US power declining. Duh.
Posted by Helena Cobban
November 21, 2008 11:20 AM EST | Link
Filed in Global balance , US foreign policy
So the US's National Intel Council has finally released the 'Global Trends 2025' report that its analysts have been working on for many months now.
Gloom 'n' doom for many western analysts, including that BBC report linked to above, which offers the report's 'key points' here.
The NIC's head of analysis, Thomas Fingar, is not only smart but also politically savvy. Smart: Back in 2002 when he was head of intel analysis at the State Dept., his was one of one or two shops that steadfastly questioned the White House's contention that Saddam had functioning WMDs. (So why didn't Colin Powell listen to his own people on that? That is a very different question... )
Politically savvy: After he arrived at the NIC Fingar realized he had a lot of heavy lifting to do to rebuild the near-complete collapse of US public confidence, post-2003, in any "net assessments" coming out of the leading (as opposed to cosily inside-State) intel bodies. So he has been assiduous in cultivating public support for the NIC's work, including by spreading little "advance snippets" of the present 2025 report around Washington DC throughout the past three months. I went to one "advance briefing" he gave on it, held at the New America Foundation back in was it late August?
Then in early Sept., he gave more snippets to the WaPo's Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick, who duly wrote about it in this Sept. 10 story. (My commentary on that, here.)
Oh, but just recall all the things that have happened in the world since September 10! The US's entire system of casino capitalism has collapsed, spreading contagion and resentment around the world. And the Bush administration's attempts to force a long-term troop presence on the Iraqi government have all similarly collapsed...
The final version of Fingar's report bravely states that, as of 2025, "The US will remain the single most important actor [in the world system] but will be less dominant."
I wouldn't be so sure about the first part of that prediction. We still have no final idea how low the US economy will be driven, how long it will languish there, and what form an eventual upturn might take. (Check out the discussion at MoA here.) Meantime, as I noted here, those other economies around the world that never did open up fully to the west's invasive form of casino capitalism look much better positioned both to (a) weather the coming crisis, and (b) find ways to emerge from it building on the strength of their own much more tightly regulated financial and economic systems.
So Fingar tells us "The US will remain the single most important actor" in 2025? I truly doubt it.
I have two principal problems with this study.
First, it focuses, as one might expect in a national security state, on the military and assumes a continued policy of aggression against other states.
It [the US] will retain its considerable military advantages, but scientific and technological advances; the use of "irregular warfare tactics" by others; the proliferation of long-range precision weapons; and the growing use of cyber warfare attacks "increasingly will constrict US freedom of action".
What "military advantages?" Five years to convert a secular ME state to an Islamic Republic at tremendous human and financial cost? That's an advantage? Bogged down in one of the poorest countries in the world and losing to partisans after seven years of struggle? The use of "irregular warfare tactics by others" meaning the quite natural resistance of citizens to brutal US military occupations? (By the bridge that arched the flood, the embattled farmers stood . . .what's new, pussycat?)
We could go on.
Second, there is a failure to grasp the extent of national power beyond the military. A recent RAND Report takes a stab at it:
Domestic sociopolitical
International political
Population
Economic
Agriculture
Energy
Technology
Environmental resources and quality
The US is falling behind in many of these areas.
Agreed. But I think the GT 2025's most serious lacuna is failing to give due weight-- or much weight at all-- to Soft or Reputational Power. (Maybe that would be subsumed, in the RAND listing, under "international political." But in my view it deserves its own entire category in the present, near-transparent global IT environment.)
A little dose of military propaganda will clear up that nagging Reputational Power problem, AKA rampant Anti-Americanism.
Pentagon contract award announced Nov 20:
Military Professional Resources Incorporated, an L3 Communications Co., of Alexandria, Va., was awarded a $75,000,000 maximum order amount increase to its indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for global media development, production and dissemination in support of U.S. Special Operations Command.
from the MPRI website:
MPRI serves international security, military, and law enforcement customers. We enable nation-building and reform, and provide expertise in civil/military functions within the framework of emerging democracies.//
A little "global media development," that's the ticket. Meanwhile on my morning bike ride I noticed that the local recycle yard is padlocked, with this explanatory sign: CLOSED due to economy and low scrap prices. Is this a sign of the times? Might Ford and GM be next? Can the US hang on to world leadership for seventeen more years at this rate, with the "valuable assistance" of the beltway bandits who shovel out horsepucky in the forms of rosy reports and military propaganda?
I agree with you, Don.
And the decline of US power is in my view one of the tiny handful of positives in the Bushite legacy. I doubt that is a popular view, especially among the USA uber alles crowd that dominates the Bush regime and its adherents, but it is a real gift to the world.
US power may be declining, but some ex-military people are getting rich from it.
Other MPRI Contracts awarded this year for various services:
Feb. 9, 2007, $5,238,117
March 27, 2007, $15,313,655
April 29, 2007, $8,153,970
undated, $10,800,000
Aug.27, 2008, $9,904,051
MPRI recently used retired military, and current national guard or reservists, to run R.O.T.C. programs at more than 200 universities. They now have employees running Army recruitment centers across the country, and training U.S. soldiers. With major offices in other countries, employees also have trained foreign armies at ranges in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Kuwait, and South Africa.
MPRI's President, retired General Carl E. Vuono, served as Army chief of staff during the Gulf War and the U.S. invasion of Panama. The Vice President of the firm, General Ronald H. Griffith is a former Army vice chief of staff. Other top executives include General Crosbie E. Saint, former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe; and Lt. General Harry E. Soyster, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.--Wiki
You gotta catch Bernard Chazelle's take on this report at ATR.
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/
It seems to be tacitly assumed that as the Potion of Power leaks from the canteen of that pitiful helpless giant Uncle Sam, the precious drops glide straight into the canteen of somebody else in particular instead of just disappearing into the desert sands forever.
Is there some reason to suppose this to be the case, some reason beyond forging a ‘narrative’ that Mr. Narrator finds comfy?
Happy days.
Let's not forget what is arguably America's greatest source of power--the government's ability to facilitate or hinder access to the world's (formerly) largest market.
The Bush administration's solution? Honey, I shrunk the market!
Like a wise man once said, "it's the economy, stupid."