Part III: American Detox
Originally published in Dutch in EW Magazine on August 9th 2021, this article was translated and adapted on the 3rd of September 2022.
As we saw in the previous parts of this series, the United States is more than just a superpower. The past 25 years the US has dominated across the military, economic, cultural, and diplomatic domain. The US is the world’s largest economy, with nearly 40% of global defense spending being American, no language is as widespread as English, and the US dollar is the backbone of the global economy. And yet, despite all these strengths there is a widespread perception that the American hegemony is crumbling. Is this the beginning of the end for the American Century?
American Decline?
In 1960 the United States represented about 40% of the world economy, today that is more like 24%. Starting 2015 the average life expectancy for American declined for several years in a row. The fact that this has happened in the richest and most technologically advanced country in human history is striking. The United States has seen stagnation or even decline across a range of development indicators, although she remains near the global top.
The primary change however is that for the first time since the Cold War there is real strategic rival in the form of China. It is evident that the rise of China, but also other non-Western countries, has slowly degraded the American monopoly on global influence. That the United States is in relative decline is without doubt, but that does not yet mean the United States is in absolute decline.
The greatest danger for the United States is its domestic politics. As powerful as the US armed forced might be, they are subservient to the American civilian authorities. Various global challenges such as climate change loom, yet nearly all bandwidth has been taken by rancorous domestic politics. Not since the Civil War have we seen these levels of internal animosity and polarization.
America First
Domestic politics and the rise of China are the primary drivers of a wholesale US strategic reorientation. The American roads are dotted with potholes, internet speeds are pathetic, and lead water mains are not uncommon. The American voter rightfully questions why the US is sending vast amount of money and troops to countries that they can’t even find on a map. While the latter is also an indictment of the US public school system, there is no denying that US infrastructure is crumbling.
This is especially stark in contrast to China. Imagine a Chinese tourist arriving from Shanghai to Washington DC. They would be amazed at the decrepit state of the American subway system compared to the modern and efficient Chinese infrastructure projects. Americans are fed up with foreign affairs and are primarily concerned with the Homefront. This feeling, that the United States is unable to win wars and that their country is in decline is not new. The period after the Vietnam War until the First Gulf War was marked by the same American unwillingness to intervene.
Pivot to Asia (China)
Although Americans are broadly disinterested in foreign policy, nothing is as American as the desire to be Number One. Within that context the strategic rivalry with China does find roots in American sentiment. A new ideological competition is dawning, not necessarily about who will achieve world domination, but a competition for who has the better form of governance: Democratic liberal capitalism, or authoritarian state-capitalism. The battlefield in this competition is economics. Where the recent past was marked by free trade as the cornerstone of American foreign policy, the rise of Trump accelerated a global shift towards protectionism. The subsequent global COVID-19 pandemic only further entrenched this dynamic. In particular technological innovation looms large in the conflict with China, dominance over advanced technologies such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing are the strategic objectives.
The French Faux Pas
This brings us to what this all means for Europe. Since the end of the Second World War, Europe has been the most important region in the world. The arms race between the USSR and the US centered on the European continent, and both sides had committed millions of troops to defend the continent. Shockingly for the Europeans, Europe is no longer the most important region. The global economic center of gravity has shifted towards Asia, and with-it American troops and interests.
The ramifications for Europe are obvious. The French recalled their ambassador to the US in a high-stakes argument with the US about Australian submarines. The American commitment to share nuclear submarine technology undermined a years-long negotiation with the French to build Australian submarines. In short, one of America’s oldest and most trusted allies was brutally showed to the side for the sake of strategic competition with China. More of these events that underline the relative decline of Europe in strategic interests will follow.
Time to grow up
On an economic level Europe is a great power, by some metrics Europe is the second largest economic region in the world. Nearly 450 million people live and work in the most successful experiment in transnational economic integration in human history. But a purely economic superpower is not viable. The European Union is economically mature and significant but is a geopolitical toddler.
Foreign policy is not invested in the EU, meaning countries are forced to try and contain China on a bilateral level. Individually they stand no chance. Further integration on foreign policy is inevitable given the current geopolitical climate. The Trump presidency gave the first signals of what would happen if American and European interests started diverging. Although the US is no longer all-powerful, she will remain by far the most powerful country for several decades. The turning point lies in the near future, however.
If Europe aims to not only survive but flourish, she will need to have a proactive and coherent foreign policy and be willing to be a player in the global geopolitical competition. If she fails to do so Europe will be consigned to a geopolitical pawn that happens to have a very large consumer market for Chinese and American high tech products.