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America unbound
By Justin Logan
Unipolarity is one of the hotter IR theory topics, and it's virtually impossible to discuss the subject without reference to World Out Of Balance. A terrific book by Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, it provokes the reader to rethink his or her views, and engages seriously with realism, liberalism, and constructivism.
Their argument, in a nutshell, is that scholars from the above schools have underrated the United States' ability to transcend structural constraints: realists overrate the impact of the balance of power; liberals overrate the impact of economic interdependence and international institutions, and constructivists overrate legitimacy constraints on the United States.
The authors conclude:
Our book provides the necessary analysis for concluding that the United States does, in fact, have an opportunity to revise the system -- and, moreover, that this opportunity will long endure... Because their theories ignore or misunderstand the implications of the unipolar distribution of power, scholars have generally underestimated the U.S. potential to remake the post-1991 international system. More realistic theories with a clear-eyed appraisal of the workings of a unipolar system would lead them to see the systemic constraints they believe stand in the way of such a policy for what they are: artifacts of the scholarship of previous eras.
Now that's an argument.
The topic of unipolarity has spawned two main debates: The first over how long unipolarity is likely to endure, and the second over whether unipolarity is peaceful. But to my mind, there is a third interesting question worth examining -- the same one Gen. David Petraeus asked journalist Rick Atkinson on his way into Iraq: "Tell me how this ends?"
For many scholars, this is a moot question: Unipolarity is already ending. But even for those who think the end is further down the road, imperial overstretch -- taking on a range of commitments beyond our means -- is one way America might fall from being in a league of its own to being just first among equals.
In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Brooks and Wohlforth waved off dangers such as the long-term fiscal imbalances in the United States by observing that these problems "can be fixed." Similarly, in a roundtable review of their book, the authors admitted that they "did not compose a theory of how unipolarity ends," but they seem reasonably certain that overstretch is not a concern. Responding to criticism that power yields ambition and ambition can lead to overstretch, Brooks and Wohlforth fired back:
This is a bit like arguing that a person will dramatically increase his spending priorities if he garners a windfall -- e.g. he goes from having $1 million in assets to having $10 million in assets -- and will be more likely to become bankrupt as a result. Yet how much a consumer spends is not structurally determined by income, just as how much a state takes on its foreign policy is not structurally determined by how much power it has. A wealthy individual can go bankrupt, to be sure, but it requires poorer choices to do so than if they had fewer resources.
I'm not convinced. Long traditions in human history -- and in international politics -- suggest otherwise. Hubris has not been a common affliction of people of modest means. The pride that goeth before a fall is frequently spawned by possessions and power. Or, as Lord Acton wrote, "power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
But perhaps the most puzzling aspect of Brooks and Wohlforth's dismissal of the overstretch argument is that it was Wohlforth who argued (with two co-authors in an edited volume on the balance of power in ancient history and non-European contexts), that overstretch is a frequent cause of the demise of hegemonic systems. Summing up the findings, Wohlforth et al surmised that:
Not only is military expansion a well-nigh universal behavior, but ... such expansion is frequently characterized by myopic advantage-seeking (boondoggling), rather than aimed at long-term system maintenance (balancing), even among rivals to potential hegemons... The pattern of boondoggling is a major reason why balanced systems routinely break down, and why systemic hegemons frequently squander their advantages." (Emphasis mine.)
If unprofitable military expansion is a well-nigh universal behavior that explains the demise of systemic hegemons, it's strange that Brooks and Wohlforth have been as dismissive of the concept as they have.
Maybe I'm just being a Nervous Nellie (or maybe I've fallen victim to the Pundit's Fallacy, where a pundit assumes that the key to political success, international or otherwise, involves the adoption of the commentator's own policy views). But I think the perils of the "systemic activism" Brooks and Wohlforth are urging, represent more cause for concern than they let on.
Justin Logan is associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.
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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University.
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Great critique and insughtful comments...
Wow, I'm impressed by your post. I've been reading the book and I have to admit I was not convinced by their arguments either. In fact, I wasn't back then when Wohlforth wrote his article in Intl. Sec. about the stability of a unipolar world... and I'm not convinced now with this new book. As you correctly point out in your post, there's a HUGE contradiction between "World Out of Balance" and "The BoP in World History". This is of some concern since Wohlforth was one of the main authors behind both projects. Besides that, this second book he co-authored seems to contradicts with itself when, on the one hand, claims to have discovered that "Waltz was wrong" (BoP are not regularities), and on the other, concludes the final chapter saying that Hegemony and BoP are both regularities which explain world history roughly in a 50%-50% ratio.
