10 ms·

Life at the End of American Empire

83 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

jariel 7y ago
A long list of poor arguments. "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades." Not even close. "The US war in Korea had an ambiguous result" 50M relatively prosperous South Koreans would beg to differ. "Vietnam was a clear defeat" Also not. 'Life expectancy' is a very poor measure of the healthcare system etc.. It goes on.
- MarcScott 7y ago
  You're not presenting rebuttals for any of the arguments. You're just disagreeing. Could you offer explanations of how the war in Vietnam was not a clear defeat, or how a healthcare system could be measured in a better way than citizen life expectancy?
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    Though it isn't popular to notice, the US left South Vietnam in a decent military and political position analogous to South Korea. Congress later cut them off from aid guaranteeing they would fall, because ... I dunno Watergate or something. I guess you could argue that was a failure, but the military did its job as well as could be expected at the time. I ain't gonna touch the health care thing.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Why would it behove me to validate a position when the author clearly could not bother himself? He offered no evidence for many of his claims, certainly nothing to support his line of reasoning that 'life expectancy is short ergo health care is bad'. Every verse a canard. These kinds of articles pop up every year or so in the New Yorker, NYT, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy - I have (we have) been reading them since I was a teenager. But for your convenience: 1) 'life expectancy' is a function of violence (young people dying in violence pulls averages a lot), general health and lifestyle choices, and finally healthcare. Americans are violent, and they have very poor diets, and are sedentary - this is the 'big differentiator' in health outcomes. But the lie is worse, because the quality of healthcare in the United States (for those who have it) is actually very high - it's the best in the world. I've received mid-level healthcare services in four modern nations including the US, and it's clear the US is by far 'the best' system in most ways, obviously, except for cost, and coverage. Whatever problem it is that you have, chances are almost 100% that you're better off in America than anywhere else - with the presumption you can afford it, of course, but most people can, just not all. 2) The author also misrepresented the nature of 'cost' in American healthcare. When healthcare is socialised, costs are limited and regulated, of course the government is going to ultimately 'spend less' per capita. In Canada, it's literally illegal to pay a doctor to provide you almost any service. If it were legal for citizens to buy health services, spending would increase dramatically. And then of course is the completely dysfunctional insurance system - but it's been that way for quite a long time: 'expensive healthcare' is not a sign of 'American decline'. It's a perrenial sign of 'screwed up capitalism'. 3) This one is basically ridiculous: "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades." Literally the opposite is true: the English, French, Spaniards, Hapbsbourgs, Swedish, Russians, Chinese etc. - everyone of them had material military setbacks among their successes. More specifically: North Korea invaded the South, and from 5000 miles away, the Americans were able to ultimately re-establish - and hold - the integrity of the South. South Korea, along with Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong (all Anglo-American protectorates to one degree or another) are shinning examples of prosperity in Asia. 4) Vietnam is very poorly misunderstood no thanks to a lot of bad movies and misleading documentaries. The Americans, with some effort, were able to hold South Vietnam free from Communist overthrow. They pummelled the North into submission at great cost to human life. This was in the early 1970's long after the US withdrew the majority of its forces, and casualties had been reduced to a trickle compared to the 10's of thousands of dead in 1968. The war was essentially over. Domestic policy, and a 'war wary' US public demanded withdrawal , even after establishing a fairly hard-won peace. After the US fully withdrew from Vietnam, the North regrouped, and then trounced the South. If America were to have left the relatively small number of troops in Vietnam - again with almost all conflict having ceased i.e. very few casualties - S. Vietnam might resemble, at least somewhat, the S. Korea of today. This was not a 'failure' - it was 'folly'. Though it was probably a bad choice to invade, it was also a bad choice to fully withdraw. Just as Americans were far too willing to invade Iraq (a mistake), Barack Obama's decision to withdraw when he did was also a mistake, driven at least to some extent by populism. Literally the day after US troops withdrew, Iraqi PM Malaki purged his government of Sunni rivals, causing a 'political civil war' which started to get violent, leaving the Sunni areas more afraid of Iraqi Government Troops (i.e. Shia) - and so the Sunni tribes allowed ... guess who (!?) to move in: ISIS! They literally felt they would be safer under the Iraqi branch of ISIS. Of course, with US troops gone, Iran was free to meddle directly in Iraqi affairs, which leads to 'Sulimani in Iraq'. Were Obama to have left only 15K soldiers, sitting safely 'behind the wire', not doing much, he could have maintained leverage over the Iraqi government and required them to compromise. Instead - it fell apart. ISIS would have remained a Syrian phenom, and not entered Iraq. Iran would have had a much harder time in Iraq than the free hand they have today. But this 'debacle in Iraq' is not remotely a sign of 'waning American power'. The opposite! America in 2003 rolled through Iraq in three weeks. It was one of the most astonishing and spectacular victories in world history. Never has a 'world power' been able to walk across the planet, steamroll over a major nation and obliterate a large military force so quickly. That the Americans were not able to quell subsequent local violence and insurgencies isn't a failure, I don't think anyone could have done this. American actions in Iraq demonstrated folly, not American incapacity. With drone capabilities, a global presence, it's pretty incredible (for better or worse) what American power can do in 2020. 