The World America Made (15 page)

Can the United States do that? In their pessimistic mood today, some Americans may doubt that it can. Indeed, they doubt whether the United States can afford to continue playing in any part of the world the predominant role that it has played in the past. Some argue that while Paul Kennedy’s warning of imperial overstretch may not have been correct in 1987, it accurately describes America’s current predicament. The fiscal crisis, the deadlocked political system, the various maladies of American society, including wage stagnation and income inequality, the weaknesses of the educational system, the deteriorating infrastructure—all of these are cited these days as reasons why the United States needs to retrench internationally, to pull back from some overseas commitments, to focus on “nation building at home” rather than try to keep shaping the world as it has in the past.

Again, these common assumptions require some examination. For one thing, how “overstretched” is the United States? The answer, in historical terms, is not nearly as much as people imagine. Consider the straightforward matter of the number of troops that the United States deploys overseas. To listen to the debate today, one might imagine there were more American troops committed abroad than ever before. But that is not the case. In 1953, the United States had almost 1 million troops
deployed overseas—325,000 in combat in Korea and more than 600,000 stationed in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. In 1968, it had over 1 million troops on foreign soil—537,000 in Vietnam and another half million stationed elsewhere. By contrast, in the summer of 2011, at the height of America’s deployments in its two wars, there were about 200,000 troops deployed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and another roughly 160,000 troops stationed in Europe and East Asia. Altogether, and including other forces stationed around the world, there were about 500,000 troops deployed overseas. This was lower even than the peacetime deployments of the Cold War. In 1957, for instance, there were over 750,000 troops deployed overseas. Only in the decade between the breakup of the Soviet Empire and the attacks of September 11 was the number of deployed forces overseas lower than today. The comparison is even more striking if one takes into account the growth of the American population. When the United States had 1 million troops deployed overseas in 1953, the total American population was only 160 million. Today, when there are half a million troops deployed overseas, the American population is 313 million. The country is twice as large, with half as many troops deployed as fifty years ago.

What about the financial expense? Many seem to believe that the cost of these deployments, and of the armed forces generally, is a major contributor to the soaring fiscal deficits that threaten the solvency of the national economy. But this is not the case, either. As the former budget czar Alice Rivlin has observed, the scary projections
of future deficits are
not
“caused by rising defense spending,” much less by spending on foreign assistance.
¹²⁵
The runaway deficits projected for the coming years are mostly the result of ballooning entitlement spending. Even the most draconian cuts in the defense budget would produce annual savings of only $50 billion to $100 billion, a small fraction—between 4 and 8 percent—of the $1.5 trillion in annual deficits the United States is facing.

In 2002, when Paul Kennedy was marveling at America’s ability to remain “the world’s single superpower on the cheap,” the United States was spending about 3.4 percent of GDP on defense. Today it is spending 4 percent, and in years to come, that is likely to head lower again—still “cheap” by historical standards. The cost of remaining the world’s predominant power is not prohibitive.

If we are serious about this exercise in accounting, moreover, the costs of maintaining this position cannot be measured without considering the costs of losing it. Some of the costs of reducing the American role in the world are, of course, unquantifiable: What is it worth to Americans to live in a world dominated by democracies rather than by autocracies? But some of the potential costs could be measured, if anyone cared to try. For instance, if the decline of American military power produced an unraveling of the international economic order that American power has helped sustain; if trade routes and waterways ceased to be as secure, because the U.S. Navy was no longer able to defend them; if regional wars broke out among great powers because they were no longer constrained by the American superpower; if American allies
were attacked because the United States appeared unable to come to their defense; if the generally free and open nature of the international system became less so—there would be measurable costs. And it is not too far-fetched to imagine that these costs would be far greater than the savings gained by cutting the defense and foreign aid budgets by $100 billion a year. You can save money by buying a used car without a warranty and without certain safety features, but what happens when you get into an accident? American military strength both reduces the risk of accidents, by deterring conflict, and lowers the price of those that occur, by reducing the chance of losing. These savings need to be part of the calculation, too. As a simple matter of dollars and cents, it may be a lot cheaper to preserve the current level of American involvement in the world than to reduce it.

