition that America is peaceable, honest, and generous, unlike past imperialists. Their arguments and vituperation, therefore, amount to no more than academic parlor games.