5) 'Education'. Again, very misrepresentative. The US is ahead of most of the world in terms of the % of it's population it sends to College. [1] Germany has 'free Uni' but only about 25% get to go. In the US, it's a lot more. The US still has most of the best Universities, that's not changing. There is ample data to demonstrate that most test scores in the US are generally going up over time, with some bumps here and there [2]. The gap between White and Latino/African American has also been shrinking over time. 6) Inequality. Though inequality is an increasing problem in some ways, it's not an American phenom. Europe generally has the same problem, and it's all offset by the fact that overall, people's lives are improving and certain kinds of toxic inequality - like racial divisions, are narrowing. The gap between White/Black/Latino incomes is also narrowing, as it is in education. ... If the author would bother to look at some data, he might be able to characterises the issue of 'American decline' a little better by putting it in context: even as the American economy grows at a reasonable pace, 'the rest of the world' is coming along quickly. America is not 'losing', rather, the rest of the world is just starting to 'win'. This is the 'big picture' chart that sets the tone for what is happening [3]. And more generally [4] There are vast quantities of 'new economic citizens' in this world, and a couple billion coming out of deep poverty. This, and in particular the rise of China obviously that is really the dynamic that changes America's context vis-a-vis the rest of the world. America has many problems, but it's not 'in decline', far from it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/2018-brown-center-report-on-american-education-trends-in-naep-math-reading-and-civics-scores/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/2018-brown-center-report-... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/02/29/u-s-role-in-global-economy-declines-nearly-50/#7050100d5e9e https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/02/29/u-s-role-... [4]https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVE...
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      A couple of unrelated comments: > Why would it behove me to validate a position when the author clearly could not bother himself? The author wrote a book. This article is an excerpt. (It's really an ad for the book.) You can't expect it to give the whole case for the author's position; the book does that. This just gives a flavor of where the book is going. Why should you do different? Maybe because you want us to believe you. (I'm talking about your original post. This post clearly shows that you bothered to validate your position.) > That the Americans were not able to quell subsequent local [Iraqi] violence and insurgencies isn't a failure, I don't think anyone could have done this. I think we could have. It just would have taken an occupation on the level of what we did with Germany and Japan - maybe 300,000 to 500,000 troops for 10 to 15 years, rebuilding a functioning government, training politicians in how to function within that government, training the population that they could resolve disputes within the government system, and that they now had something worth keeping. We didn't want to do that; we tried to occupy Iraq "on the cheap", and the result was disastrous. > America has many problems, but it's not 'in decline', far from it. I think that the "decline" is in political will. The American people are no longer willing to accept a war of mass casualties. They aren't willing to restrain either politicians or corporations. They don't view the nation as an "us", but rather as an "us" and a "them", at war with each other. That may be a less disastrous decline, and more reversible, but it's still rather concerning.
    - MarcScott 7y ago
      Thank you for taking the time to reply in such amazing detail. It is seriously appreciated. I'll have a thorough read and do some link chasing this evening. Cheers
    - selimthegrim 7y ago
      The income gap may be one thing but the future wealth trends between black and white families are sorely depressing.
vearwhershuh 7y ago
The author presents a long list of laments (some reasonable, some comically oblivious in that way that only older college professors are capable of) but appears to regret the one thing that will actually improve any of them: the falling of the American Empire.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Why do you think that "the falling of the American Empire" would actually fix any of these issues?
- tharne 7y ago
  When one power falls another takes it place. You can be objectively critical of the United States, but if you think the Chinese, Russians, or whomever else may be ascendant 20 years from now is going to "improve things", you're being very naive.
FillardMillmore 7y ago
> ...the prevalence of poor health [in America] is on par with the former Soviet-bloc states of Central and Eastern Europe This claim seems tough to believe, but I suppose part of it does depend on what you classify as 'poor health'. If anyone knows sources that back up this claim, I'd be interested to read them.
- danharaj 7y ago
  Why do you think it's tough to believe?
  - kp98 7y ago
    Because America has some of the best healthcare outcomes in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...
    - standardUser 7y ago
      Being in the top 10-15 is great. But that ranking comes with a price tag roughly double the other highest ranking nations. Not to mention the financial ruin and bankruptcies experienced by some survivors, and the financial pressure experienced by virtually everyone that has to engage heavily with our healthcare system. And there are other metrics to consider. The US is 35th in life expectancy and falling farther behind. And we have notoriously bad rates of maternal and infant mortality compared to other wealthy nations.
      - kp98 7y ago
        Im not saying it's good compared to other wealthy nations, the initial comparison was to the soviet union
      - ip26 7y ago
        I've heard before that it's a split distribution. The quality of healthcare & outcomes in the US is some of the worst in the world, if you are poor. It's some of the best in the world, if you are rich. Or so I've been told. For example I was taught that a big part of why our maternal mortality is high, is because new mothers who are poor do not or cannot follow up with their doctor in the days after release from the hospital if something isn't right, e.g. when bleeding fresh blood instead of clotting. Visits to the doctor are expensive, and various barriers (such as language) may have prevented them from being educated on when to come back for help.
throw0x1away 7y ago
Incompetent, useless, politically-themed diarrhea. The only hypothetical end to American "Empire" I can imagine is a natural disaster of literally "biblical" proportions. (not gonna happen.) This political narrative that author is trying to shove down reader's throats is no more than a scaremongering, an attempt of feeding on the gullibility of the general public. "impending doooom", - yeah, right. Give me a break. US has the strongest, brilliantly engineered governmental system in the world (those Founding Fathers weren't joking around), even a current threat from the socialists is not really a threat if you think about it. Checks and balances, free courts, etc - it's piratically impossible to tilt the scales towards "the end of empire".
Animats 7y ago
