As John Ikenberry has written elsewhere, much of the international order as currently constituted is the result of U.S. leadership. The institutions that make up this order serve the american interest which usually causes Americans to continue to support it. If there is a return to multipolarity one of two things can happen. One, the order may be contracted to a smaller sphere where the U.S. is the dominant force. Two, the order stays broad but others have more influence, the institutions serve U.S. interests less, domestic support ebbs, and order erodes. Then, what most liberals write about-- a multilateral institutional order-- will be and remain out of reach. That, it seems to me, should be one reason to support the continuation of primacy.

Secondly, it appears to me at least that it is a mistake to assume that even if China, Russia, and others become democratic that they will also be liberal like us. Surely that is the lesson of Russia now. Also, china today is less democratic/ representative than Germany was in the 1870-1914 period. In fact, many of the debates now ongoing about China also occured about Wilhelme Germany. My point is that before we begin to say multipolarity is okay we would want greater guarantees that the new poles will be liberal democratic. I can't see that happening in my lifetime.

Thirdly, I would point out that many academics, particularly on the Democratic side, have made a career out of betting against American power. This is a recurring theme during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Some conservatives, such as Nixon, also fell into this trap. On the other hand, those who were bullish, like Reagan, were not only right but more tapped into American public opinion. Bottom line: pessimism and accommodation to a diminishment of U.S. power is probably a vote loser and more likely to be wrong than right.

Finally, American stategy in the first half of the 20th century left threats unaddressed until it was almost too late. The cost of the required adjustment was enormous in blood and treasure. I would be reluctant to embrace that as a model. If, as liberals, we believe in universal values, there is also another imperative to shape the world as much as we can.

In principle, you are correct. "Amerika uber alles" is not really a national principle. On the other hand, history shows that the process of giving up the number one spot is rarely a comfortable one for the country surrendering the position. Britain managed it quite nicely, but only because the new number one was extremely well disposed toward it.

Noel

This is a good time to consider what a country gets out of being perceived as "No. 1." Looking at the U.S. since ca. 1990 (by which time there was universal agreement that the U.S. was the world's sole hyperpower), can anyone name even one major benefit of U.S. dominance? Is the U.S. in 2006 any safer, richer or more feared and respected anywhere in the world than it was in 1990? Meanwhile, look at all the (distant) No. 2's if you want examples of "safer, richer, more feared and respected" countries.

 This isn't the "world series" we are discussing here.  Although a true world sports championship might divert a lot of our phony patriotism to better ends.  Imagine our 50 states acting as we, as a nation, do.  California would be number one, would be establishing military bases in various other states to "project power", and would, of course, want to pick the governors for all of the states that have oil.  Isn't that absurd?

We need to view the world as we view our own states.  We are all members of the human race, and all of our countries should be equal partners on this planet.  Just as some of the states in our country are much poorer than others, some of the countries in the world are much poorer than others.  If we have good foreign policies there will be no military efforts to equalize our economies, but there will be economic competitions, and there will be shifts of wealth from wealthy countries to poor countries.  That is the world we need to work towards.

Hoppy in Sacramento

As to pessimism, I think this kind of thing was occurring in the 1970s and 1980s when the US was going through some tough economic times (at least intermittenly) and the West German and Japanese economies were going great guns. Not so much in the '90s as far as I know - or at least after 92/93 or so.

But there is a major difference now. Not so much that I see the US going in the toilet or anything, because I don't - its going to remain preeminent for another decade or so. But because China is just a much more serious long term player than Japan or Germany ever could have been. The very size of their population and landmass - which, at the end of the day, is the basic building block upon which any country's power needs to rest, at least in the modern era - puts them in a category fundamentally different from that of Japan. Also, Japan's miltary and its strategic relationship to the US was very different than that of China's today.

