Fwd: Contents of http://fbc.binghamton.edu/76en.htm

One of the best of Wallerstein's recent commentaries.

Steven Sherman

---

This commentary has been sent by s.

s's comments:
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

  Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University

 
 
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
  
 

 
 
Commentary No. 76, Nov. 1, 2001

 
 
"Superpower?"

 
 
The United States is a hegemonic power in decline. I have been expressing this 
viewpoint since at least 1980.(1) This
 statement is meant to be analytic and not prescriptive. I have found that 
nonetheless it evokes not only disbelief but anger,
 and that such a reaction occurs on all sides of the political spectrum, and 
all around the world. Persons on the right take the
 statement to be false, or rather they take it to be true only insofar as the 
superpower has insufficiently asserted its strength.
 Furthermore, they seem to assume that, by my making such an analysis, I am 
creating a defeatist attitude that is
 self-fulfilling. These persons have a strange degree of belief in the power of 
the word, or at least of my word.

 
 
Persons on the left are often incredulous, telling me that it is obvious that 
the United States dominates the world scene and
 imposes itself around the world, and that in evil ways. So how can I talk of 
U.S. being in decline? Am I not thereby
 deflecting people from meaningful action? And persons in the center seem to be 
offended by the very idea that appropriate
 intelligent action on the part of those in power will not, cannot, eventually 
remedy any limitations on U.S. virtuous action.

 
 
What does it mean to be a hegemonic power? It means that normally one defines 
the rules of the geopolitical game, and that
 one gets one way almost all of the time simply by political pressure, and 
without having to resort to the actual use of force.
 The story of how one gets to be a hegemonic power and why it is that hegemony 
never lasts is not my subject here.(2) The
 question rather is what evidence do I have that U.S. hegemony is on the wane.

 
 
I certainly do not deny that the U.S. today is the strongest military power in 
the world, and that by far. This is not only true
 today but it will probably be true for at least another 25 years. But it is no 
longer true that the U.S. defines unilaterally the
 rules of the geopolitical game, nor it is true that it gets its way most of 
the time simply by political pressure, or even gets its
 way most of the time. The present struggle with bin Laden is not the first, 
but merely the latest, instance of this new reality.

 
 
I say new reality, because there was a time not so long ago when the U.S. was 
truly hegemonic, when it was the only
 superpower. This was true more or less between 1945 and 1970. Despite the Cold 
War and despite the U.S.S.R. (or maybe
 in large part because of them), the U.S. almost always could get what it 
wanted, where it wanted, when it wanted. It ran the
 United Nations. It kept the Soviet Union contained within the borders the Red 
Army had reached in 1945. It used the CIA
 to oust or rearrange governments it found unfriendly (Iran in 1953, Guatemala 
in 1954, Lebanon in 1956, the Dominican
 Republic in 1965, and so on). It imposed its will on often reluctant allies in 
western Europe, forcing them to pull back from
 military operations (as in Suez in 1956) or pressing them to speed up the pace 
of decolonization because the U.S.
 considered this to be the wiser and safer course.

 
 
In this period, Americans were learning how to "assume their responsibilities" 
in the world. They had a "bipartisan" foreign
 policy. Then things began to change. The big economic lead the U.S. had over 
western Europe and Japan disappeared.
 These countries became economic rivals, although remaining political allies. 
The U.S. began to lose wars. It lost the war in
 Vietnam in 1973. It was humiliated by Khomeini in Iran in 1980. President 
Reagan withdrew U.S. marines from Lebanon
 in 1982 because over 200 of them were killed in a terrorist attack (and this 
two days after he had said that the U.S. would
 never do this). The Gulf War was a draw, the troops returning back to the line 
where it began. Some people in the U.S. say
 today this was because the U.S. didn't have the guts to march on Baghdad (or 
made the mistake of not doing this). But the
 decision of the first Pres.
Bush reflected a military-political judgment that the march would have led to a 
U.S. disaster over
 time, a judgment that seems solid and prudent. And whereas Jimmy Carter could 
impose a Camp David settlement on
 Egypt and Israel in 1978, Bill Clinton could not do the same for Palestine and 
Israel in 2000, although he tried hard enough.

 
 
The last time the U.S. snapped its fingers and got its way was on Sept. 11, 
1973, when it engineered a coup in Chile and put
 Pinochet in power. On Sept.11, 2001, it was bin Laden who snapped his fingers, 
and the U.S. people and government are
 still reeling from the blow. Now, bin Laden does not have a large army or navy 
or air force. His technological capacity is
 relatively primitive. He does not have funds available to him that can match 
U.S. government resources. So, even if the
 match were to end in a draw, he will have won.

 
 
It took the U.S. thirty years to learn how to "assume its responsibilities" as 
a hegemonic power. It wasted the next thirty
 years, pining for lost glory and maneuvering to hold on to as much of the 
power as it could. Perhaps it should spend the
 next thirty years learning how to be a rich, powerful country in an unequal 
world, but one in which it no longer controls the
 situation unilaterally. In such a world, it would have to learn how to come to 
terms with the rest of the world (not only
 Afghanistan, not even only China and Russia, but also Canada, western Europe, 
and Japan).

 
 
In the collapsing world anarchy that is marking the transition from our modern 
world-system to something else, how the
 United States - its government, its citizens, its large enterprises - play 
their roles matters to everyone. Everyone everywhere
 has an interest in obtaining an intelligent, creative, hopeful response of the 
United States to the world crisis in which it and
 everyone else find themselves today. For the U.S. is still the strongest power 
in the world, and it still has traditions and
 aspirations it values and that many people (not only Americans) think have 
contributed something positive to the world in
 which we all live.

 
 
The ball is in the court of the United States. It is too easy for Americans to 
be infuriated at the terrible destruction of human
 lives in the Twin Towers and its aftermath. There is too much unthinking anger 
in the world already (even if much of the
 anger on all sides is justified anger). There is no guarantee that the world 
can navigate the next 25-50 years with minimal
 violence. But we can try to analyze what it would take to get us all out of 
the deep hole in which we find ourselves these
 days. 

 
 
1. I believe the first time I said this was in "Friends as Foes," Foreign 
Policy, No. 40, Fall 1980, 119-131.

 
 
2.  I first treated this question in "The Three Instances of Hegemony in the 
History of the Capitalist World-Economy,"
 reprinted in The Politics of the World-Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. 
Press, 1984, 37-46. 

 
 
by Immanuel Wallerstein

 
 
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted 
to download, forward electronically or
 e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet 
sites, provided the essay remains intact and the
 copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed 
and/or other forms, including commercial Internet
 sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 
1-607-777-4315.

 
 
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on 
the contemporary world scene, as seen
 from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
 

---