Since the mid-1960s, we have been hearing predictions of "American decline." There is even a joke that the most unreliable prediction in the field of international relations is the decline of the United States.
It is true that when I was studying for my doctorate, a must-read book emphasized by many teachers was "After Hegemony", that is, how will the world run if the United States is not a hegemon? The author of this book is Robert Keohane, the famous founder of the liberal school. This book was written in the 1980s before the end of the Cold War.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
There was another classic book during this period, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers". The author Paul Kennedy warned of the decline of U.S. hegemony by saying that after a great power gained hegemony in history, a good military and strong military force would inevitably lead to the decline or even disappearance of the great power.
The international political economist Robert Gilpin 's "War and Change in World Politics" explains the secret of why hegemony declines from a more theoretical perspective: as a country expands, what is gained from expansion The marginal returns obtained continue to diminish, and at the same time, the difference in economic growth rates between emerging countries and established countries leads to the inevitable demise of hegemonic countries.
In short, caring about the decline of great powers and predicting the demise of American hegemony has always been a business in the academic community of international relations!
However, this time the "decline of the United States" is no longer a cry of wolf, but a real reality.
The decline of American hegemony can be seen with the naked eye and does not require too much professional knowledge: the retreat, defeat or stalemate of the United States around the world, whether in the military field or in the fields of trade and industrial production.
However, what is equally confusing is the American triumphalism that permeates the United States!
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine can be said to have added new catalysts to the blind self-confidence of the United States. Putin (The difficulties encountered in the Russia-Ukraine conflict are being used to revive Cold War rhetoric about American leadership, the fight for global democracy, and the unity of the West. Americans view America as the leader of the free world , in the saddle again!
Unfortunately, it is far from clear whether Putin will actually lose this war (in fact, Russia will probably not lose this war, although winning will be very difficult). If, due to a negotiated compromise or a prolonged stalemate, much of Ukraine remains under Russian occupation indefinitely
Putin will succeed in his territorial revanchism in Ukraine, albeit at a cost. In addition to occupying Crimea and successfully launching a war to exclude Georgia from NATO Finland and Sweden joining NATO would be a symbolic insult to Moscow, but Russia would not invade anyway. Both countries.
Globally, the United States' campaign to get other countries to sanction Russia has failed. The map of countries that have sanctioned Russia includes the United States and Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand . Most countries, including India, Mexico, and Brazil, as well as most countries in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, refused to join. In the Second Cold War, the Non-Aligned Group returned.
While Congress voted to arm a bleeding Russia in its proxy war in Ukraine, elsewhere in the world, the United States was reeling from a series of humiliating strategic defeats after two decades of fighting in Afghanistan. Washington's sudden handover to the Taliban was even more confusing and embarrassing than the fall of South Vietnam. The remaining U.S. presence in post-Saddam Iraq was opposed by many Iraqis. A law was recently passed punishing normalization of relations with Israel with death or life imprisonment In Syria , Bashar al-Assad ( Bashar al-Assad) survived Washington’s war to depose him. .The United States and NATO overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, causing chaos and disintegration.
The United States hastily withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan
Similarly, trying to China has exposed the United States' hegemonic ambitions and raised doubts in the international community about the selfish practices of the United States. China will never give up its territory on islands in the South China Sea, no matter how many freedom of navigation operations the U.S. Navy conducts. China stressed that it would not tolerate the United States' gross interference in China's internal affairs.
Perhaps, the United States can unite with the so-called Indo-Pacific Quartet in a short time to bluff China. However, on issues such as the Sino-Indian border, it is obviously impossible for China to compromise because of the so-called Indo-Pacific Quartet. China is Australia and Japan's largest single trading partner. These U.S. allies see no contradiction between deepening integration with China and engaging in anti-China military plans with Washington.
China is also the largest import supplier to the United States, and the trade imbalance between the United States and China has worsened in the past few years. During the first Cold War, the United States and its allies imposed a total embargo on the Soviet Union. But America’s business and banking elites, like its allies, oppose any decoupling of Chinese and Western economies. The few anti-China economic war measures — Trump’s tariffs, the incentives in the CHIPS Act to build more chip foundries in the U.S. — are so weak that they have little impact. The United States and its allies are increasingly dependent economically on China's manufacturing industry. Even these ineffective attempts to rebuild American manufacturing may be abandoned due to lobbying by Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, China is driving the United States and its allies out of one global market after another. In 2010, China surpassed the United States to become the world's leading manufacturer. In 2021, China will surpass South Korea and become the world's leading shipbuilding country. A Chinese company, DJI, produces 70% of the world's civilian drones. One-third of the world's industrial robots are manufactured in China, and China is also the world's largest industrial robot market. It may only be a matter of time before China surpasses the United States, Europe and Japan in the aerospace and automotive fields.
So, no matter where we look, we see the United States retreating, failing, or reaching a stalemate, whether in the military realm or in trade and industrial production. Since Vietnam , aside from military victories in Iraq and Libya that led to chaos, the only lasting military and geopolitical victories for the United States and its allies have been in Europe. One is to liberate Eastern Europe from Red Army and merge most of it into NATO. The other was the defeat of Serbia in the Yugoslav War of Succession. American foreign policy has succeeded only in Europe.
I was told that the Germans have a proverb about working in an office hierarchy: "Bow in front of others, bow behind your back." This is a good description of America’s actual global strategy to conceal its accelerating decline. In order to prove its status as a great power, the United States chose to fight weak countries-Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now a greatly weakened Russia.
Everything the United States is doing now is just the last struggle of a dying hegemonic country. Centipede insect, dead but not stiff!