The choice isn't really between seeking to be number one and seeking to cooperate with others. The rational strategy is to seek your own interests in concert with others, while also pursuing your own interests where they conflict with others', but not drawing too much attention to the latter. You should always talk peace and common interests, even when you may subtly be pursuing your own interests in ways detrimental to others. This is the Chinese way, the way of Sun-Tzu, and the way of Bill Gates. (Who holds the record for using the phrase "win-win" the most times in an hour? It's a tie: Bill Gates and Hu Jintao. Neither is particularly known for being uncompetitive.)

George W. Bush, by highlighting his conflicts with others, swaggering, exercising maximum braggadocio and minimum diplomacy, and seeking conflict even where none need exist, has shown the world why he's such a successful nationalist-divisive politician and such a lousy corporate CEO.

Happy talk is not the way to gain the confidence of the people. - Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Iraq

In particular, I fail to understand why the US must feel compelled to retard the rise of China, why there is such eagerness for conflict with them among neocons. The Chinese are not expansionist and are not threatening their neighbors.

But we should also be embracing and managing that transition

Are you aware of current gas prices, of the debate between Simmons and Yergin, of the latest report from Aramco on the rate of decline of Saudi oil fields? Are you willing to give up your house and car, your kids fancy education, most of your income and trade your middle-class life style for a third-world one? Are you willing to embrace that transition?

Are you even conscious...because you seem to me to be a poster-child for idiocy.

Let's think about the world s/he posits for a moment -- a world in which the U.S., EU, India, China, Japan, and perhaps Russia are all major powers. Is that such a terrible vision?

I seem to remember that when Howard Dean was running for president and said something that implied that America might not always be the only superpower in the world this was jumped on by everyone as some sort of major blunder.

Fred in Vermont

Aside from the personal attack, I am not sure what you are getting at.
If we get past oil soon we'll have much more spare money for our children's education, etc. Doesn't seem to be any way to avid dealing with that either, which is the meaning of "embracing" used here. It does not mean accepting, but anticipating and acting on the expectation.
Brazil is an example to follow, with its fleet of flex-fuel cars and sugar-cane ethanol. They expect full energy self-sufficency in 6 months.

Sorry for the second post but Jim Griffin who writes for RealMoney.com and is an economic consultand money manager for ING wrote today on the pas de deux between China and the United States. Whether it requires the United States to be number 1 I don't know but it certainly requires the United States not to treat China as an enemy.

" Among the tentative conclusions that occur to me are that China's recent influence on global economic conditions can be extrapolated for some time yet, and that China will manage its currency for its own purposes. Its first purpose is to keep job growth booming in order to facilitate, with as much domestic tranquility as possible, the nation's transformation.

In short, the "unsustainable," mutually codependent, unbalanced goods-for-bonds trading relationship between China and the United States will be sustained for many months yet, and perhaps many years.

The scale of the global imbalance is such that it is not possible to feel easy about the range of time paths of adjustment that may lie ahead. Respected observers -- Paul Volcker, for example -- fear that a future financial crisis is implicit in today's tilted accounts.

That is one possibility, but President Hu left this observer with the sense that China's leadership is operating with whatever is the opposite of a short-term trader's mentality. The Chinese-American trading relationship has costs and benefits on both sides, and while it might be unsustainable in an accounting sense, its persistence will be determined on political terms.

So the bonds-for-goods trade between these two nations will remain in place, with positive effects on inflation and bond yields in this country. Marginal adjustments will happen, but the basic deal will persist because the United States, with a 4.7% unemployment rate, simply doesn't have the labor resources at home to produce everything that domestic demand requires. And China, to modernize at the pace its population requires, simply has to accept the counter-party risk that goes with its export-led growth."

[RealMoney.com www.thestreet.com/p/pf/rmoney/marketcommentary/10280937.html]

The creepy feeling, I suppose, is the sense that historic changes are inevitable, but that they won't be happening soon."

Daniel A. Greenbaum

The United States and the entire West reduced oil consumption in relative terms after the OPEC price shocks of the 1970s. It is one reason why our economy hasn't collapsed in the face of $75.00 a barrell of oil. If oil prices stay high or the United States launches a program of fossil fuel reduction why would you assume that the Tom Wright isn't correct?

