After America: How does the world look in an age of U.S. decline? Dangerously unstable.
BY ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI | JAN/FEB 2012
Not so long ago, a high-ranking
Chinese official, who obviously had concluded that America's decline and
China's rise were both inevitable, noted in a burst of candor to a senior U.S.
official: "But, please, let America not decline too quickly." Although
the inevitability of the Chinese leader's expectation is still far from
certain, he was right to be cautious when looking forward to America's demise.
For if America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a
single preeminent successor -- not even China. International uncertainty,
increased tension among global competitors, and even outright chaos would be
far more likely outcomes.
While a sudden, massive crisis of the
American system -- for instance, another financial crisis -- would
produce a fast-moving chain reaction leading to global political and economic
disorder, a steady drift by America into increasingly pervasive decay or
endlessly widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by
2025, an effective global successor. No single power will be ready by then to
exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991,
expected the United States to play: the leader of a new, globally cooperative
world order. More probable would be a protracted phase of rather inconclusive
realignments of both global and regional power, with no grand winners and many
more losers, in a setting of international uncertainty and even of potentially
fatal risks to global well-being. Rather than a world where dreams of democracy
flourish, a Hobbesian world of enhanced national security based on varying
fusions of authoritarianism, nationalism, and religion could ensue.
The leaders of the world's second-rank
powers, among them India, Japan, Russia, and some European countries,
are already
assessing the potential impact of U.S. decline on their respective
national
interests. The Japanese, fearful of an assertive China dominating the
Asian
mainland, may be thinking of closer links with Europe. Leaders in India
and
Japan may be considering closer political and even military cooperation
in case
America falters and China rises. Russia, while perhaps engaging in
wishful
thinking (even schadenfreude) about America's uncertain prospects, will
almost
certainly have its eye on the independent states of the former Soviet
Union. Europe, not yet cohesive, would likely be pulled in several
directions: Germany
and Italy toward Russia because of commercial interests, France and
insecure
Central Europe in favor of a politically tighter European Union, and
Britain
toward manipulating a balance within the EU while preserving its special
relationship with a declining United States. Others may move more
rapidly to
carve out their own regional spheres: Turkey in the area of the old
Ottoman
Empire, Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and so forth. None of these
countries, however, will have the requisite combination of economic,
financial,
technological, and military power even to consider inheriting America's
leading
role.
China, invariably mentioned as America's
prospective successor, has an impressive imperial lineage and a strategic
tradition of carefully calibrated patience, both of which have been critical to
its overwhelmingly successful, several-thousand-year-long history. China thus
prudently accepts the existing international system, even if it does not view
the prevailing hierarchy as permanent. It recognizes that success depends not
on the system's dramatic collapse but on its evolution toward a gradual
redistribution of power. Moreover, the basic reality is that China is not yet
ready to assume in full America's role in the world. Beijing's leaders
themselves have repeatedly emphasized that on every important measure of
development, wealth, and power, China will still be a modernizing and
developing state several decades from now, significantly behind not only the
United States but also Europe and Japan in the major
per capita indices of modernity and national power.
Accordingly, Chinese leaders have been restrained in laying any overt claims to
global leadership.
At some stage, however, a more assertive
Chinese nationalism could arise and damage China's international interests. A
swaggering, nationalistic Beijing would unintentionally mobilize a powerful
regional coalition against itself. None of China's key neighbors -- India, Japan,
and Russia -- is ready to acknowledge China's entitlement to America's place on
the global totem pole. They might even seek support from a waning America to
offset an overly assertive China. The resulting regional scramble could become
intense, especially given the similar nationalistic tendencies among China's
neighbors. A phase of acute international tension in Asia could ensue. Asia of
the 21st century could then begin to resemble Europe of the 20th
century -- violent and bloodthirsty.
At the same time, the security of a number of weaker states
located geographically next to major regional powers also depends on the
international status quo reinforced by America's global preeminence -- and would
be made significantly more vulnerable in proportion to America's decline. The
states in that exposed position -- including Georgia, Taiwan, South Korea,
Belarus, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, and the greater Middle
East -- are today's geopolitical equivalents of nature's most endangered species.
Their fates are closely tied to the nature of the international environment
left behind by a waning America, be it ordered and restrained or, much more
likely, self-serving and expansionist.
A faltering United States could also find its
strategic partnership with Mexico in jeopardy. America's economic resilience
and political stability have so far mitigated many of the challenges posed by
such sensitive neighborhood issues as economic dependence, immigration, and the
narcotics trade. A decline in American power, however, would likely undermine
the health and good judgment of the U.S. economic and political systems. A
waning United States would likely be more nationalistic, more defensive about
its national identity, more paranoid about its homeland security, and less
willing to sacrifice resources for the sake of others' development. The
worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled
Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the
emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of
territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents.
Another consequence of American decline could
be a corrosion of the generally cooperative management of the global commons -- shared
interests such as sea lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment, whose
protection is imperative to the long-term growth of the global economy and the
continuation of basic geopolitical stability. In almost every case, the
potential absence of a constructive and influential U.S. role would fatally
undermine the essential communality of the global commons because the
superiority and ubiquity of American power creates order where there would
normally be conflict.
None of this will necessarily come
to pass. Nor is the concern that America's decline would generate global
insecurity, endanger some vulnerable states, and produce a more troubled North
American neighborhood an argument for U.S. global supremacy. In fact, the
strategic complexities of the world in the 21st century make such supremacy
unattainable. But those dreaming today of America's collapse would probably
come to regret it. And as the world after America would be increasingly
complicated and chaotic, it is imperative that the United States pursue a new,
timely strategic vision for its foreign policy -- or start bracing itself for a
dangerous slide into global turmoil.
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