America in Decline? A Look at the Declinist Thesis: Part I of III
As many of you may know, I'm an English-Australian expatriate living in the United States and will be (hopefully) gaining my permanent residency tomorrow. As such, I regularly peruse the BBC website for news, features and sport results. I came across this interesting article, read it and listened to the accompanying interviews:
A State of Decline?
It got me thinking, analyzing and had me heading back to my academic background and mulling it over. How true is it? Is it reversible? Is anyone to blame? So many questions! The purpose of this entry is to briefly outline the declinist thesis, provide an overview of it's history and then provide some thoughts of my own, augmented with the thoughts of the academics interviewed for The Today Show on BBC 4 Radio (A great show to podcast, if you're so inclined. I believe it's free). This will be the first of three posts. Tonight, I'll look at the thesis and it's history. Later, I'll look at the academics point of view, their thoughts and what I think can be done to reverse this trend, if indeed there is a trend to be found.
The Thesis: Challenges from Home and Abroad
At its most basic level, the declinist thesis argues that the United States of America is in a period - some say terminal - from its position of hegemony over the rest of the world. On most fronts - technological, economic, military - the proponents of this thesis state that the US is no longer capable of projecting effective power and will quickly be overtaken by emerging countries - primarily China and India - and that the US does not posses the will, capability or means to reverse this trend and reassert itself as the preeminent world power. This decline will result in the US losing it's prestige, power and security and having to adjust and learn the role of a significant power, but no longer the preeminent power.
History: Just Misplaced Pessimism?
This fear amongst Americans, particularly her academics, is nothing new. The first traces of the "America in decline" movement can be found in the early beginnings of the Cold War and the Space Race, where the Soviets were the first to launch an artificial satellite (Sputnik, 1957) and then a man (Yuri Gagarin, 1961) into orbital space. The pessimists tried to portray this supposed superiority of the Soviets over the United States as signs that America's glory days from World War II were over and a new world order was about to sweep the globe.
Then again towards the end of the 1970s this thesis emerged again, this time as a result of mismanaged events abroad that led some to say it was a result of America's growing weakness, especially during the oil embargo that severely impacted the economy. This was further strengthened with the rapid growth of the Japanese economy that began to challenge the US' position as the world's largest and most prosperous economy.
Both times these storms were weathered - first with the youthfulness, energy and optimism that erupted following the election of John F. Kennedy, which signaled generational change and his drive to push the US beyond the Soviet's technological exploits and culminated in the US being the first to put a man on the moon - Neil Armstrong in 1969. Secondly, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 his bullish demeanor coupled with a relaxation of energy powered the US towards victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War that capped a period of supreme confidence, strong leadership and clear direction in policy and politics that seldom portrayed an atmosphere of squabbling, bickering and general decisiveness. The challenge from Japan diminished as the Asian economies suffered from growing too quickly without plans for sustaining that growth.
Next: Causes of the current crisis, academic input and potential/possible solutions
Finally: My thoughts, opinions and a look to the future