Malthus, Paul Erlich and many others looked at the world and commodities and predicted disaster. Instead industrialization brought down population growth and inventions that has fed the world. It is silly to be sanguige but also dangerous to draw a straight line into the future.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Losers accept losing, which I'm not.
"Flex-fuel and sugar cane ethanol have nothing to do with it." Wrong. Brazil's oil production will acount for 30% of domestic energy use.
Accepting the status quo, that is, oil dominance, is the loser's game. I said nothing about giving up anything except old habits.
On what basis do you see no alternative to oil? The amount of energy falling as sunlight on the planet in one day equals the amount used by humans in one year. There is no energy shortage, only an equipment shortage, which is very responsive to demand. An artificial demand boost, through one incentive or another, would make us leaders in solar power instead of oil consumers. And unlike oil, solar power will only get cheaper for a very long time.
Only losers (or oil shareholders) depend on oil.

The oil shocks of the '70s were very painful and we're still paying the price...just as we're still paying for the wars we've lost.

The new oil shocks look to be much more severe and of much greater duration. Still, conservation, rationalization of our transportation system, and technological advancement MAY enable us to avert disaster. But there will still be great pain and suffering.

Nobody's drawing a straight line to the future. Malthus and Ehrlich may have been wrong, or been only wrong in their timing and other details. We've seen plenty of very destructive wars over resource scarcity.

Tom Wright wants to base policy on the assumption that oil shocks will be minor and fairly easily overcome. The author thinks she sees a peaceful and easy transition to paradise. I say bullshit to both. We should base our policies on self-interest and the most realistic estimates of our situation...and that is as I've described (given the most recent Aramco estimates, Simmons analysis, and the best estimates of demand growth).

I'll believe in a credible alternative to oil when I see one. Meanwhile all the world's economies find it absolutely essential - the more advanced, the more essential. All your examples are just pie in the sky.

Not that people aren't trying. It's worth trying. I live in an underground house, use passive solar gain for most of my heating and hot water, try to minimize my transportation costs, etc. But I don't kid myself.

What data?

Do you really believe that we can easily obtain energy independence but don't do so because of some conspiracy of wealthy and powerful people? Do you really believe our leaders are sending our children to die rather than implement technologies which would result in decreased profits for oil companies, that these same companies wouldn't invest in such technologies?

Of course, I think your arguments are utter nonsense.

Did I say there was no planning or that planning was useless? Of course not. It's also worth noting that Bretton Woods planning did not solve all the worlds problems or produce a sustainable society.

Did I say that technological advancement was impossible or useless? Of course not. It's going on all the time and has been for at least 500 years. Meanwhile suffering has not come to an end, wars continue to be fought, scarcity is an ever-present demon devouring the hindmost.

Stop using these dumb examples of inefficiency. People are rewarded for efficient industrial processes. They implement them as fast as they can. You have only to look at the long list of companies which failed because they failed to keep up.

People are making money now with wind installations; in Illinois we have 4 gigawatts either licensed or pending.
One of our posters here, el campesino, says his comapany has $50 million in scheduled solar-thermal commercial installations in the pipeline. In Germany, the hottest shares are in "green" energy ventures.

More practically, do we really think we are going to be able to be the sole superpower in 100 or even 50 years, with not one but two countries rising that have up to five or six times our population, an equivalent land mass, and extraordinary economic potential?

Inevitably this transition will occur, regardless how large our military expenditures are. In the long term, skills and science is the only thing that’s going to allow our small population to keep pace with the developing-vastness of the rest of the world.

The best way to begin is to start with the obvious: Energy independence. The American mood is ripe for a leader that can turn us away from the zero-sum policies of oil imperialism.

All the obstacles you note are real.

There are many more - such as shortages of capital, unanticipated production problems, labor troubles, environmental consequences, etc. They don't go away. They have to be faced and overcome and that's not easy, never was easy, never will be easy. You mention them but you don't really see them.