"Any single defeat can be attributed to particular and ad hoc circumstances, but America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades. Those failures are even more extraordinary because they occurred in the absence of a rising military rival and as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for military supremacy remained undiminished." Yes. That's extremely important. Vietnam was the US's first total loss, and the US hasn't had a successful outcome since then. The US blew the endgame in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and, most importantly, in Russia after the Cold War. What went wrong? After WWII, the US had confidence in its own system of government, and imposed it on Germany and Japan with a sizable occupation force. It worked. The US underfunded the post-war period of round one in Afghanistan, after kicking the Soviets out. In Iraq, the occupation was botched. Paul Bremer is generally blamed for this.[1] Blowing the aftermath of a war leads to big trouble. See: WWI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bremer#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bremer#Criticism_and_cont...
- ErikAugust 7y ago
  "...as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for military supremacy remained undiminished." I don't think the real objective is to win any war. Instead, it has been to ever-expand the defense budget. Given this, it has been a success.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  The US has had plenty of moral lapses in its military adventures, but one suspects that the powers of the past 500 years would have been far more willing to obliterate entire nations without concern for civilians.
  - pseudolus 7y ago
    I'm sure you'd find a strong dissent to your argument from the numerous peoples who were the first inhabitants of North America.
  - elfexec 7y ago
_bxg1 7y ago
I'm not yet at the point of starting a family, but when the time approaches I'm going to seriously consider other, more functional societies as places to do so.
- taylodl 7y ago
  What's keeping you from considering those other societies now? Why wait until you're starting a family?
  - shrimp_emoji 7y ago
    Tech flows downstream from Burgerstan.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    For most people: economic opportunity. Which is itself a funny thing because it at least seems like the more socially progressive a place is the less opportunity there is to gain financial success quickly, so you end up with this weird situation where people want to have their cake and eat it too by working in the US for 10-15 years and then moving elsewhere.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    It's good enough right now as a healthy, single, affluent working adult. Or at least, it's not bad enough to consider leaving behind family and friends. But if I had to think about a child's future, as well as my own increasing healthcare needs later in life, combined with the fact that the societal problems are only getting worse the longer time goes on, the equation may well work out differently.
    - foogazi 7y ago
      But if it’s good for you now, wouldn’t it be good for your kids at that same stage in the future? I think about this too - The grass seems cheaper & healthier on the other side sometimes, but the economic advantages of the US are impressive
    - 7y ago
Jedi72 7y ago
American pride won't save this country from long-term trends. Before any meaningful change can be made, the "we're the best" attitude has to go. Sometime in the next 2 decades China is gonna put a man on Mars before the US, I can't wait to see the shocked faces
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- foogazi 7y ago
  the Soviet Union got to space first and then what good did that do? I’ll be shocked when the American president sends her daughter to study in China, or when the British monarchy starts exiling to China.
  - ocschwar 7y ago
    America got great by sending the children of the elite to Holland for college.
- digitalsushi 7y ago
  Would you be disappointed if there are no shocked faces? Anti-intellectualism is a disturbing modern trend.
kp98 7y ago
I hear talk of the end of the American empire often, but I see issues like healthcare and education as superfluous in the face of a few underlying trends that provide the basis for another American century. Healthcare reform is something we already have the levers to execute through government policy, and I believe it will happen during the next financial crisis along with entitlement reform. On the other hand, there are certain trends that there are no obvious ways to reverse, namely demographic decline, geographic dominance, and technological innovation. When you consider the decline of America in the face of China, for example, consider that China faces a far more serious demographic issue, and as Russia teaches us, it is almost impossible to grow economically during such a period. America's birth rate, however, is 1.8 births per woman with immigration putting the country into a healthy range. Geographically, American is set up between the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. If global warming does hit the arctic hard, we will have access to the arctic ocean via Alaska, whereas China and other regional super powers will not. In terms of energy, raw resources, and land America is also looking at self sufficiency for the next century to come. Technologically, America draws on the best universities in the world, with cities that have external economies of scale so large that they will be hard to displace (ie SV, NYC, Boston). Not to mention we have an engrained culture that affirms those who experiment and forgives those who fail. In the technological sense I think America will succeed also. Instead of looking at this as the end of America, I think people need to recognize that we face extraordinary problems, which we can overcome. In my own opinion, I think the highest order offence against the American people is American business co-opting the government, and as soon as we work this out, we will have a better ability to overcome issues of healthcare, education, etc.
fbonetti 7y ago
It’s funny that the author on one hand acknowledges that the government sucks at everything it does, whether it’s education, infrastructure, or health insurance. He also acknowledges that the federal government has a tendency to constantly engage in costly foreign wars regardless of who happens to be in office. Yet his proposed solution is to give the government even more money and even more power.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Thus, ironically, the problem for both the right and the left is the same one- that governments today are too weak. The right needs an at least temporarily strong government to effect the dismantling of the state, whereas the left needs a strong government not merely to respond to the grinding conditions of the economic “recovery”, but to overturn previous policies, put in new protections and find some alternative to the current political and economic order. Dark enlightenment types and progressives are confronting the same frustration while having diametrically opposed goals. It is not so much that Washington is too powerful as it is that the power it has is embedded in a system, which, as Mark Leibovich portrays brilliantly, is feckless and corrupt. https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/searle20131202 https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/searle20131202
