As the United States' comprehensive national strength continues to decline, countries around the world have smelled uneasy and excitement.
Indeed, as we have seen, there are serious problems in the domestic economy of the United States. This problem is irreversible in the medium and long term, and this problem has seriously affected the position of the US dollar in international trade and financial system.
However, we should also see that the United States is still the only superpower in the world. Although its situation is getting worse, its economic scale, political influence, military strength, etc. cannot be underestimated.
The decline of the United States can be said to be certain, but objectively speaking, it will not happen overnight, or it will be completely declining directly. This process may continue for a while.
As we all know, in order to curb China's rise, attack Russia, and other so-called "disobedient" countries, the United States has begun to gradually lower its status. As its strength continues to decline, it has begun to rely closely on its own ally system and continuously consolidate its leadership in Europe.
The United States does this, on the one hand, because in recent times, there has been a wave of de-dollarization and de-American politicization in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It must stabilize its back gardens like North America and areas like Europe that play an important role in barriers to its own geopolitics.
On the other hand, the United States is also struggling, hoping that it can sit as long as possible in the position of world hegemony and seize more economic and political capital.
Before, the United States always relied on oil, trade, etc. to control the world, and it was often in a strategic offensive situation. And with the decline of its own strength and overall Western power, the United States is now beginning to turn to strategic contraction. We can only give full play to the role of Europe in its barrier.
So, facing such a deteriorating United States, can we celebrate the final victory of hegemony in advance? I'm afraid it's not possible.
If the United States suddenly declines and is unable to act as a world policeman, it does not mean that hegemony has completely disappeared. Not only that, it may not be a good thing for the whole world. Regarding this issue, we can analyze it from the following dimensions.
The first dimension: economy. The economy mentioned here is divided into three parts: one is the domestic economy of the United States; the second is international trade related to the United States; and the third is the international financial system and financial order centered on the United States. Let’s first look at what the domestic economy will be like in the United States.
If the United States suddenly declines, it will definitely mean that the domestic economy of the United States has basically collapsed.
We all know that American society is a capital society, and capital occupies an absolute voice in the United States. And those in the middle class and those in the social class below will definitely face bankruptcy.
Don’t naively think that all Americans are rich. In fact, in the United States, most people have no money, and a large amount of assets are in the hands of a very small number of people.
Moreover, as capitalist society , the United States cannot have an effective social redistribution system in the past, present and foreseeable future. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve a leap in the United States.
So, once the US economy collapses, a large amount of capital flees, on the one hand, a large number of refugees will be generated in the United States, and they will flood into Mexico, Canada and other regions, and some will even appear in Europe and Asia.
On the other hand, a large amount of international hot money is generated, and they will create bad dollar assets everywhere.
Speaking of this, we have to mention what impact it will have on the world economy if the US economy collapses.
The United States has become the world's financial center and economic center with the financial system established by after in World War II. The United States was once the world's largest importer and exporter at the same time.
With the introduction of a series of de-industrialization policies by the US government, the US manufacturing capacity has significantly reduced (except for military manufacturing, of course), which has caused the US to eventually lose its status as the world's largest trading exporter and largest manufacturing country.
However, there are still many countries doing business with the United States.
Moreover, unlike other major manufacturing and trading countries, doing business with the United States is not only limited to cooperation between specific products and industrial chains, but more about cooperation between money and capital.
So, once the US economy collapses, the first ones will be affected will be those countries that hold a large amount of US dollar assets and have in-depth capital-bound cooperation with the United States for many years.
Their domestic financial system will be severely impacted. Although the national foreign exchange reserve level remains unchanged, the reserve's resistance to pressure, risk resistance, and actual use ability will be greatly reduced.
Immediately afterwards, these countries that rely on foreign exchange reserves to support their sovereign monetary credit system will also be impacted.
Although many countries have seen the risks of the US dollar and have started the process of de-dollarization, on the one hand, due to the different international environment, it is difficult to have another major crisis, which makes other countries urgently accept new currencies.
On the other hand, whether international monetary system will remain dominant in the future is still unknown. Therefore, the de-dollarization process will be a slow process.
If the United States suddenly declines and the US dollar collapses completely, countries that have economic and trade exchanges and economic and financial cooperation with the United States on this basis will generally be impacted. Those large amounts of US dollar assets that remain in the world will become the next round of ready to explode.
The second dimension: geopolitics. In recent years, we can clearly feel that the Biden administration is gradually weakening the so-called "America First" policy formulated by the Trump administration, and when conducting trade, financial and technological wars with the outside world, it will deliberately avoid confrontation with European countries and some Middle East and East Asian countries. The ultimate reason for
is that the United States itself is not strong. It is completely unrealistic for the United States to fight against a world-class power such as China and Russia.
So, the United States began to win over allies again. Although it could not do it, the empty promise could still be given. The United States hopes to take this opportunity to recreate the glory of the past.