Yesss, we miss Stephen... but if it's you who's going to write when he's away, it's going to be much more beareble. You're great too. You should get a blog yourself, man!!!
Greetings from Argentina,
nick.
Thanks a lot, Nick. I don't
Thanks a lot, Nick. I don't have a sense whether people here are more interested in policy topics or theory, so I appreciate the feedback. If you have any interest, I do blog at the Cato Institute's weblog. My posts are available here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/author/justin-logan/
hegemony and overstretch
A rising state may overstretch in the process of becoming a hegemon. Initially a middle power will be limited to moderate maneuvers because it is not strong enough to impose its preferences about the system to other states. However, if this middle power becomes stronger and builds the potential to change the system despite opposition it is likely to take that risk. Some of the time this attempt will succeed and we will observe the rise of a new hegemon. Other times the attempt will fail and it will be labeled as another example of overstretch.
The correct analogy is not a man who goes from 1m to 10m dollars. It is someone who goes from 10m to 1bn dollars and tries to buy off politicians. If he succeeds he is an oligarch; if he fails he overstretched.
The state dept. budget is
The state dept. budget is about 1/20 th the defense (and, on occasion, offense) dept. budget. surely this ratio is relevant.
Great stuff, thanks. It's
Great stuff, thanks. It's refreshing because we don't often (or ever) get balanced analysis here on Walt's blog. The only time we even see both sides of a story is when Walt posts a link with some dismissive or disparaging comment. All this leads one to be skeptical even of his book recommendations given that everything else seems to be agenda driven here. I'll definitely be stopping by to check out your blog.
"Unipolarity: What is it good for?"
it's good for rebranding "benevolent global hegemony", for one thing... following in the footsteps of blackwater rebranding itself as Xe, i spose.
that's how things are sposed to work, isnt it? if you got the PR machinery and the hacks, you can create your own reality and stuff it down everyone's throats.
if too many people start coughing up the original stuff, well...
...you just change the name and keep stuffing.
you guys at CATO deny peak oil...
...when it seems pretty obvious that peak oil was the thing that triggered the neocon push to achieve "unipolarity" or "benevolent global hegemony" or whatever the flavor of the day is.
you must realize that your denial of peak oil and global warming dovetails precisely with the position taken by the neocons at the AEI, CERA and exxon...
...who have a very good reason to deny the existence of peak oil and global warming if peak oil and global warming were their motives to stage the "new pearl harbor" which they so wistfully yearned for a year before it happened.
the PNAC project, including 9/11, might have been too little, too late... which explains why some neocons want another 9/11... and the longer they delay that next step, the more people become aware of the setup, the riskier the next step becomes.
...which may explain why so many big players are reverting to default mode: looting.
Unbound?
I've not read the Brooks/Wohlforth book, and so don't know how they deal with the problem of inertia. But no one here has mentioned it, so I thought I would.
A substantial portion of the resources America devotes to defense spending is directed at sustaining capability we already have. The capital-intensive branches of the American military, the Navy and Air Force, need not only to maintain very expensive weapons and logistics platforms but to replace them as they age. Obviously the high cost of this is raised still further by the need to replace equipment lost or worn out by all services in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but the problem would exist regardless. Overstretch, or at least important components of it, can result from simply trying to stay where you've been for decades.
This is actually a small aspect of a much larger issue. Vastly greater than the resources required for all defense spending combined are the resources needed for Americans to maintain the standard of living to which they are accustomed. This includes maintaining the level of service from all levels of government to which they are accustomed. For the great majority of Americans, the questions commonly addressed in discussions of "overstretch" are much less important than those relating exclusively to the domestic economy. This matters because, at some point, it is likely to affect the American government's ability to project power in any form overseas.
I appreciate Brooks/Wohlforth's vote of confidence in America's ability to transcend structural constraints, an ability in which I believe myself. My belief, though, is based on the knowledge that America has resources at its disposal for which foreign policy schools of thought do not adequately account -- not on an assumption that it has super powers. I am left with a suspicion that dismissal of fiscal imbalances in this country as a problem that "can be fixed" is a judgement born of lack of interest in economic questions not obviously and directly related to foreign policy.
