[Peace-discuss] "The American Century Is Over"

[Carl G. Estabrook]

Obama & his Republican 'opponents' are both getting their arguments on  
American decline from neocon Robert Kagan.  (See article below.)

Here's what I think is a better account of the matter, differing a bit  
from Bacevich's:

<http://chomsky.info/articles/20120214.htm>;
<http://chomsky.info/articles/20120215.htm>.

--CGE

=============================================================
Obama embraces Romney advisor's theory on 'The Myth of American Decline'
Posted By Josh Rogin Thursday, January 26, 2012

President Barack Obama is personally enamored with a recent essay  
written by neoconservative writer Bob Kagan, an advisor to Mitt  
Romney, in which Kagan argues that the idea the United States is in  
decline is false.
"The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe,"  
Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday evening. "From  
the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the  
missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've  
dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example,  
America is back."

"Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is  
in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're  
talking about," Obama said.

Just hours earlier on Tuesday, in an off-the-record meeting with  
leading news anchors, including ABC's George Stephanopoulos and NBC's  
Brian Williams, Obama drove home that argument using an article  
written in the New Republic by Kagan titled "The Myth of American  
Decline."

Obama liked Kagan's article so much that he spent more than 10 minutes  
talking about it in the meeting, going over its arguments paragraph by  
paragraph, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed  
to The Cable.

National Security Advisor Tom Donilon will also discuss Kagan's essay  
and Obama's love of it Thursday night with Charlie Rose on PBS.

Kagan's article examines and then sets out to debunk each of the  
arguments that America is in decline, which include commonly held  
assumptions that America's power and influence are waning due to its  
economic troubles, the rise of other world powers, the failure of U.S.  
efforts to solve big problems like the Middle East conflict, and the  
seeming inability of the U.S. government to tackle problems.

"Much of the commentary on American decline these days rests on rather  
loose analysis, on impressions that the United States has lost its  
way, that it has abandoned the virtues that made it successful in the  
past, that it lacks the will to address the problems it faces.  
Americans look at other nations whose economies are now in better  
shape than their own, and seem to have the dynamism that America once  
had, and they lament, as in the title of Thomas Friedman's latest  
book, that ‘that used to be us,'" Kagan writes.

But Kagan argues that the United States has gone through several  
similarly challenging periods in the past and has always managed to  
rebound and come out ahead. He writes that American decline is a risk,  
and a dangerous one at that, but by no means is it a foregone  
conclusion.

"In the end, the decision is in the hands of Americans," he writes.  
"Decline, as Charles Krauthammer has observed, is a choice. It is not  
an inevitable fate-at least not yet. Empires and great powers rise and  
fall, and the only question is when. But the when does matter. Whether  
the United States begins to decline over the next two decades or not  
for another two centuries will matter a great deal, both to Americans  
and to the nature of the world they live in."

For the White House, the Kagan article, and the forthcoming book it's  
based on, The World America Made, offer the perfect rebuttal to GOP  
accusations that Obama has willingly presided over a period of  
American decline or has been "leading from behind" on foreign policy.

Romney hits on this theme often, such as when he said in a December  
debate, "Our president thinks America is in decline. It is if he's  
president, it's not if I'm president."

In his foreign policy white paper, Romney states clearly that he  
believes that Obama has resigned himself to American decline.

"A perspective has been gaining currency, including within high  
councils of the Obama administration, that regards the United States  
as a power in decline. And not only is the United States regarded as  
in decline, but that decline is seen as both inexorable and a  
condition that can and should be managed for the global good rather  
than reversed," the white paper reads.

But as the economy slowly improves, that argument is harder to make,  
and the Obama campaign is now trying to use Romney's own assessment  
against him.

"Governor Romney may be rooting for slips and falls here. We're  
concentrating on moving this economy forward," Obama's political  
advisor David Axelrod said earlier this month.

The fact that it is Kagan refuting Romney's argument is especially  
sweet for the White House, because Kagan is a special advisor to the  
Romney campaign on national security and foreign policy.

Contacted by The Cable, Kagan said he was pleased Obama liked his  
essay and he is further pleased that Obama is not resigned to an  
America in decline.

"I think it's important that the president also doesn't see the nation  
in decline and I hope his policies reflect that and not the idea we  
should be accommodating American decline as a lot of people are  
recommending," said Kagan. "I hope he rejects that and still believes  
we should provide the kind of leadership we are capable of."

Kagan is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a  
columnist for the Washington Post.



On Feb 25, 2012, at 12:30 PM, Laurie Solomon wrote:

> Email
> Hello peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net,
>
> Laurie Solomon forwarded this article to you from Reader Supported  
> News:
>
> Not only a truth worth considering; but given history, has any  
> empire gracefully accepted its decline and fall from grace when its  
> time has come?
>
> The American Century Is Over
> http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/424-national-security/10144-the-american-century-is-over
>

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