However, careful people will find that not only the relationship between these allies in the United States and the United States cannot be returned, but they all look at the dishes.
Moreover, even the internal relationship between these allies of the United States is complex. They each have different national interests. Sometimes these interests are even conflicting and the contradictions are irreconcilable, such as Japan and South Korea on the issue of comfort women, Dokdo and other issues.
Now, the reason why we can see the quarrel between Japan and South Korea is that we can hold joint military exercises from time to time, and after Brexit, we can also have a more positive interaction with old European traditional powers like France and Germany, and the pillars of EU , is that the United States mediated in the middle.
In addition, the existence of the United States prevents conflicts between small countries in some regions from breaking out immediately, or it will not suddenly become a full-scale war, such as Iran and Israel.
The United States unilaterally responded positively to the Israeli territory decision, which made many regional countries very dissatisfied.
Iran, as a military power in the region, naturally the contradiction between Israel and Israel is even more irreconcilable.
However, because the United States has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran in this region for a long time and maintains a military presence for a long time, putting Iran in great pressure, Iran dare not launch a war against Israel.
Looking back, Israel will not provoke a full-scale war against Iran, because such war will make it difficult for the United States to handle and disrupt the United States' deployment in the Middle East. The United States does not allow Israel to do so.
Therefore, if the United States' political influence in the global decline due to the decline of its comprehensive national strength, not only will conflicts between American allies break out one by one, but wars between countries that have long been sharply confronted will basically be inevitable. The reason is very simple.
We can use people as an example. If the two people have similar appearance, strength, skills and courage, and they have sharp contradictions, then the two people will fight.
If there is any one of the two people who is stronger than the other, at least the weak will not use force easily. If the police stood behind the strong man, the strong man would not take the risk of going to jail to provoke a fight.
Of course, we must make it clear here that all countries in the world are equal, and we should respect the concerns of all countries and not do things that harm others and do not benefit ourselves.
Direct peace among all countries should be based on mutual benefit, not on a fearful military balance. Only in this way can peace last forever.
The third dimension: International Order . As we have mentioned earlier, if the United States declines, a large amount of economic spillover effects will also occur in geopolitical turmoil. What if this influence rises to the level of international order?
International order is an inherent interaction model formed by cooperation framework, consensus reached between countries in a certain field of international affairs, or based on certain interests on the basis of specific historical events that occur in a specific historical period.
For example, the international currency used by various trades between countries today is the US dollar; for example, the basic standards and rules for scientific and technological progress are all formed on the basis of the creative work of scientists from distinct countries.
is now the Internet age. It belongs to the late stage of the computer revolution, the third industrial revolution of - the product of . Therefore, the distribution, collection and various upper-level logic of various data based on the computer revolution are based on various standards of the underlying computer framework.
and a large majority of these standards were created in the United States.
even has a large number of international organizations. They were originally advocated by the United States to better control the world. At the height of the United States, among the international organizations, the United States paid the most membership fees, which can be reflected in UN membership fees .
So, if the United States declines and is unable to assume international obligations, then what will accompany it will be the international economy, especially the currency exchange mechanism, which will lose its concrete support.
At the same time, copyright holders who hold important standards will ask for prices in a huge way through monetary compensation, threatening the progress of human technology.
Of course, as for those international organizations, they can improve their ability to withstand crises by reducing unnecessary institutional and foreign affairs activities, adjusting membership fees and standards, and avoiding the negative impact of this unfavorable factor in the United States through continuous transformation.
The fourth dimension: global landscape. The global pattern mentioned here is actually the balance of power between countries. After all, it is , the law of the jungle . The current international community is anarchic, so whoever has the strength has the weight of his words.
In the past, the United States has continuously promoted hegemony to the outside world through its strong comprehensive national strength. Except for major powers like China and Russia who dared to stand up and completely safeguarded their own interests, other countries will more or less compromise.
However, once the United States is in small numbers, Western countries is in a mess and internal struggles continue, which will bring more unstable factors to the international community, which is already in a long-term anarchy. This is actually not good for peace and development.
At present, we see that the United States has just entered the early stage of its recession cycle, and the international situation has already experienced obvious turmoil. The confrontation between NATO and Russia has reached its peak after World War II. At the same time, the chaos in the Middle East and the negative impact of Japan on East Asia have spread one after another.
Changes in the international pattern are a matter of time sooner or later. This is because the rise of emerging countries represented by China is unstoppable, and the balance of power between the East and the West has undergone essential changes.
However, this process should be in line with the trend of the times and the laws of history. It cannot be achieved overnight, and it cannot be motivated to grow emerging countries.
The United States’ recession is inevitable, but if the United States suddenly declines and does not have the ability to act as a world policeman, it may not be a good thing for the whole world.
If you want to overthrow hegemony, you should take the path of win-win cooperation, rather than pin your hopes on one or several countries.
