Goodbye to the United States as a superpower?

Foreign Minister Condoleezza Rice has been to Asia. So simple it can be said. She has been traveling to talk with her friends and counterparts in the Asian world. Nothing weird about it. Heads of state and government travel around the world all the time to deepen contacts, mobilize against common enemies and promote trade. The same goes for foreign ministers.

Except, then, that the United States is not anyone. It's a superpower. And when superpowers go on tour, it is to organize the world according to their own needs. Allies must be rewarded. Enemies must be punished. And everyone needs to be taught. The goal is to use the political iron to remove all competition. The United States has made it clear, in its three-year strategic plan, that the superpower will not tolerate the emergence of other major powers that challenge the country's political and military hegemony.

Still, something is amiss when Rice leaves for the world's future economic center. Isn't Washington, and the Secretary of State himself, very preoccupied with fiddling little things right now?

The gaze is directed east

Take a look at Asia and you will be struck by how two processes run in parallel. One is the relationship of strength within the region. The second is the relative growth of the region on a global scale.

Both are important to Washington. China is growing strongly at the expense of Japan, and the entire region is growing strongly at the expense of Europe and the United States.

Of course, there is no finalized process. It takes time for alternative centers to make their mark on history. But the trend is clear. In twenty-thirty years, China will have an economy in line with the US. Political and military power will follow in the wake. India is ten to fifteen years behind.

The United States is a superpower that thinks – in theory – long-term. Strategies are laid in relation to how power and influence can be maintained in a new century. Therefore, it is strange that Condoleezza Rice has nothing to talk to her Asian partners / opponents about but terrorism, democracy development and stability in general terms. To the extent that she talks about strategic partnerships; with Japan and with India, it is based on an unspoken assumption that Asian leaders will fall on her neck when the superpower offers its military aircraft, its strategic support and / or economic traction.

But Asia is not falling on its neck. Asia is in the process of consolidating its own part of the world without the help of the superpower. In an area stretching from Iran in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, new and emerging economies will be linked together in an increasingly well-developed system of intra-regional cooperation. Iran and Russia will deliver the black gold that makes economies tick. China and India will be responsible for technology development, agriculture, industry and labor. Where the focus was previously directed westwards, it will now be directed eastwards. Moscow, Tehran, Middle East… in the east there are opportunities with far fewer restrictive restrictions. Russia, China and Iran do not have to think about individual freedoms and democracy. Human rights do not become part of the overall package when these states are to trade with each other.

Russia will be part of this new trade bloc. So will Iran. Both are tired of American arrogance and whining about law and order, free choice, a free press and the absence of fear. And the worst thing, from the United States' point of view, is that none of them need Washington anymore.

In not many years, no one will need Washington anymore. I wonder if Condoleezza Rice has thought of that.

Does not take orders from the United States

Probably not. For Rice, as his boss, is preoccupied with the detail conflicts in Asia. The small conflicts; those that enable the United States to continue to emerge as a superpower. The failed states; which the United States can bully with impunity. States like Afghanistan and North Korea that Americans can point to for diplomatic and military victories. Except, that is, that the world's only remaining superpower is not even able to cope with these peripheral problems.

In China, the US Secretary of State spoke about North Korea. The North Korean leaders have openly stated that they are both a nuclear power and that they no longer want to participate in the talks in the six-man group. The Americans have tried in vain to get China to put pressure on the country. As the main supplier of energy and food, Beijing can destroy North Korea on the day they decide to do so.

But China has no interest in ruining its neighbor. For them, North Korea is an annoyance because it to some extent legitimizes the United States' strong military presence on the Korean Peninsula. But they are even more concerned about the complete collapse and reunification of the South and the North on American terms. China is playing on a team with the United States as long as they think it is appropriate, but does not take orders from Washington in this matter. And thus arises the tricky fact that the United States has run out of instruments.

They can crack down on the smuggling of drugs, weapons and counterfeit money from North Korea. They can also bring the matter before the Security Council, if China does not veto it. But what the last superpower in the world can do is terribly limited. After all, the Americans do not want a new war on Korean territory. And neither will their allies in Seoul.