Who's going to pay people to abandon their big cars for little ones? What will happen to companies which know how to manufacture big cars but not little ones? To their employees? Where will all the extra ground water come from given that supplies are already under stress? Why are you so sure that the intermittent nature of wind and sun is only a termporary impeditment? Do we really want huge areas covered with wind generators and solar arrays? Why do you think they can replace oil when experts who generate real numerical comparisons don't? On and on like that. Just stop.

For example, by discontinuing new-source review there is no incentive for coal plants and other emitters to upgrade and find that free power

There is no free lunch and no free power. Upgrading is expensive. The Administration judges that its better to keep power cheap and spend the money on other things. As far as I can tell Democrats don't have a clue. Their solution - as always - is make the rich pay for all problems.

You don't have to believe in a conspiracy of wealthy and powerful people to believe that our country is not attempting to reduce our petroleum usage.  Oil companies make money by selling oil or oil products.  So, of course they are going to do their utmost to keep oil and oil product usage high and growing.  But, that is only in their self interest, not in America's self interest.  Our government today is made up very largely of oil company people, so they see things the same way the oil companies see them.  And, that is a problem.

Even today alternative energy sources are more costly than petroleum as an energy source.  So, alternative sources are not competitive.  The rock and hard place problem we have is that petroleum prices have to increase considerably and increase faster than alternative energy sources, or the alternatives will never be competitive.

The day is coming when our economy will suffer greatly from the high cost of energy.  That means, to me, that our government needs to be  promoting the development of alternative sources to reduce their cost, and make sure we have those alternatives available in time.  And, that isn't being done today. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

As hoppy points out, it is absolutely in an oil company's direct interest to ensure continued oil sales. It stretches their shareholder obligations to act in any way against that maximized profit, and might even be a breach of due diligence.
Also note that the "Energy Task Force" was exactly the oil industry.
Data: All the examples I gave in the above posts. email el campesino to find out about his business. Google new wind licenses. Check out SunCorp,which is using computer chip wafers to make 21% efficient solar panels. Capstone Turbines is selling to landfills, which are making free money burning their methane. Look up the solar flux numbers. Expect to see enzyme-based cellulose digestion for ethanol soon. Shell already has a genemod yeast that digests cellulose, but they're not hurrying to market. Cellulose ethanol means plant trash, and all paper trash, is a source of convenient liquid fuel (with no carbon penalty).
There are obstacles, and there are solutions. There are millions of bucks being spent now and yielding returns now. Hardly nonsense.
Let's get going.

There have been some very fine scenarios put forth and thoughtful comments expressed here in this thread.

Now as long as we are all attempting to read the future in a cloudy crystal ball ... take the time to read through the following thought provoking scenario:

The War on Terror Is Over, and China Won

Imagine 40 years from now how a global affairs columnist for the Fox-Xinhua (or New Shanghai Times) content-providing service will analyze the world's geo-strategic and geo-economic balance of power. This might be the way he or she recalls the visit that China's former president Hu Jintao made in April 2006 to Washington, the capital of what was then known as the "United States." Now in 2046, the city is a major tourist attraction for Chinese and Indian tourists, many of whom stay at the seven-star hotel previously known as the "White House" (the Lincoln Suite is the most expensive).

He or she (cloned in 2011) might write the following:

"As I downloaded news reports that were published in the American media on that week, what really astonished me was the extent to which President Hu's first visit to the then U.S. capital since becoming China's paramount leader had received so little attention in the American press. The headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post (both of which have since been bought by our parent company) were devoted to U.S. efforts to prevent Iran from gaining access to nuclear military capability – Iran conducted its first nuclear test two years later and is now a leading nuclear military power – and to the violence in what was known then as 'Iraq' (now divided between Turkey, Iran, and the Syrian Federation) and was still occupied by the U.S. (which withdrew from there two years later).

"And believe it or not, much of the media coverage on the eve of the visit was focused on the refusal of the Americans to call Mr. Hu's trip to Washington a 'state visit' (as the Chinese had requested).