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    The idea of using "temporary" power to effect the dismantling of structures of power was appealing to Sulla, too. Fortunately for him, he died before seeing Julius Caesar follow his precedent to establish Rome as an empire, and Caesar himself as emperor for life. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
  - yepguy 7y ago
    https://conventionofstates.com/ https://conventionofstates.com/
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Good luck with that. The system does have the one power to do something- to self-perpetuate in its feckless and corrupt upholding of the status quo. Neither party wants constitutional change that could actually change the system at a fundamental level.
jayeshsalvi 7y ago
Good read. America today looks like the crumpling world described by Ayn Rand in `Atlass Shrugged`. Ironically the reason of this downfall is the adoption of naive form of capitalism that Ayn Rand popularized.
- mylons 7y ago
  america doesn’t have Laissez-faire capitalism.
  - devpts11 7y ago
    In America, it's amazing if you're rich and a nightmare if you're poor. Decades of trickle-down Reaganomics and hyperindividualism lead to a dog-eat-dog society where nearly everyone is atomized, disconnected and unconcerned with anyone else... it's not so much a civilization as it is an insane asylum of people locked in together who don't want to know anyone else. It's as close to libertarianism without privatizing fire departments, but basically everything else is privatized (including numerous "private-public partnerships") to deleterious fallout (healthcare, prisons, education, military, roads, infrastructure and many more areas that allow perverse incentives and corruption to takeover public resources and commonwealth and monetize them). Lacking enforced legal protections is a disaster from a lack of government... less government isn't always a Good Thing, especially when political appointees are wolves guarding the henhouse.
chmaynard 7y ago
This kind of diatribe is so easy to spot. The author starts with a premise and carefully selects facts to support his opinion. I lost interest when he lauded the construction of dams during the New Deal. Most of these dams are environmental disasters and will probably be removed.
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Every empire dies, because the central bureacracy allows for subversion of value. You can produce good barrles? Well, the barell producer in governments town is the only one who can produce them with the new holes required by law. It seeps into every corner, into the very mindset. This is how it has to be done. I think, the best way to recovery, actually is to let go, accelerate the downfall so to speak - of the empire. It seems counter-intuitive, but once you can not live of the externally produced surplus, the meritocracy of the market gets a grip again.
aquova 7y ago
This is a well written article, covering a lot of the issues currently facing the country. It's something I think about occasionally, and the opinion I think I've eventually come to is that while it's nice to think of ourselves as the top in the world in many aspects, it's okay to contract a bit and let the empire shrink back. He often compares to Europe and China, who are in different stages of what might be the naturally progression of global powers. Europe had its world supreme phase, with several nations being eligible for best in the world at different points. Post-WWII, they (for one reason or another) scaled back and now have the high quality of living we see today. China is where the US was 50 years ago, with rapid, grandiose projects and economic success. But eventually those structures will crumble as they are in the US and they will be where we are now. I'm not sure what will happen. I think standards will continue to slip while politicians play more into more into the "America #1" card until it finally isn't feasible to do so. I don't think there will be a glorious revolution or anything, more like economic downturn changing the political layout slowly, causing even the giant corporate actors to go bust. Eventually America will scale back until it reaches the equilibrium that Europe is closer to reaching.
8bitsrule 7y ago
Yet another cold, miserable, accurate report on the state of affairs. They're always 90% about the problems, 10% on what we could do, only if. We need leadership committed to picking something that needs doing and then doing it. Stat. Two teams pulling in opposite directions aren't moving the ball. Without a third? It's over.
snambi 7y ago
Living long doesn't mean living well. Spending more doesn't mean spending well. Instead of counting the dollars spent, we should begin measuring outcome. May be that will solve the problem.
malandrew 7y ago
I think one factor that many people underestimate in the decline in any country or empire is the cost of brownfield projects versus greenfield projects. For example, building a new town/city and its infrastructure is dirt cheap relative to fixing and replacing existing infrastructure. This is not unlike the cost of maintaining software and refactoring it versus writing it in the first place. With a new greenfield city land, labor is relatively cheap because the cost of living is relatively cheap. There are also no entrenched interests that will engage in legal battles every step of the way. There are also no citizens whose you have to continue to support while you create the new replacement infrastructure and you have none of the complexities of migration from old infrastructure to new infrastructure. Besides their authoritarian bent, these are some of the many reasons a country like China is getting stuff done while the US and Europe gets relatively little done.
devpts11 7y ago
Mass shootings on a nearly daily basis, imprisoning journalists, highest incarceration rate in the world and extrajudicial executions don't happen in a sustainable society.
juanjmanfredi 7y ago
I share frustration with many of the issues that the author discusses. But I disagree completely with his thesis. I am profoundly optimistic about our future. The individual liberties provided by the Constitution empower each of us to speak our minds, share ideas, and start/join movements. We have the power to elect our representatives, and have an independent judiciary to push back against corruption. The average quality of life here is higher than in almost any other place on Earth, and no other country can compare to ours in terms of diversity of thought, culture, and ethnicity. Look, I understand that there are real, serious problems with our institutions and our economy. The beautiful thing about the United States though is that our political system allows for solutions to be discussed, proposed, and adopted. The biggest threats I see to the United States are not unique to us: climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and global unrest/poverty.
- falcolas 7y ago
  > no other country can compare to ours in terms of diversity of thought So long as your thought is within culturally accepted norms. Otherwise, American companies will happily chase you completely off the internet, sometimes with the force of American law (it’s frankly scarier when they do it without being forced by law).
nirav72 7y ago
is the U.S really declining or others are just catching up?

