State of denial: The Pax Americana of the last half-century is collapsing. - by Michael Lind:

[Douglas Carpenter]

an absolutely brilliant Foreign Policy article by the always brilliant Michael Lind in salon.com. I hope veryone reads this article in full

Tuesday, Sep 13, 2011 07:01 ET

State of denial

The Pax Americana of the last half-century is collapsing. Here's the debate we need to have as a nation now
by Michael Lind

http://www.salon.com/news/foreign_policy/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/09/13/state_of_denial&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%20Newsletter%20%28Not%20Premium%29_7_30_110

snip:

The America-centered world order of the last half-century is collapsing. No, that does not mean that America is doomed. As long as it holds together and grows moderately, the U.S. will be a major military power and one of the world's leading economies for generations or centuries to come. And even slow growth, if it is equitably distributed, can ensure that future Americans are richer and healthier. But the fact remains that a particular system of world security and trade centered on the United States is crumbling around us.

That system has been called the Pax Americana, after the Pax Romana -- the American Peace. The Pax Americana originated during the Cold War, when the U.S., rather than rehabilitate West Germany and Japan as independent military powers, made them American military protectorates. Under the terms of the bargain, the two former Axis nations would specialize in civilian manufacturing for export, with Germany targeting the markets of its European neighbors and Japan relying on access to American consumers. Make cars, not wars. The U.S. agreed to protect not only the territories but also the vital interests of Japan and Germany, like access to Middle Eastern oil.

snip:

The end of the Cold War should have brought a reconsideration of America's economic weakness and strategic over-extension. But under Bill Clinton, the opportunity was missed. Instead of pursuing strategic retrenchment, Clinton worsened America's strategic over-extension, expanding America's permanent military commitments into the Balkans and into Eastern Europe up to the borders of post-Soviet Russia. In the Middle East, the U.S. presence has constantly expanded -- first with the Gulf War, then with the Iraq war, and now with the Libyan war, along with the endless war in Afghanistan. Like Britain in the 1920s, the U.S. is trying to re-create the Ottoman Empire even as its domestic economic engine is sputtering.



snip:

If the multipolar world is not yet a reality, it is in sight. The national debate should be about American strategy in a world no longer organized as a Pax Americana system under American hegemony. The United States can no longer afford to look the other way while countries like Japan and China practice industrial policies targeting American industries, on the utopian theory that offshoring and American deindustrialization will benefit all sides in a harmonious global market policed by the U.S. military. Nor can America any longer afford to waste lives and money on adventures in peripheral countries that are greater threats to their neighbors than they are to us. The alternative to the Pax Americana is not a combination of protectionism and isolationism. It is a combination of strategic trade and strategic retrenchment.

These are the subjects that we should be debating as a nation. By avoiding them, we are only postponing the day of reckoning, when we will finally be forced to address the real challenge that lies under many of our problems -- the need to downsize and rethink America's role in the world.

Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of "The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution."

to read this great article in full:

http://www.salon.com/news/foreign_policy/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/09/13/state_of_denial&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%20Newsletter%20%28Not%20Premium%29_7_30_110

[raccoon]

1. Bookmarked for later reading. nt

[Romulox]

2. Excellent article. In particular, the link between our trade policy and endless war should

be underscored.

[Odin2005]

3. The idiocy of the Neo-Cons destroyed the post-WW2 international system.

We are still Primus Inter Pares, "first among equals", be we lost the respect that stabilized the international system. I feel a situation brewing similar to the Late Roman Republic's war against it's own Italian allies in the 90s BC.

The Romans lost the respect of their allies why? Because they kept dragging their allies into Rome's own foreign wars that benefited Rome but only denuded her allies of their farmers. It's not to dissimilar with the US.

[MadHound]

4. Nice article, but a bit late,

Pax Americana has been collapsing for a quarter century now.

[izquierdista]

5. What Pax?

I'm sure the people of Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and Vietnam (yes, Vietnam, where ordnance is still blowing people up) would correct your Latin and replace Pax with Bellus

[Quantess]

15. Pax Jolie-Pitt, LOL.

Sorry, bad joke. I completely agree with you. The USA is anything but peaceful.

[jwirr]

6. Need to read on this topic: After the Empire: The Breakdown of the

American Order by Emmanuel Todd. He talks about multiple powers developing in the post-cold war era. Very good read.

Quote: "Choosing to remain a leading nation rather than becoming an empire would have been by far the better long-term strategy for the United States....America could find itself one day in the embarrassing situation of being deeply dependent economically but without the real military superiority to make up for it. In short, it risked going from being a semi-imperial power to becoming a pseudoimperial power."

[bemildred]

9. Yes, excellent book, very prescient. nt

[blindpig]

7. Pax Americana, Pax Romanum....

pretty much the same, peace on their terms, at their price, enforced by overwhelming force.

[Strelnikov_]

8. Why I compare this period to the first decade of the last century

Pax Britannica

Pax Britannica (Latin for "the British Peace", modelled after Pax Romana) was the period of relative peace in Europe (1815–1914) when the British Empire controlled most of the key maritime trade routes and enjoyed unchallenged sea power. It refers to a period of British imperialism after the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, which led to a period of overseas British expansionism.

[bemildred]

10. Many similarities, despite the many differences.

I find myself thinking of the pre-WWI period over and over these days. In particular because our ruling elites have their heads so firmly buried in their asses about what is going on.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. In the 19th Century, it was the Pax Britannica

No such system ever lasts.

[hifiguy]

12. Well worth reading! nt

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. knr for another shift

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. one more since it is such an important article