The same pattern is repeated in other areas of conflict. Just before Rice left for Beijing, the Chinese passed their famous anti-independence law against Taiwan. In short, the law states that China reserves the right to use military force against the small island if it chooses to break with the mainland. Rice described the law as an "undesirable development." But there was hardly any resounding criticism of China. And as in the North Korea issue, the United States does not have the power to bend China at will. A military conflict between the two great powers is no longer an option for Washington – if it ever was.

Failed superpower

If you sweep the globe with your eyes, it is noticeable how one "robber state" after another – and also "strategic competitors" – has settled on the "giant line" towards the United States. One negotiates and discusses while Washington threatens and entices. But the United States' unilateral power has proved too weak to shake basic structures and development. In Iran, nuclear research is continuing, and perhaps some weapons will appear there eventually. The United States has jacked itself down and taken the European line. It must be negotiated. But it also happens in the recognition that the alternatives, and the strength to push them through, are lacking.

Of course, there is Afghanistan, where the Americans have got rid of a religious fundamentalist regime and installed a government for democracy, human rights and Western-liberal values ​​(sic). But Afghanistan was also a failed state; no match for any medium-sized military power. Iraq was infinitely larger, and the United States has removed one regime there and is in the process of installing another.

But Iraq was also a rotten state, not least after years of destructive sanctions. And the judges are still out on the question of how it will go there, like that in the end.

The most important conflict in the world; one conflict that the United States has been in for all these years, however, is that between Israel and Palestine. It is actually quite startling how the Americans have not pressured Israel into necessary concessions to the Palestinians. The general interpretation is that the United States does not want to confront an ally in an advanced position. It's not certain they would have gotten anywhere if they had tried, either.

Bush senior tried. He was the first US president to impose economic sanctions on Israelis in protest of new settlements. He had to give up. Bush junior has also asked Israel to stay low in relation to new construction on occupied land. In Jerusalem, this type of request is being rejected in cash, now as before. And George W. Bush has taken a line where the Israelis' establishment of "facts on the ground" becomes premises and preconditions in the "road map for peace."

The United States is today completely detached from what many believe is the most fundamental conflict in the entire world (although the Chinese will not agree). Instead, it is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who runs the "peace process," and almost entirely on his own. What Sharon is doing now is changing and defining the boundaries between the two peoples. It is visionary and brutal at the same time. Jewish settlers are leaving Gaza and small parts of the West Bank. Settlers who end up on the Palestinian side must be left to fend for themselves. All major settlements will be within the wall, on the Israeli side. Palestine must grow with Jordan.

It is a conflict that has lasted for over fifty years. You can make many superstructures on it, but the United States never managed to maneuver it into calm waters. This is a new realization, since the United States did not care to deal with it until the 1990s. It is also a weakness, and history will perceive it that way.

In Lebanon, they managed to drive out the Syrians. It was the superpower United States against the raging state of Syria. Again, it can be summed up that it is weak states that today give the United States an "image" as a great power. The major processes of change are beyond the political and economic reach of Americans.

Dramatic changes

Now it is not new that the United States is playing with states that cannot challenge American hegemony. They have always done that, not least in their own backyard.

But at the same time, the United States was in a world where no one could compare with them militarily or politically. The Soviet Union was kept in check through the balance of terror. China and India probably had large populations, but were otherwise for colonies to count. Japan was an ally, then as now.

But the world has changed dramatically. Europe and the Middle East are still dealing with the superpower, but the rest of the world is starting to get bored. The focus shifts. Washington's relative influence falls in line with the development of new centers of power.

The United States could have counteracted this development by working multilaterally, in cooperation with allies. Instead, they have given up on international organizations, such as the United Nations. The battles in the WTO are no longer won automatically. The country is outside both the Kyoto agreement and the international criminal court. The battles are fought defensively. New countries – minus Japan – will be denied access to the Security Council, because it will formalize the changes in power relations. Alternatively, the Americans will dilute the council's influence, or withdraw / run filibuster tactics.

It's too early yet. But the United States is sitting on an economic bomb with gigantic trade and budget deficits. Economy defines political and military power. In a few decades, we may be able to say goodbye to the United States as the world's sole superpower.