83 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

A long list of poor arguments. "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades." Not even close. "The US war in Korea had an ambiguous result" 50M relatively prosperous South Koreans would beg to differ. "Vietnam was a clear defeat" Also not. 'Life expectancy' is a very poor measure of the healthcare system etc.. It goes on.

MarcScott 7y ago
You're not presenting rebuttals for any of the arguments. You're just disagreeing. Could you offer explanations of how the war in Vietnam was not a clear defeat, or how a healthcare system could be measured in a better way than citizen life expectancy?
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  Though it isn't popular to notice, the US left South Vietnam in a decent military and political position analogous to South Korea. Congress later cut them off from aid guaranteeing they would fall, because ... I dunno Watergate or something. I guess you could argue that was a failure, but the military did its job as well as could be expected at the time. I ain't gonna touch the health care thing.
- jariel 7y ago
  Why would it behove me to validate a position when the author clearly could not bother himself? He offered no evidence for many of his claims, certainly nothing to support his line of reasoning that 'life expectancy is short ergo health care is bad'. Every verse a canard. These kinds of articles pop up every year or so in the New Yorker, NYT, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy - I have (we have) been reading them since I was a teenager. But for your convenience: 1) 'life expectancy' is a function of violence (young people dying in violence pulls averages a lot), general health and lifestyle choices, and finally healthcare. Americans are violent, and they have very poor diets, and are sedentary - this is the 'big differentiator' in health outcomes. But the lie is worse, because the quality of healthcare in the United States (for those who have it) is actually very high - it's the best in the world. I've received mid-level healthcare services in four modern nations including the US, and it's clear the US is by far 'the best' system in most ways, obviously, except for cost, and coverage. Whatever problem it is that you have, chances are almost 100% that you're better off in America than anywhere else - with the presumption you can afford it, of course, but most people can, just not all. 2) The author also misrepresented the nature of 'cost' in American healthcare. When healthcare is socialised, costs are limited and regulated, of course the government is going to ultimately 'spend less' per capita. In Canada, it's literally illegal to pay a doctor to provide you almost any service. If it were legal for citizens to buy health services, spending would increase dramatically. And then of course is the completely dysfunctional insurance system - but it's been that way for quite a long time: 'expensive healthcare' is not a sign of 'American decline'. It's a perrenial sign of 'screwed up capitalism'. 3) This one is basically ridiculous: "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades." Literally the opposite is true: the English, French, Spaniards, Hapbsbourgs, Swedish, Russians, Chinese etc. - everyone of them had material military setbacks among their successes. More specifically: North Korea invaded the South, and from 5000 miles away, the Americans were able to ultimately re-establish - and hold - the integrity of the South. South Korea, along with Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong (all Anglo-American protectorates to one degree or another) are shinning examples of prosperity in Asia. 4) Vietnam is very poorly misunderstood no thanks to a lot of bad movies and misleading documentaries. The Americans, with some effort, were able to hold South Vietnam free from Communist overthrow. They pummelled the North into submission at great cost to human life. This was in the early 1970's long after the US withdrew the majority of its forces, and casualties had been reduced to a trickle compared to the 10's of thousands of dead in 1968. The war was essentially over. Domestic policy, and a 'war wary' US public demanded withdrawal , even after establishing a fairly hard-won peace. After the US fully withdrew from Vietnam, the North regrouped, and then trounced the South. If America were to have left the relatively small number of troops in Vietnam - again with almost all conflict having ceased i.e. very few casualties - S. Vietnam might resemble, at least somewhat, the S. Korea of today. This was not a 'failure' - it was 'folly'. Though it was probably a bad choice to invade, it was also a bad choice to fully withdraw. Just as Americans were far too willing to invade Iraq (a mistake), Barack Obama's decision to withdraw when he did was also a mistake, driven at least to some extent by populism. Literally the day after US troops withdrew, Iraqi PM Malaki purged his government of Sunni rivals, causing a 'political civil war' which started to get violent, leaving the Sunni areas more afraid of Iraqi Government Troops (i.e. Shia) - and so the Sunni tribes allowed ... guess who (!?) to move in: ISIS! They literally felt they would be safer under the Iraqi branch of ISIS. Of course, with US troops gone, Iran was free to meddle directly in Iraqi affairs, which leads to 'Sulimani in Iraq'. Were Obama to have left only 15K soldiers, sitting safely 'behind the wire', not doing much, he could have maintained leverage over the Iraqi government and required them to compromise. Instead - it fell apart. ISIS would have remained a Syrian phenom, and not entered Iraq. Iran would have had a much harder time in Iraq than the free hand they have today. But this 'debacle in Iraq' is not remotely a sign of 'waning American power'. The opposite! America in 2003 rolled through Iraq in three weeks. It was one of the most astonishing and spectacular victories in world history. Never has a 'world power' been able to walk across the planet, steamroll over a major nation and obliterate a large military force so quickly. That the Americans were not able to quell subsequent local violence and insurgencies isn't a failure, I don't think anyone could have done this. American actions in Iraq demonstrated folly, not American incapacity. With drone capabilities, a global presence, it's pretty incredible (for better or worse) what American power can do in 2020. 5) 'Education'. Again, very misrepresentative. The US is ahead of most of the world in terms of the % of it's population it sends to College. [1] Germany has 'free Uni' but only about 25% get to go. In the US, it's a lot more. The US still has most of the best Universities, that's not changing. There is ample data to demonstrate that most test scores in the US are generally going up over time, with some bumps here and there [2]. The gap between White and Latino/African American has also been shrinking over time. 6) Inequality. Though inequality is an increasing problem in some ways, it's not an American phenom. Europe generally has the same problem, and it's all offset by the fact that overall, people's lives are improving and certain kinds of toxic inequality - like racial divisions, are narrowing. The gap between White/Black/Latino incomes is also narrowing, as it is in education. ... If the author would bother to look at some data, he might be able to characterises the issue of 'American decline' a little better by putting it in context: even as the American economy grows at a reasonable pace, 'the rest of the world' is coming along quickly. America is not 'losing', rather, the rest of the world is just starting to 'win'. This is the 'big picture' chart that sets the tone for what is happening [3]. And more generally [4] There are vast quantities of 'new economic citizens' in this world, and a couple billion coming out of deep poverty. This, and in particular the rise of China obviously that is really the dynamic that changes America's context vis-a-vis the rest of the world. America has many problems, but it's not 'in decline', far from it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/2018-brown-center-report-on-american-education-trends-in-naep-math-reading-and-civics-scores/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/2018-brown-center-report-... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/02/29/u-s-role-in-global-economy-declines-nearly-50/#7050100d5e9e https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/02/29/u-s-role-... [4]https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVE...
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    A couple of unrelated comments: > Why would it behove me to validate a position when the author clearly could not bother himself? The author wrote a book. This article is an excerpt. (It's really an ad for the book.) You can't expect it to give the whole case for the author's position; the book does that. This just gives a flavor of where the book is going. Why should you do different? Maybe because you want us to believe you. (I'm talking about your original post. This post clearly shows that you bothered to validate your position.) > That the Americans were not able to quell subsequent local [Iraqi] violence and insurgencies isn't a failure, I don't think anyone could have done this. I think we could have. It just would have taken an occupation on the level of what we did with Germany and Japan - maybe 300,000 to 500,000 troops for 10 to 15 years, rebuilding a functioning government, training politicians in how to function within that government, training the population that they could resolve disputes within the government system, and that they now had something worth keeping. We didn't want to do that; we tried to occupy Iraq "on the cheap", and the result was disastrous. > America has many problems, but it's not 'in decline', far from it. I think that the "decline" is in political will. The American people are no longer willing to accept a war of mass casualties. They aren't willing to restrain either politicians or corporations. They don't view the nation as an "us", but rather as an "us" and a "them", at war with each other. That may be a less disastrous decline, and more reversible, but it's still rather concerning.
  - MarcScott 7y ago
    Thank you for taking the time to reply in such amazing detail. It is seriously appreciated. I'll have a thorough read and do some link chasing this evening. Cheers
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    The income gap may be one thing but the future wealth trends between black and white families are sorely depressing.