Perhaps the greatest concern underlying the declinist mood at large in the country today is not really whether the United States can afford to continue playing its role in the world. It is whether the Americans are capable of solving any of their most pressing economic and social problems. And it is true: if the United States cannot solve its fiscal crisis, for instance, it may well face economic decline. This would have implications for its ability to sustain its military capacity, which in turn would raise questions about its ability to continue as the world’s most influential power. Nor are people wrong to worry about social maladies, political gridlock, and the ability of Americans to compete with ambitious and capable peoples in rising economies all over the world. As Thomas Friedman and others have asked, can Americans
do what needs to be done to compete effectively in the twenty-first-century world?

The only honest answer is, who knows? If American history is any guide, however, there is at least some reason to be hopeful. There have been many times over the past two centuries when the political system was dysfunctional, hopelessly gridlocked, and seemingly unable to find solutions to crushing national problems—from slavery and then Reconstruction, to the dislocations of industrialization at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of social welfare during the Great Depression, to the confusions and paranoia of the early Cold War years. Anyone who honestly recalls the 1970s, with Watergate, Vietnam, stagflation, and the energy crisis, cannot really believe the present difficulties are unrivaled. People point to polls showing Americans in despair about the future of their nation; in September 2011, only 11 percent of Americans polled were satisfied with “the way things are going.” But that is not so unusual in times of economic distress. In 1992, only 14 percent were satisfied. In 1979, the number was 12 percent. Neither the magnitude of the problems nor the extent of the despair is unprecedented.

Success in the past does not guarantee success in the future. But one thing does seem clear from the historical evidence: the American system, for all its often stultifying qualities, has also shown a greater capacity to adapt and recover from difficulties than that of many other nations, including its geopolitical competitors. This undoubtedly has something to do with the relative freedom of the society, which rewards innovators, often outside the existing power structure, for producing new ways of doing things,
and a relatively open political system, which allows movements to gain steam and influence the behavior of the political establishment. The American system is slow and clunky in part because the Founders designed it that way, with a federal system, checks and balances, and a written Constitution and Bill of Rights. But the system also possesses a remarkable ability to undertake changes just when the steam kettle looks about to blow its lid. There are occasional “critical elections” that allow transformations to occur, providing new political solutions to old and apparently insoluble problems. Of course, there are no guarantees: the political system could not resolve the problem of slavery without war. But on many big issues throughout their history, Americans have found a way of achieving and implementing a national consensus.
¹²⁶

When Paul Kennedy was marveling at the continuing success of the American superpower back in 2002, he noted that one of the main reasons had been the ability of Americans to overcome what had appeared to him in 1987 as an insoluble long-term economic crisis. American businessmen and politicians “reacted strongly to the debate about ‘decline’ by taking action: cutting costs, making companies leaner and meaner, investing in newer technologies, promoting a communications revolution, trimming government deficits, all of which helped to produce significant year-on-year advances in productivity.”
¹²⁷
It is possible to imagine that Americans may rise to this latest economic challenge as well.

It is also reasonable to expect that other nations will, as in the past, run into difficulties of their own. None of the nations currently enjoying economic miracles is
without problems. Brazil, India, Turkey, and Russia all have bumpy histories that suggest the route ahead will not simply be one of smooth ascent. There is a real question whether the autocratic model of China, which can be so effective in making some strategic decisions about the economy in the short term, can over the long run be flexible enough to permit adaptation to a changing international economic, political, and strategic environment.

In short, it may be more than good fortune that has allowed the United States in the past to come through crises and emerge stronger and healthier than other nations while its various competitors have faltered. And it may be more than just wishful thinking to believe that it may do so again.

