Has the US peaked and is in decline?

yoyo_nyc — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:24:02 -0800

Some books you might want to read about the US and recent political developments in the world. In 1987 Paul Kennedy published The rise and fall of great powers. He predicted the decline and collapse of the USSR and analyzed patterns that came with the rise and fall of great powers in the last 500 years. A superpower basically gets builds on economic strength, over-stretches its power, exhausts itself by over-stretching and finally falls, at least by the theory of Kennedy. Kennedy points out that nearly every power has reacted to decline with increased military spending, which leads to a feed-back effect. Money and resources that are needed for economic growth are consumed by an ever increasing military budget. In 2006 nearly 50% of the worlds military spending was done by the US. Recently we have seen problems in Georgia and other former USSR states (Orange revolution in Ukraine). Brzezinski laid out his most significant contribution to post–Cold War geostrategy in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard. He defined regions of Eurasia and in which ways the United States ought to design its policy toward each region in order to maintain its global primacy. Brzezinski recommends in this book that the US should support and encourage separatist movements in and around Russia and China. Currently the US has military bases not only in Eastern Europe but also in Uzbekistan and Kirghistan. The US also wants Ukraine and Georgia to join the NATO. Seven years ago, in 2001, the French scientist Emmanuel Todd wrote "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order", a book that was widely received as left wing US-bashing. Recently this book has been re-reviewed more positively and Todds description of the US housing bubble, industrial decline, trade deficit and "military theatricalism" might be more than just US-bashing. Todd predicted in 1976, at the age of 26, the decline of the USSR in "The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere" what could be seen as a kind of track record. Emanuel Todd claims that the US has peaked and that the future economic center will be Eurasia. With Europe and Asia connected by Russia, the central piece of geostrategic interests Here, Todd and Brzezinski agree that Russia holds the key to many geostrategic scenarios. For Todd it is Russia that will economically connect Eurasia, for Brzezinski this is a threat and hence separatist movements should be supported. Amazingly Todd sees fewer problems with Muslim extremists due to increasing literacy rates especially among the females but not everybody agrees with him.

Some lysol, bleach, heavy duty trash bags...

troutfishing — Sun, 30 May 2004 18:06:12 -0800

Calling the 'cleaner' - like Harvey Keitel, who has both played a 'cleaner' and become one in real life, Zbigniew Brzezinski now moves in to rectify the mess. "The present policy - justified by falsehoods, pursued with unilateral arrogance, blinded by self-delusion, and stained by sadistic excesses - cannot be corrected with a few hasty palliatives."

american global political standing is at its nadir

specialk420 — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 08:27:45 -0800

"American power worldwide is at its historic zenith. American global political standing is at its nadir." - Zbigniew Brzezinski speaking at the New American Strategies for Security and Peace Conference. [ via tpm ]

specialk420 — Sun, 01 Sep 2002 19:38:59 -0800

"Any further strikes against Americans will thus be a painful reminder that the war has not been won. Sadly, a main reason will be America's reluctance to focus on the political roots of the terrorist atrocity of Sept. 11." opinions on this piece from the original sponsor of the Mujahideen? username: metafilter46 password: metafilter

MetaFilter posts tagged with Brzezinski

Has the US peaked and is in decline?

Some lysol, bleach, heavy duty trash bags...

american global political standing is at its nadir