vearwhershuh 7y ago

The author presents a long list of laments (some reasonable, some comically oblivious in that way that only older college professors are capable of) but appears to regret the one thing that will actually improve any of them: the falling of the American Empire.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Why do you think that "the falling of the American Empire" would actually fix any of these issues?
tharne 7y ago
When one power falls another takes it place. You can be objectively critical of the United States, but if you think the Chinese, Russians, or whomever else may be ascendant 20 years from now is going to "improve things", you're being very naive.

FillardMillmore 7y ago

> ...the prevalence of poor health [in America] is on par with the former Soviet-bloc states of Central and Eastern Europe This claim seems tough to believe, but I suppose part of it does depend on what you classify as 'poor health'. If anyone knows sources that back up this claim, I'd be interested to read them.

danharaj 7y ago
Why do you think it's tough to believe?
- kp98 7y ago
  Because America has some of the best healthcare outcomes in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...
  - standardUser 7y ago
    Being in the top 10-15 is great. But that ranking comes with a price tag roughly double the other highest ranking nations. Not to mention the financial ruin and bankruptcies experienced by some survivors, and the financial pressure experienced by virtually everyone that has to engage heavily with our healthcare system. And there are other metrics to consider. The US is 35th in life expectancy and falling farther behind. And we have notoriously bad rates of maternal and infant mortality compared to other wealthy nations.
    - kp98 7y ago
      Im not saying it's good compared to other wealthy nations, the initial comparison was to the soviet union
    - ip26 7y ago
      I've heard before that it's a split distribution. The quality of healthcare & outcomes in the US is some of the worst in the world, if you are poor. It's some of the best in the world, if you are rich. Or so I've been told. For example I was taught that a big part of why our maternal mortality is high, is because new mothers who are poor do not or cannot follow up with their doctor in the days after release from the hospital if something isn't right, e.g. when bleeding fresh blood instead of clotting. Visits to the doctor are expensive, and various barriers (such as language) may have prevented them from being educated on when to come back for help.

throw0x1away 7y ago

Incompetent, useless, politically-themed diarrhea. The only hypothetical end to American "Empire" I can imagine is a natural disaster of literally "biblical" proportions. (not gonna happen.) This political narrative that author is trying to shove down reader's throats is no more than a scaremongering, an attempt of feeding on the gullibility of the general public. "impending doooom", - yeah, right. Give me a break. US has the strongest, brilliantly engineered governmental system in the world (those Founding Fathers weren't joking around), even a current threat from the socialists is not really a threat if you think about it. Checks and balances, free courts, etc - it's piratically impossible to tilt the scales towards "the end of empire".