B
UT THERE IS A
danger. It is that in the meantime, while the nation continues to struggle, Americans may convince themselves that decline is indeed inevitable, or that the United States can take a time-out from its global responsibilities while it gets its own house in order. To many Americans, accepting decline may provide a welcome escape from the moral and material burdens that have weighed on them since World War II. Many may unconsciously yearn to return to the way things were in 1900, when the United States was rich, powerful, and not responsible for world order. Every presidential candidate since the end of the Cold War has promised one way or another to focus more attention at home and to lessen American involvement abroad, only to break that promise almost immediately upon taking office.

The underlying assumption of such a course is that the present world order will more or less persist without American power (or at least with much less of it), that others can pick up the slack, or simply that the benefits of the world order are permanent and require no special exertion by anyone. Unfortunately, however, the present world order is as fragile as it is unique. Preserving it has been a struggle in every decade and will remain a struggle in the decades to come. Those presidents who have come to office expecting to be able to do less have quickly faced the stark reality—often more apparent to presidents than to presidential candidates—that preserving the present world order requires constant American leadership and constant American commitment.

I
N THE END, THE
decision is in the hands of Americans. Decline, as Charles Krauthammer has observed, is a choice. It is not an inevitable fate—at least not yet. In
It’s a Wonderful Life
, George Bailey finds himself in a terrible crisis—a fiscal crisis, as it happens—with his bank about to be ruined and his family sent into poverty. He decides that the world would be better off without him and therefore to take his own life. But he is stopped by an angel who takes him on a Dickensian tour of what his town would have looked like had he never been born. The town, now dominated by the greedy banker, is rougher and seedier, more brutal, and also sadder. People who had been good and generous have turned nasty and selfish. Others have
been ruined. Once he realizes how terrible this alternative world would be, and understands the special role he had played in making his own world what it was, he returns to his life and finds that, lo and behold, he is able to find a solution. With a little luck but also with the forces of good in the town that he had supported and encouraged, he solves his fiscal crisis and lives happily ever after.

It is, of course, a Hollywood ending. In the real world, things do not have to end well. Empires and great powers rise and fall, and the only question is when. But the when does matter. Whether the United States begins to decline over the next two decades or not for another two centuries will matter a great deal, both to Americans and to the nature of the world they live in. Perhaps if Americans had a clearer picture of what might come after the American world order, they would be more inclined to continue struggling to preserve the world they have made, or at least to ensure that changes in the system do not undermine the order from which they, and others, have so greatly benefited.

What would this require? Above all, it would mean working to shore up all three pillars—politics, economics, security—of what has made this age, with all its brutalities, a golden age for humanity. We have a tendency to separate politics, economics, and security—“ideals” from “interests,” support for democracy from defense of security—but in the American world order they have all been related.

Start with the reality that a liberal world order will only be supported by liberal nations. The expectation that an authoritarian China or Russia will lend assistance
in supporting democratic governance and liberal economic principles—and the two are intimately related—is folly. Americans and other liberal peoples who benefit from and support the present world order therefore have an interest in pressing for greater democratic and liberal reforms in the world’s authoritarian nations, including the two great-power autocracies. This is not because it’s just what Americans do, because supporting democracy is consistent with their principles and makes them feel good about themselves. The far more important reason is that the future of the liberal world order may depend on it. If it is true that the United States may eventually have to share global power with a richer and more powerful China, it will make a very big difference to the future world order whether China remains autocratic or begins to open up politically as well as economically. Would even a democratic Chinese superpower pose challenges for the United States? Of course it would. American influence would necessarily diminish relative to China’s. But at least a democratic China could be more easily trusted to uphold the liberal world order in which Americans could continue to thrive. It would be more akin to the transition between British and American dominance in the twentieth century. Just as the British could safely cede power to a rising United States, and just as the United States has repeatedly tried to cede power across the Atlantic to a unifying and peaceful democratic Europe, so Americans could have an easier time ceding some power and influence across the Pacific to a rising democratic China.