"Indeed, in retrospect it does seem quite incredible that the nation that was the global superpower of that period seemed to have ignored China's dramatic rise in economic, political, military, and cultural power while devoting almost its entire resources to trying to achieve regime changes and implant democracy in the Middle East. (continued)

April 21, 2006

The War on Terror Is Over, and China Won | by Leon Hadar

Folks may take this scenario with a proverbial grain of salt if you wish...

Although, I must point out that Leon Hadar's work Quagmire: America in the Middle East published in 1992 when read now is very eerie for it's predications of the radical Arab and Islamic fundamentalist backlash against U.S. policies that has transpired in the last 14 years and what we are currently left standing in up to our hips (Amazon six excerpt pages: Rise of the Middle Eastern Bogeyman).

For those of you unaware of Leon Hadar, he is a Cato Institute researcher and is the former United Nations bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post and is currently the Washington correspondent for the Business Times of Singapore.

Well, your partner is smart and willing to take risks on new ways of doing things. That's our best hope. External incentives is another way of saying tax money. If the people who decide how to spend it are clever than it too can be useful. If not it's a total waste. By the way, have you ever tried to get and use a grant? Talk about bureaucratic obstacles, waste, and difficulties.

I would also say "wrongly," MNpundit. I've been working in East Asia for many years, including in mainland China, and what I've seen on the ground is that they're very much moving in the direction of a democracy. There are already democratic elections of sorts in local village councils, and "quasi-democratic" institutions even in some of the provinces where nominees and leaders are selected through a sort of acclamation. Even at the national level, where there is indeed suppression of free demonstrations and political expression, there's been enough splintering in the Party on many issues that something approaching a semi-open debate (with comments from outside) is taking place. As Chinese society becomes richer, furthermore, people don't rely on the government as much at all. The One Child Policy, for example, is relatively freely and routinely flouted in the cities and the proto-suburbs around them. (It's also flouted in the poor villages though for different reasons-- the officials don't bother to check there.)

What a lot of Americans don't understand about China, is that it's a place where *consensus and long-term planning* are highly valued. Many Chinese, even the pro-democracy activists, look at the bitter fractiousness in the US these days, the vicious personal destruction between the parties, angry cultural debates, broken economic policies, and the utter failure in many cases to consider long-term yet not-quite-immediate concerns (e.g. global warming, other environmental worries, the dangerous effects of the deficit which haven't quite "bitten") and they don't see a functioning society no matter how often we shout about our "democratic values." What they see is a society that's been divorced from reality in many things. IOW, China *is* moving toward a democracy, but in its own way, and in a manner that is supporting quite a different "feel" of democracy than what we have in the US of A. China wants a *sophisticated* democracy where a sort of professional, well-educated, technical bureaucracy is charged with important decisions, and people have democratic privileges but responsibilities are emphasized as much as rights.

BTW, I've been in Taiwan many, many times and love the place, and I can tell you that the notion of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is preposterous. The Taiwanese people are basically Chinese co-ethnics, and whatever the bluster of the government, people (especially in the younger generation) don't want a war that would be costly to both. Taiwanese people listen to mainland Chinese pop stars, buy up Chinese goods and vice versa. There's a lot of cooperation to outweigh the official propaganda. I basically foresee the China-Taiwan relationship as evolving into something like the EU-- with Taiwan having its own government and autonomy in essence, but being integrally linked with the mainland in economics as well as some basic security issues (e.g., forbidding US bases there). Both sides see this as mutually beneficial.

I frankly couldn't care less about the #1 label. I do want the US to be strong and a beacon, an example for other nations. But if the US has to share space on the pedestal with China, the EU, India, Japan and Russia, I'd be totally fine with that.

"American stategy in the first half of the 20th century left threats unaddressed until it was almost too late."

