HOW CAN ANYONE BUY INTO THE DECLINIST THESIS...:

Exaggerating America's decline (Michael Fullilove, June 17, 2008, IHT)

A new international relations orthodoxy is coalescing, to the effect that America is slouching towards mediocrity. In newspaper columns articles and on TV talk shows you will hear journalists charting the "relentless relative decline" of the United States. The military is overstretched; the economy is exposed; the political system is broken; the punters are suffering from an Iraq-induced hangover; and when it comes to international legitimacy, the White House has maxed out America's credit card. And all the time, potential competitors such as China, the European Union, Russia, India and Iran are closing in.

The best works in this area, by Richard Haass and Fareed Zakaria, are full of insight. Yet as a non-American living in the United States, I'm struck by the gulf that still remains between America and the rest - in terms of hard power, soft power and what we could call "smart power."

In relation to hard power, the $14 trillion American economy dwarfs all the others. The United States spends roughly as much on its military as the rest of the world combined. Washington has been bloodied and diverted by its foolhardy invasion of Iraq, but it remains the only capital capable of running a truly global foreign policy and projecting military power anywhere on earth.

Almost every country thinks it has a special relationship with the United States, based on shared history or values - or clashing ones. None of the great challenges facing humanity can be solved without the Americans.

...after watching the leaders of Europe this past week grovel at the foot of the "unpopular" president of the "spent" superpower?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 17, 2008 11:06 AM