[Texgreen] Do we dare go there?

[Roger Baker]

<http://www.openthefuture.com/2006/11/a_posthegemonic_future.html>

A Post-Hegemonic Future

Here's a question to muse about while awaiting the results of  
Tuesday's election in the US: what happens after the United States is  
no longer the dominant global power?

This is a question that doesn't get asked often. Public figures who  
even mention some possible far-off future date when the US is no  
longer #1 are excoriated for their lack of patriotism. And when there  
are no obvious contenders for a new #1, it's easy to think that the  
status quo is how it shall ever be.

But anyone who has taken a world history class can tell you that no  
king of the mountain ever stays there. States that may once have led  
the world can later be relegated to geographic footnotes; even  
nations that might dominate for more than a century -- Pax  
Britannica, anyone? -- eventually fall by the wayside, becoming, in  
the words of Johnny Rotten, just another country.

Eventually, the US, too, will become just another country. This is  
not a partisan position, but a historical observation. And as  
fundamental changes to the international power structure rarely  
happen without major disruptions, it's wise to think through what  
might lead us to a world where the US is no longer king of the hill.

Falling or Just Rising Slowly?

The first issue to grapple with as we think about this future is the  
nature of the decline of the American hegemon. For this, we can learn  
a great deal from history. Very broadly speaking, a state loses its  
position of dominance in one of two ways: absolute decline or  
relative decline.

Absolute decline means losing enough territorial, population,  
military or economic power that the state is measurably worse off  
than it was in earlier years. The collapse of the Soviet Union could  
be described in this way; the Russia of 2000 was weaker in nearly  
every way than the Soviet Union of (say) 1980. Relative decline,  
conversely, means that the state continues to grow more powerful than  
it had been in past years, but does so at a pace that can't match the  
growth of its competitors. The post-World War II United Kingdom is an  
example here; in the early 1950s, the UK still had notions of  
imperial leadership, but the United States took a greater and greater  
role in the management of the West, pushing the UK aside. Few people  
would argue that the UK of today is weaker -- militarily,  
economically, culturally -- than the UK of fifty years ago, but the  
modern Great Britain has no pretence of global dominance, functioning  
more as America's sidekick.

Looking at the future of American hegemony, then, we must ask whether  
the US will suffer from an absolute decline -- where the America of  
(say) 2030 is measurably weaker than the America of (say) 2010 -- or  
from a relative decline, where the future America is more powerful  
than today, yet significantly less powerful than the other  
international actors that pushed the US aside.

The Few or The Many?

The second issue to consider is the nature of future global  
competition. In this case, the historical lessons are less clear.  
It's easy to assume that future competitors with the United States  
will be the same kinds of nation-states we have today -- after all,  
that's the way the international system has worked for centuries, why  
would it change? But the nation-state model is not a law of nature;  
we should ask, then, if there are any aspects of modern international  
power that suggest that a post-nation-state model is on the rise.

As it happens, there's a big one. The main political story of the  
current era is the rise of sub-national and transnational civil  
society actors with characteristics of national power -- that is,  
organizations without state size or authority that nonetheless behave  
like states on the international stage. A decade ago, this  
observation would focus on the global reach of multinational  
corporations; today, the focus is on fourth-generation warfare (4GW)  
groups, more popularly (if less usefully) called "terrorists."

The last five years have demonstrated quite convincingly that small  
groups with global ambitions can, by relying on the technologies,  
international communication networks and financial systems built by  
states, significantly alter the policies and behaviors of hegemonic  
nations. Decentralized, coordinated by ideology rather than by  
strategy, and heavily-networked, these 4GW organizations hit harder  
than their numbers might otherwise suggest, and are nearly impossible  
to destroy through traditional military means. The question for the  
American future, then, is whether the primary competitors the US will  
face when it's no longer the big kid on the block will be other major  
states (e.g., China, India, or a more unified EU) or distributed  
groups of guys with cell phones, nuclear bombs and an attitude.

Imagining the Unimaginable

If we think like futurists here, this gives us a traditional four-box  
set of scenarios: Absolute Decline/Great Powers; Relative Decline/ 
Great Powers; Relative Decline/Non-State Powers; and Absolute Decline/ 
Non-State Powers. Without going into far more detail than I have the  
energy for, my first blush "high concept" stories for each would be:



AD/GP: "Untied States" - US falls apart internally, letting other  
states take lead;
RD/GP: "Last Among Equals" - US is slow on a key innovation (e.g.,  
molecular nanotech), and other big states rise in power faster than  
the US can match;
RD/NSP: "The Linux Option" - Great power national structure becomes  
irrelevant, as non-state actors are able to out-compete by being more  
flexible and responsive, and nearly as mighty;
AD/NSP: "Hell" - US goes down to rampant "systempunkt" attacks by  
super-empowered non-state actors, likely including weapons of mass  
destruction. None of these are happy stories, but this is the least  
happy.

Add to each of these scenarios large-scale problems such as pandemic  
disease, the impact of global warming (as the Stern Report shows in  
graphic detail), and peak oil, along with the continued acceleration  
of technological change, and (to quote Tom Barnett) you got yourself  
a party.
In fact, it's easy to see how any of those issues could become a  
tipping point leading to these hegemonic decline scenarios. Their  
effects could be so damaging and disruptive to the American economy  
and society that the country slows or (effectively) collapses.  
Conversely, efforts to mitigate, adapt to or even take advantage of  
the challenges could come too slowly and too ineffectually in  
comparison to other actors, and the US simply gets left behind.  
Depending upon how other nation-states weather these same problems,  
the international system of Great Powers could be strengthened, or  
the door could be open to non-state actors becoming more dominant.
As scenarios go, these are not terribly satisfying. There are no  
obvious solutions arising from the set, nor are there clear points of  
influence to be strengthened or (at least) watched. This exploration,  
however, wasn't meant as a trigger for action; rather, it was my  
attempt to poke around at a subject that doesn't get as much  
attention as it deserves. Decline is the great taboo subject in  
American political discourse. This wasn't always the case, but past  
periods of self-examination were usually linked to an obvious  
challenger, most recently Japan.
The current inability of American political thinkers to imagine what  
might lead to a post-hegemonic US has unfortunate, even deadly  
results: arrogance; over-estimates of US power; belief in a kind of  
exceptionalism that puts the US above international laws, treaties or  
needs; and a belief that the US should be, must be, the global  
leader. While these attitudes are abundantly evident in the current  
American leadership, they infect both major parties.
I'm not calling on us to actively plan for decline, or to assume that  
the end is near. As the set of scenarios sketched out above shows,  
the range of possibilities is so diverse that there's not much we  
could do today to prepare for the end of hegemony. Rather, I think  
the lesson here is that we need to act in the world with the  
understanding that, eventually -- maybe not soon, but eventually --  
the US will no longer be number one. Right now, we're setting a  
standard for hegemonic behavior that might not be in our best  
interests when we're no longer in charge. We might want to rethink that.

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