Earl Bartley, Contributor
AT THE end of World War II a widely held view among United States (US) officials was that the next one hundred years of world history would be the "American Century" meaning the US would be the leading power in the world, economically, politically and militarily.
Surveying the war-wrecked economies of Europe and the massive task of reconstruction facing these societies, and with the remainder of humanity just emerging from colonialism, these officials may be forgiven their hubris and eager anticipation at being 'Lord of the Rings.'
America's transformation from an agrarian society to an industrial one had begun soon after the ending of their civil war in 1865 and was driven by a critical cluster of inventions and developments over the next 35 years. Chief among these were: the invention of the Bessemer process for making steel; the construction of the inter-continental railroads, the invention of the automobile, and line, or mass production techniques.
During the inter-war years, output had accelerated considerably. But under the impact of the demand of World War II to meet the needs of its allies and then itself, output had frankly exploded. At the end of the war, with much of the world still prostrate, the US industrial machinery was unscathed, its output was burgeoning; and the US had the largest navy and air force. Very importantly, it was the sole possessor of the devastating new atomic weapon.
Even after the Soviet Union exploded its version of the atomic bomb in 1948, and corralled the larger part of Europe into the communist bloc, the United States mainly had a formidable rival militarily, but its combined economic, political and military power was not equalled. Towards the end of the 1970s, however, and carrying over into the 1980s, due to the impact of the oil price increases and the strong resurgence of Europe and Japan, the United States appeared in retreat, and the American Century seemed like it would be less than 50 years.
The area of greatest slippage was the economy. The US had lost its labour intensive shoe and garment manufacturing industries to Third World producers. Though it was fighting to hold onto its steel industry, the share of its domestic market had slipped to 30 per cent by 1989, and the share of its automobile market to 60 per cent. In industries such as consumer durables and consumer electronics, former ubiquitous American brand names like Westinghouse, RCA, Kelvinator, and Zenith were no more. They had been liquidated in competition with Japanese, Ger-man, or Third World producers.
Since the mid-1990s, however, with the onset of globalisation, and the prolonged stagnation in the German and Japanese economies, capital has been flowing into the US which has shown strong signs of resurgence, growing by some 25 per cent. European output on the other hand has declined by 2 per cent, and Japan's by 5 per cent. The result is that the gap between the US and these economies has widened with Japanese output declining from 73 per cent of American output in 1995 to 45 per cent today, and Europe's from 127 per cent to about 90 per cent. Coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the resurgence of the US economy (though some of the capital that flowed into the high-technology sector has since been withdrawn) has meant that US world pre-eminence which seemed on the verge of eclipse a little over a decade ago is again on the rise, and the American Century might be played out after all.
The questions are: what can we expect, given its past conduct; and how might the US conduct be counterbalanced to ensure that the interests of other people are protected and advanced.
WHAT TO EXPECT
US foreign policy has been driven by Machiavellian notions of securing and advancing their national interest. Machiavelli was a 16th century Italian government official whose views that the ends justify the means, have been at the foundation of western 'real politic' for four centuries. Real politic or realism holds that relations between states are governed by how powerful they are, and therefore the ends of securing and maintaining the power of the state is justified by any means necessary, be it murder, fraud, deception or manipulation.
Guided by this Machiavellian frame of reference US policy-makers have generally set very long-term goals in line with their definition of the national interest within which the tactics operate, and short and medium-term compromises are made. Sometimes the policy choice has been enlightened, as in their support for Japanese and European reconstruction after WWII. Most times, however, US policy has been dominated by short-term compromises and manipulations that have been positively harmful to the interests and welfare of other peoples of the world. Cases in point are US installing and propping-up dictators in Latin America and other parts of the world to secure raw materials and markets, because of strategic considerations.
In trade relations the US has generally articulated an open world policy of free and fair trade, but its conduct often seems to suggest 'do as I say, not what I do'. Because, while twisting the arms of other countries to lower or eliminate their tariffs and quotas, the US has been very inventive at creating trade barriers of her own. In recent years these have included "Voluntary Export Restraints" (VERS) in which the exporting country is 'asked' to restrain their exports to a certain volume clearly a form of quota, and it has often used very stringent health restrictions to exclude fresh food imports from Third World countries to protect its own industries.
Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations is a principle of international law that the United States more frequently honours in the breach. Soon after President James Monroe declared in 1823 that the United States would not allow European nations to re-colonise Latin American countries that had declared their independence the infamous Monroe Doctrine the United States converted that seemingly valiant defence of the rights of nations to self-determination, to a unilateral power for itself to intervene in the affairs of these nations without interference.
And in the near 200-year history of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has intervened in Latin American countries innumerable times, seizing territory (from Mexico), cutting-up nations, occupying others, and installing and removing governments at will. And, lest anyone think that this conduct is 'old hat', there are very credible allegations that within the last year, the George W. Bush Adminis-tration has been conspiring to remove the democratically elected Hugo Chavez Government in Venezuela. Even now, the world has to be restraining it to prevent its intervention in Iraq.
What is clear from US behaviour over the past 200 years is that it has been indefatigable in the pursuit of its national interests, often stomping on its national principles, not to mention the interests and welfare of other countries. And those who argue that US influence in Latin America has been mostly benign, can they even point to one success story of a Latin American country living democratically and prosperously after 200 years.
WHAT TO DO?
But what is the world to do with this awesomely powerful nation that often behaves like a rogue elephant, considering we are likely to be stuck with it for the next 100 years?
Some people are suggesting that we return to the balance of terror strategies of the past. But based on 500 hundred years of history it is obvious that the balance of power paradigm has mainly produced war, waste of resources, and leads to the dead-end of mutually assured destruction.
Though it is possible that American power could be counter-balanced by a European coalition that includes Russia, Germany and France; or an Asiatic coalition that includes China, Japan and Vietnam, the building-up of armaments, even on a regional basis is unjustifiable. Rather, the Soviet Union and the United States should be encouraged to continue to negotiate down their massively aggressive military stockpiles. In addition:
(1) the US needs to change its frame of reference from Machiavellian power politics and unilateralism to the one the French, Russian and Germans are encouraging, and the United Nations was set up for, that is, peaceful resolutions of dispute by lawful procedures;
(2) regional co-operation and institutions should be strengthened to better manage and resolve local disputes;
(3) when the superpowers or great powers insist on behaving immorally the media and civil society groups should seek to mobilise people to engage in peaceful demonstrations and to boycott goods produced by the transgressor, and other assertions of what Gandhi called "soul force", to counteract the transgressor.
The United States is a remarkable country. Its success demonstrates that ordinary people unfettered by caste and allowed fair opportunity within a framework of rational and orderly government can achieve well above individual average with a remarkable cumulative social impact. The leadership of the United States needs to expand its vision of nurturing human potential beyond the narrow confines of its nation to the entire family of nations.
adapapa@cwjamaica.com
