Cross-Posted from The End of the American Century

The National Intelligence Council has released its report Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World which forecasts that the relative strength of the U.S. "even in the military realm--will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained."

In September, a preview of this report was delivered in a speech by C. Thomas Fingar, the Chairman of the N.I.C. The full 120-page report, like Fingar's earlier remarks, sees the U.S. remaining the single most powerful global actor, but with reduced influence and leverage in the face of the growing clout of China, India, Russia and other countries.

The current report, however, is less sweeping in its assessment of U.S. decline than Fingar made earlier. In September, he spoke of U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas." The Global Trends report does not have such language, and focuses more on the rise of other countries than on the decline of the U.S.

The report does, however, call attention to the importance of leadership in managing this transition to a transformed world. "Leadership matters," the first-page summary says. "No trends are immutable," and "timely and well-informed intervention can decrease the likelihood and severity of negative developments and increase the likelihood of positive ones."

Wise leadership, in Washington and elsewhere, is crucial because the scale of global changes are immense. "The international system...will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, and historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of nonstate actors." Indeed, this transfer of global wealth and economic power from West to East "is without precedent in modern history."

The report forecasts a more diffuse distribution of global power, the transformation of current international organizations (like the U.N.), the growing influence of nonstate actors (especially NGOs--non governmental organizations), and "a more complex international system."

In this system, the U.S. will be a "less dominant power" with "less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships." Even in the military realm, changes in science and technology and the rise of non-state actors "will construct US freedom of action."

These arguments are similar to those I raise in the last chapter of my book The End of the American Century, entitled "America and the World After the American Century." A key difference between my book and Global Trends is that most of my book is about trends that have already occurred. Only my last chapter projects into the future, as the NIC report does. In my view, the decline of the U.S. is a fait accompli. As I write on page 1 of my book:

"In the past decade, and particularly since September 11, every aspect of this American predominance has begun to wane. The U.S. economy is riddled with debt [this was written well before the current financial collapse] and unsustainable obligations--by both governments and households--presaging at least long-term economic decline if not general collapse. The educational system, once considered the world's best, now ranks near the bottom among developed countries, and a sizable portion of U.S. citizens is now functionally illiterate. American corporations, once models of dynamism, innovation and efficiency, are hampered by bureaucracy, corruption, and bloated executive payrolls, and few are generating either innovation or growth. Even science is marginalized and beleaguered under the gun of politics qnd religion. While American consumer goods and popular culture remain fashionable in much of the world, there is at the same time increasing resistance in many countries to the erosion of national culture and traditions in the face of U.S.-led globalization."

So a good deal of the decline of U.S. global influence is due to changes within the U.S.--changes that have been accelerating for the last two decades. These internal developments are as much responsible for "global trends" as are the dynamic changes elsewhere in the world.

Cross-Posted From: The End of the American Century 

The election of Barack Obama sends a signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. will rejoin the global community.  Global leaders and citizens alike seem prepared to welcome back the U.S. with President Obama leading the way--both because of who he is and what he says.

If we surprised ourselves by electing a black man as our President, the rest of the world was even more impressed.  Even our adversaries are likely to take notice of the change.
As Britain's Economist magazine put it, in its endorsement of Obama as "the next leader of the free world"

"Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham."

He is widely seen as a leader who is open to the views of others, and willing to work with other countries. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a handwritten letter of congratulations to the U.S. President-elect, said

"your election raises immense hope" in Europe and beyond, "of an open America. . .that will once again lead the way, with its partners, through the power of its example and the adherence to its principles."

David Cameron, the leader of Britain's opposition (Conservative) party, said Obama's victory has restored America's status as a "beacon of hope."

Obama enjoys amazing level of support all around the globe. Last summer in Berlin, 200,000 Germans turned out to cheer him--reminiscent of the celebration of President Kennedy during his 1963 "ich bin ein Berliner" speech. A BBC poll of 22,000 people in 22 countries in September found 49% favoring Obama to win, compared to just 12% for McCain. In every single country, more people supported Obama than McCain.

The Economist conducted their own (unscientific) online poll of some 53,000 readers around the world, with Obama winning by a margin of more than five to one. His global victory was even more lopsided if you allocate those votes by country according to size (the way the Electoral College does for states). In this global "electoral college" Obama collected 9115 votes, compared to a paltry 203 for John McCain. In 56 countries, at least 90% backed Obama.

In the Arab and Muslim world, deep skepticism of U.S. intentions remains. But there were voices of hope even in those countries, and marvel at the election of a black man whose father was from a Muslim family. The Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat saw Obama's victory as "a message" repudiating the policies of the Bush administration.

 

"Obama's election was a message against such destruction, against unjustified wars, wars that are fought with ignorance and rashness, without knowledge of their arenas or the shape of their surroundings. . . .It was a message against the pattern that became a burden on the U.S. and transformed the U.S. into a burden on the world." (Reported in the New York Times).

This language is, to say the least, a back-handed compliment to the U.S. It is also emblematic of the way people in many countries--and not just the Arab world--feel about the U.S. and the global role it has come to play. So the U.S. has a lot of global PR work ahead of it.

Fortunately, President-elect Obama is aware of these problems and committed to redressing them. In his book The Audacity of Hope, he acknowledges that in foreign policy "our record is mixed." At times, he writes, American policies

"have been misguided, based on false assumptions that ignore the legitimate aspirations of other peoples, undermine our own credibility, and make for a more dangerous world."

He writes there of the need for the U.S. to be more cooperative and multilateral in dealing with other countries, and to rely more on persuasion than intimidation: "No person, in any country, likes to be bullied." He favors U.S. policies that "move the international system in the direction of greater equity, justice and prosperity" and observing the "international rules of the road."

"When the world's sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following, and robs terrorists and dictators of the argument that these rules are simply tools of American imperialism."

In an article last year on "Renewing American Leadership" in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, Obama acknowledged that "in the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles."  But the U.S. could regain that trust by "understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity." If we want to lead the world, he argues, we must do so "by deed and by example."

Barack Obama often invokes the names, the language, and the ideas of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. These two men, more than any other presidents in this century, inspired citizens of the United States as well as those of many other countries. FDR's ideals and policies, in particular, helped launch the American Century. Perhaps Barack Obama can begin the process of rebuilding the United States. As he wrote in Foreign Affairs, "it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story."

This new story, however, is unlikely to look much like the previous one.  The U.S. has changed, but so has the rest of the world.