America's Place in the World: What Do We See?

The ruin of empire — Thomas Coles’ final painting in the Course of Empire series. This makes the desolation look far more noble that it is. The ruin of empire is often a blood-soaked mess before the statis depicted above at last arrives.

By Thomas Neuburger

“U.S. industrial policy — beggar the nation to enrich the few.” —Yours truly, here

“Empires die bloody.” —Ian Welsh, here

It’s time for a few “unified field theories” of what’s going on — time for a broader look at the inevitable sum of what we’ve discussed and seen.

One of those big theories involves the nature of “the state,” that crawling force-extender of the rich and elite. In our view, states represent neither progress nor inevitability. Humans were born stateless, and stateless they will become. We’ll summarize those thoughts in a bit.

For today, let’s look at what future will take us there. This future will be shaped by three conflicts, apparent today.

Three Crises

Three crises will shape the next world. These crises are:

• America vs. the world

• America vs. its people

• The world vs. the climate

In sum: America is in decline. What will that mean for the world? Elites will never stand down (a bold prediction, I know). What does that mean for mid-century domestic affairs? And finally, the great climate crisis will sweep through the world like a fire. How will the world respond?

This piece is about the first: America’s place in the world.

America’s Global Decline

I’ve stayed away from this topic for a number of reasons. For one, it’s truly depressing if you live in the U.S. For another, the writer Ian Welsh has covered it well.

But it needs to be said at least once. The fact is, China has won, has beaten the West. The battle is over. Says Welsh:

[N]othing has changed in the fundamentals. The US is in auto-catabolic collapse and so far there is no sign of the oligarchy losing control, which is the pre-condition for any attempts to change the trajectory. I’ve now seen data indicating China is leading in 89% of key tech fields, up from 80% a couple years ago. US industry is still collapsing. Research funding has been slashed. Final bastions like chips, AI, civil aviation and biotech/pharma are all under assault and will fall like dominoes over the next five to ten years. The US has no ship building capacity to speak of, is behind on drones and missiles (the key weapon systems of modern war) and can’t even make key components in its military chain without Chinese help. Dollar hegemony is no more than five years out from being lost. [emphasis mine]

I think that’s correct, each element exactly right. And there are more elements he could add. For why China will win, read this.

China faced a challenge during Trump’s first term: he slapped export controls on chips. They didn’t have a significant domestic industry. So they built one. They knew that if America had done this with one industry, they could do it with all, so they set a national goal to become self sufficient industrially: to be able to make everything they needed. … To a Westerner who has lived their entire adult life under neo-liberalism, this is mind-boggling. Wait, the government can “just do things?” … I mean do things other than de-regulate and say “well there isn’t anything we can really do, this is just how the world is.” Do things other than just make the rich even richer? Do things other than constantly de-funding science and engineering and the humanities? Do things other than making medicine fantastically expensive? Do something other than blowing another asset bubble?

And please note: This is our own damn fault, going back to the so-called Reagan Revolution (actually a counter-rebellion), when the rich fully captured the government, which then allowed them to sell our industry off and buy bigger yachts.

U.S. manufacturing employment from 1940 to 2012

The De-Americanized Future

What will this mean for America’s place in the world? Again, I think Welsh has it right. The U.S. will lose traction in South America: We offer force and impotent takeovers, China gives investment and trade. Overall, the number of our vassal states is shrinking, and those, we’ve begun to loot:

America['s] … current policy is to bleed its vassals, especially Europe, white. That will make them virtually worthless as vassals and will most likely lead to a revolt sometime between ten and fifteen years from now, as the European standard of living collapses under de-industrialization and without its sub-vassals selling it under-priced resources.

That leaves us with what? No dollar hegemony, no ability to “swing big pipe,” reduced domination and influence, but a massive military still and a hubristic determination not to go down. It’s painful to not be the king, the “indispensable nation.” It’s hard to no longer rule.

Will the U.S. stand down, not leave the world in blood as it lashes and fails? Or will it — gracious, mature — bow to the new?