Animats 7y ago

"Any single defeat can be attributed to particular and ad hoc circumstances, but America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades. Those failures are even more extraordinary because they occurred in the absence of a rising military rival and as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for military supremacy remained undiminished." Yes. That's extremely important. Vietnam was the US's first total loss, and the US hasn't had a successful outcome since then. The US blew the endgame in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and, most importantly, in Russia after the Cold War. What went wrong? After WWII, the US had confidence in its own system of government, and imposed it on Germany and Japan with a sizable occupation force. It worked. The US underfunded the post-war period of round one in Afghanistan, after kicking the Soviets out. In Iraq, the occupation was botched. Paul Bremer is generally blamed for this.[1] Blowing the aftermath of a war leads to big trouble. See: WWI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bremer#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bremer#Criticism_and_cont...

ErikAugust 7y ago
"...as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for military supremacy remained undiminished." I don't think the real objective is to win any war. Instead, it has been to ever-expand the defense budget. Given this, it has been a success.
CalRobert 7y ago
The US has had plenty of moral lapses in its military adventures, but one suspects that the powers of the past 500 years would have been far more willing to obliterate entire nations without concern for civilians.
- pseudolus 7y ago
  I'm sure you'd find a strong dissent to your argument from the numerous peoples who were the first inhabitants of North America.
- elfexec 7y ago

_bxg1 7y ago

I'm not yet at the point of starting a family, but when the time approaches I'm going to seriously consider other, more functional societies as places to do so.

taylodl 7y ago
What's keeping you from considering those other societies now? Why wait until you're starting a family?
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  Tech flows downstream from Burgerstan.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  For most people: economic opportunity. Which is itself a funny thing because it at least seems like the more socially progressive a place is the less opportunity there is to gain financial success quickly, so you end up with this weird situation where people want to have their cake and eat it too by working in the US for 10-15 years and then moving elsewhere.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  It's good enough right now as a healthy, single, affluent working adult. Or at least, it's not bad enough to consider leaving behind family and friends. But if I had to think about a child's future, as well as my own increasing healthcare needs later in life, combined with the fact that the societal problems are only getting worse the longer time goes on, the equation may well work out differently.
  - foogazi 7y ago
    But if it’s good for you now, wouldn’t it be good for your kids at that same stage in the future? I think about this too - The grass seems cheaper & healthier on the other side sometimes, but the economic advantages of the US are impressive
  - 7y ago

Jedi72 7y ago

American pride won't save this country from long-term trends. Before any meaningful change can be made, the "we're the best" attitude has to go. Sometime in the next 2 decades China is gonna put a man on Mars before the US, I can't wait to see the shocked faces

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
foogazi 7y ago
the Soviet Union got to space first and then what good did that do? I’ll be shocked when the American president sends her daughter to study in China, or when the British monarchy starts exiling to China.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  America got great by sending the children of the elite to Holland for college.
digitalsushi 7y ago
Would you be disappointed if there are no shocked faces? Anti-intellectualism is a disturbing modern trend.

kp98 7y ago

I hear talk of the end of the American empire often, but I see issues like healthcare and education as superfluous in the face of a few underlying trends that provide the basis for another American century. Healthcare reform is something we already have the levers to execute through government policy, and I believe it will happen during the next financial crisis along with entitlement reform. On the other hand, there are certain trends that there are no obvious ways to reverse, namely demographic decline, geographic dominance, and technological innovation. When you consider the decline of America in the face of China, for example, consider that China faces a far more serious demographic issue, and as Russia teaches us, it is almost impossible to grow economically during such a period. America's birth rate, however, is 1.8 births per woman with immigration putting the country into a healthy range. Geographically, American is set up between the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. If global warming does hit the arctic hard, we will have access to the arctic ocean via Alaska, whereas China and other regional super powers will not. In terms of energy, raw resources, and land America is also looking at self sufficiency for the next century to come. Technologically, America draws on the best universities in the world, with cities that have external economies of scale so large that they will be hard to displace (ie SV, NYC, Boston). Not to mention we have an engrained culture that affirms those who experiment and forgives those who fail. In the technological sense I think America will succeed also. Instead of looking at this as the end of America, I think people need to recognize that we face extraordinary problems, which we can overcome. In my own opinion, I think the highest order offence against the American people is American business co-opting the government, and as soon as we work this out, we will have a better ability to overcome issues of healthcare, education, etc.

fbonetti 7y ago

It’s funny that the author on one hand acknowledges that the government sucks at everything it does, whether it’s education, infrastructure, or health insurance. He also acknowledges that the federal government has a tendency to constantly engage in costly foreign wars regardless of who happens to be in office. Yet his proposed solution is to give the government even more money and even more power.

