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How Hegemony Ends: The Unraveling of American Power

3 points by Reedx 6y ago

rossdavidh 6y ago
I feel like I see this same article every other year. Even this article has to admit that, while claiming that "this time it's different". And, you know, eventually it will be true. But... 1) the U.S. was only a real "hegemon" for a few brief years after 1989, when Russia hadn't got their act together yet and China was still poor. The early 90's was a long time ago now. So, in a very real sense, the fact that there are other world powers is not new; it wasn't true for very long, really. 2) They list Russia and China as the two rising powers that threaten the U.S. position, but they have both been weakened recently. Russia's economy is not wholly based on petroleum, but clearly the drop in oil prices has hit them harder than the U.S. It is telling that it was Trump who had to negotiate a deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia to get away from negative oil prices. China, on the other hand, has just lost a bit of its manufacturing business due to the pandemic, and nations all over the world are putting new priority on not being too dependent on them for all of their inputs. I don't doubt that China will remain a major power, but this is hardly the time to be hailing their ascent; they are dealing with a sizeable backlash from all over the world. Meanwhile, the EU has just lost the UK, and then closed its own internal borders in response to the pandemic, which hit it harder (in per capita mortality) than anywhere else on the planet. Again, of course the U.S. is not the only power. But this is nothing new, and also rather overblown. Someday the U.S. will fall to #2 spot. This is not the day.
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  Not pouring trillions into the ME or elsewhere anymore means retrenchment and surrendering hegemony. If only. Let China own the ME and Africa. At least they’ll have cheap oil. If the EU wants to tickle Vlad, Assad or Erdogan, let them do it on their own dime. Our only weakness is xenophobia and companies like Apple that after Trump, a pandemic and more money than god are still navel gazing about diversifying their supply chains.

3 points by Reedx 6y ago

I feel like I see this same article every other year. Even this article has to admit that, while claiming that "this time it's different". And, you know, eventually it will be true. But... 1) the U.S. was only a real "hegemon" for a few brief years after 1989, when Russia hadn't got their act together yet and China was still poor. The early 90's was a long time ago now. So, in a very real sense, the fact that there are other world powers is not new; it wasn't true for very long, really. 2) They list Russia and China as the two rising powers that threaten the U.S. position, but they have both been weakened recently. Russia's economy is not wholly based on petroleum, but clearly the drop in oil prices has hit them harder than the U.S. It is telling that it was Trump who had to negotiate a deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia to get away from negative oil prices. China, on the other hand, has just lost a bit of its manufacturing business due to the pandemic, and nations all over the world are putting new priority on not being too dependent on them for all of their inputs. I don't doubt that China will remain a major power, but this is hardly the time to be hailing their ascent; they are dealing with a sizeable backlash from all over the world. Meanwhile, the EU has just lost the UK, and then closed its own internal borders in response to the pandemic, which hit it harder (in per capita mortality) than anywhere else on the planet. Again, of course the U.S. is not the only power. But this is nothing new, and also rather overblown. Someday the U.S. will fall to #2 spot. This is not the day.

hindsightbias 6y ago
Not pouring trillions into the ME or elsewhere anymore means retrenchment and surrendering hegemony. If only. Let China own the ME and Africa. At least they’ll have cheap oil. If the EU wants to tickle Vlad, Assad or Erdogan, let them do it on their own dime. Our only weakness is xenophobia and companies like Apple that after Trump, a pandemic and more money than god are still navel gazing about diversifying their supply chains.