Bull! I would argue that the US's ill-timed intervention in WWI in 1917 made things much worse. Europe was headed for a stalemate with nobody the victor and a sort of return to the status quo ante, which (while still tense) would have obviated the drift toward totalitarianism in Germany and Italy and possibly helped the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia to fall apart, be allowing Europe as a whole to engage Russia economically after a statemate. (Remember, there was a civil war in Russia for years after the Bolshevik Revolution.) This is a large part of the problem with US foreign policy, we've learned our history selectively and we take the wrong lessons. We look at WWII, but we fail to look at WWI (which made WWII inevitably) and see that this first war, in many respects, holds very different yet equally important lessons for us.

As for your tired "betting against America" crap, the brutal fact is that we *have* failed before, and quite miserably. The country utterly fell apart during the Civil War, and we were humiliated in Vietnam. Do you really think that there's some innate aspect of the US that makes us deserving to lead the world indefinitely? We lead the world because of what we do, not because of some intrinsic American superiority. When we screw up (e.g. by invading oil-rich countries for no good reason at all and get hundreds of thousands of people killed and wounded, or by recklessly polluting and trashing our environment while denying global warming even exists, or by gutting international nuclear weapons treaties by working to resume production of new classes of nukes), frankly we don't deserve that mantle of leadership.

In many respects I suspect that a multipolar order may in fact be good for us as much as for the world in general, by imposing some humility and making us think more sensibly about global interventions. It would also give us more respect for international law and for environmental protection, which we certainly don't have now. A multipolar order isn't necessarily more prima facie stable, but it does tend to have a restraining effect on the major powers in general that can be quite salutary. As China is indeed moving in a democratic direction, and Russia (for all its flaws) has thus far not succumbed to totalitarian urges, I suspect that a multinational order of basically democratic states will be an overall quite decent place.

But China has already begun to shift heavily toward internal development instead of export-based growth. Furthermore, that export-based growth and foreign currency reserves have been getting redirected in part to the EU, Japan, India, Russia, the Middle East and South America. China doesn't depend on the US as much as they used to, and while they're still happy to milk our willing consumer market, they've diversified enough that they can easily move away from this arrangement.

Incentives are also sanctions such as new source review and CAFE. Incentives are also tax credits such as applied to hybrid car purchase. Neither are tax revenue spent by government.
I understand the State of New Jersey feels there is enough follow-on value in home and business power generation that they have a program of reimbursement for solar installations (may apply to wind also, don't remember) with something like 70% reimbursement for homes and 60% for businesses.
This is of course a form of government spending. The state apparently feels the results are worth it, and those would include a more resilient power grid, with small generators serving as electrical wetlands that buffer load shifts.
Given that there are tax incentives such as the oil depletion allowance and exclusions of foreign income that the oil business enjoys it would be fair to have offsetting incentives for alternate power.
Government guarantees are often effective in starting new industries. The computer business got a huge boost from the space program. The transcontinental railroad got a huge boost from government in the form of land grants. Car manufacturers benefit from highway subsidies.
One aspect of supporting small solar installations that has not been mentioned is the large number of people required to do it. It's labor-intensive like other home contracting, and an increase in home power markets would mean a large employment boost and small business creation, I would think.

If the  raison d' etre of states is self-interest and if the United States of America is no exception to this, then I cannot really see how it could also mamage the role of a unbiased global hegemon.  That seems to me a pipedream. For example: is it not true that often in fulfilling this task it will clash with our own self-interests?  What makes you think that our own self-interests will always be in harmony with those of the world at large?  Therefore,  the temptation to favor ourselves is unavoidable and the resentment of the world is likewise unavoidable.  So as Ikenberry suggests : it is a trap we find ourselves in and there is no visible way out of it.  Therefore multipolarity is not going to be a magnanimous gift to the world by us, but as in most  such matters it will be imposed on us by force majeure.  The best we can do is make the best judgements we can on just  what form this new world will likely take  and work towards maximizing our own position in it. Needless to say, I think this administstration seems to think we can  establish ourselves as uncontested and uninpeded hegemons in perpetuity.  How else are we going to explain the way they go out of their way to alienate even our own allies?