Apocryphon 7y ago
Thus, ironically, the problem for both the right and the left is the same one- that governments today are too weak. The right needs an at least temporarily strong government to effect the dismantling of the state, whereas the left needs a strong government not merely to respond to the grinding conditions of the economic “recovery”, but to overturn previous policies, put in new protections and find some alternative to the current political and economic order. Dark enlightenment types and progressives are confronting the same frustration while having diametrically opposed goals. It is not so much that Washington is too powerful as it is that the power it has is embedded in a system, which, as Mark Leibovich portrays brilliantly, is feckless and corrupt. https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/searle20131202 https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/searle20131202
- pwinnski 7y ago
  The idea of using "temporary" power to effect the dismantling of structures of power was appealing to Sulla, too. Fortunately for him, he died before seeing Julius Caesar follow his precedent to establish Rome as an empire, and Caesar himself as emperor for life. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
- yepguy 7y ago
  https://conventionofstates.com/ https://conventionofstates.com/
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Good luck with that. The system does have the one power to do something- to self-perpetuate in its feckless and corrupt upholding of the status quo. Neither party wants constitutional change that could actually change the system at a fundamental level.

jayeshsalvi 7y ago

Good read. America today looks like the crumpling world described by Ayn Rand in `Atlass Shrugged`. Ironically the reason of this downfall is the adoption of naive form of capitalism that Ayn Rand popularized.

mylons 7y ago
america doesn’t have Laissez-faire capitalism.
- devpts11 7y ago
  In America, it's amazing if you're rich and a nightmare if you're poor. Decades of trickle-down Reaganomics and hyperindividualism lead to a dog-eat-dog society where nearly everyone is atomized, disconnected and unconcerned with anyone else... it's not so much a civilization as it is an insane asylum of people locked in together who don't want to know anyone else. It's as close to libertarianism without privatizing fire departments, but basically everything else is privatized (including numerous "private-public partnerships") to deleterious fallout (healthcare, prisons, education, military, roads, infrastructure and many more areas that allow perverse incentives and corruption to takeover public resources and commonwealth and monetize them). Lacking enforced legal protections is a disaster from a lack of government... less government isn't always a Good Thing, especially when political appointees are wolves guarding the henhouse.

chmaynard 7y ago

This kind of diatribe is so easy to spot. The author starts with a premise and carefully selects facts to support his opinion. I lost interest when he lauded the construction of dams during the New Deal. Most of these dams are environmental disasters and will probably be removed.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

Every empire dies, because the central bureacracy allows for subversion of value. You can produce good barrles? Well, the barell producer in governments town is the only one who can produce them with the new holes required by law. It seeps into every corner, into the very mindset. This is how it has to be done. I think, the best way to recovery, actually is to let go, accelerate the downfall so to speak - of the empire. It seems counter-intuitive, but once you can not live of the externally produced surplus, the meritocracy of the market gets a grip again.

aquova 7y ago

This is a well written article, covering a lot of the issues currently facing the country. It's something I think about occasionally, and the opinion I think I've eventually come to is that while it's nice to think of ourselves as the top in the world in many aspects, it's okay to contract a bit and let the empire shrink back. He often compares to Europe and China, who are in different stages of what might be the naturally progression of global powers. Europe had its world supreme phase, with several nations being eligible for best in the world at different points. Post-WWII, they (for one reason or another) scaled back and now have the high quality of living we see today. China is where the US was 50 years ago, with rapid, grandiose projects and economic success. But eventually those structures will crumble as they are in the US and they will be where we are now. I'm not sure what will happen. I think standards will continue to slip while politicians play more into more into the "America #1" card until it finally isn't feasible to do so. I don't think there will be a glorious revolution or anything, more like economic downturn changing the political layout slowly, causing even the giant corporate actors to go bust. Eventually America will scale back until it reaches the equilibrium that Europe is closer to reaching.

8bitsrule 7y ago

Yet another cold, miserable, accurate report on the state of affairs. They're always 90% about the problems, 10% on what we could do, only if. We need leadership committed to picking something that needs doing and then doing it. Stat. Two teams pulling in opposite directions aren't moving the ball. Without a third? It's over.

snambi 7y ago

Living long doesn't mean living well. Spending more doesn't mean spending well. Instead of counting the dollars spent, we should begin measuring outcome. May be that will solve the problem.

malandrew 7y ago

I think one factor that many people underestimate in the decline in any country or empire is the cost of brownfield projects versus greenfield projects. For example, building a new town/city and its infrastructure is dirt cheap relative to fixing and replacing existing infrastructure. This is not unlike the cost of maintaining software and refactoring it versus writing it in the first place. With a new greenfield city land, labor is relatively cheap because the cost of living is relatively cheap. There are also no entrenched interests that will engage in legal battles every step of the way. There are also no citizens whose you have to continue to support while you create the new replacement infrastructure and you have none of the complexities of migration from old infrastructure to new infrastructure. Besides their authoritarian bent, these are some of the many reasons a country like China is getting stuff done while the US and Europe gets relatively little done.

devpts11 7y ago

Mass shootings on a nearly daily basis, imprisoning journalists, highest incarceration rate in the world and extrajudicial executions don't happen in a sustainable society.

juanjmanfredi 7y ago

I share frustration with many of the issues that the author discusses. But I disagree completely with his thesis. I am profoundly optimistic about our future. The individual liberties provided by the Constitution empower each of us to speak our minds, share ideas, and start/join movements. We have the power to elect our representatives, and have an independent judiciary to push back against corruption. The average quality of life here is higher than in almost any other place on Earth, and no other country can compare to ours in terms of diversity of thought, culture, and ethnicity. Look, I understand that there are real, serious problems with our institutions and our economy. The beautiful thing about the United States though is that our political system allows for solutions to be discussed, proposed, and adopted. The biggest threats I see to the United States are not unique to us: climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and global unrest/poverty.

falcolas 7y ago
> no other country can compare to ours in terms of diversity of thought So long as your thought is within culturally accepted norms. Otherwise, American companies will happily chase you completely off the internet, sometimes with the force of American law (it’s frankly scarier when they do it without being forced by law).

nirav72 7y ago

is the U.S really declining or others are just catching up?