Overexpansion
A) I don't see a contradiction between the BoPinWH and World Out of Balance.
The argument in BoPinWH *is not* that overextension always (or rapidly) leads to the collapse of hegemony/empire. Rather, its seven authors claim, the ability of a state to project power and maintain political control over subordinate polities (which they term "administrative capacity") is one of the two most important factors that account for whether a systemic balances of power will emerge or whether a single state will become predominate. Balance-of-power dynamics (contra Waltz, Walt, and others), on the other hand, don't matter very much.
The argument in World Out of Balance, on the other hand, is that the US doesn't need to worry about strategic overextension because it is unlikely to happen.
It isn't difficult to understand why many IR scholars just aren't that worried about strategic overextension: despite its current levels of defense spending, the US is far from full military mobilization. That's why some of them have started to talk about "political overextension," i.e., the idea that strategic overextension might be the consequence of a lack of political will to divert sufficient resources for the US to meet its political and military commitments. So, in essence, what the previous commentator said.
Anyway, the nature of this argument always struck me as somewhat odd, because if you look most of the standard historical cases of great-power overextension the processes were usually dominated by political developments, including not just political constraints at home but also failures of political management that produces resistance against the great power in the periphery.
B) I won't mount a full-blown critique of World Out of Balance here, but let me say two things. The first is an IR theory objection: there's a kind of disconnect in it. If we think unipolar systems are more like hierarchies than anarchies, than we should analyze them as such. But Steve and Bill take anarchical dynamics as their baseline. I know they plead that we need "new theories," but we actually do have some pretty strong theories about how hierarchical international orders work.
The second is more practical: they demand too tight a correlation between policies that generate opposition to the US and serious opposition to core US policies. The processes that translate the first into the second tend to work more subtly and over longer time periods. Indeed, a growing body of evidence suggests that Bush foreign policy did diminish the ability of foreign elites to cooperate with the United States.
But, as some have noted (including Charles Glaser), none of the policies pursued by the Bush administration were of the kind likely to trigger serious fears of predation by second-tier powers. I wrote about this back when I was still blogging: http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/02/realism-and-great-balance-of-power.html
It isn't difficult to
It isn't difficult to understand why many IR scholars just aren't that worried about strategic overextension: despite its current levels of defense spending, the US is far from full military mobilization.
This is an important concept that needs careful thought.
In WWII we came close to full military mobilization. We drafted soldiers and trained them with pitchforks and toy guns because we hadn't yet built the rifles they'd need. They did training exercises with fake tanks because the real ones hadn't come off the assembly lines yet. Etc. We sent a whole lot of poorly-trained soldiers to europe where they learned to survive under fire, because that was what we could do. Fundamentally, we were not ready to fight a world war.
But now we have a trained army. A well-trained brigade can beat a poorly-trained division all hollow, given the same level of equipment. And for some purposes, even some conventional-military purposes, a superbly-trained special forces platoon will do a far better job than that well-trained brigade. As I understand it, our current military doctrine has no use for large masses of draftees who would be quickly trained. The resources that would be expended taking care of them would be better used elsewhere.
But we can only train our superb soldiers slowly, rather as we are slow to build our superb hi-tech weapons. It would take years to double the size of our forces, and the quality would go down. Full military mobilization? No chance. It would take way too long, quality would go way down, and ho would we pay for it? We have to pay for lots of importa, notably for almost 70% of our oil, and we can't just stop making the things we use to pay for those imports. And to the extent that we don't pay, how much farther would our credit stretch?
The time for a full mobilization is when our superb army has been largely lost and we can do nothing better than a large poorly-trained military with quick-built cheap weapons.
And then -- how much more military can we afford? People sometimes bring out the old chestnut that our military only costs us 4% of GDP, not a lot. That is obsolete, military expenses have risen each year since that number was kind of true. And then look at GDP. 14% of GDP is from financial transactions. All those CDSes and so on, the high salaries and bonuses for financial workers, that's a big share of the GDP but it could be argued that it isn't really production. A whole lot of our GDP is sort of shadowy, a sort of paper GDP where money changes hands and they can say something has been produced but it isn't exactly clear what has been produced. But most of what the US military sucks out of the US GDP is not paper GDP but actual resources.
It isn't clear how much bigger our military could get and still have the economy support it. We might be beyond the limit already, though we could go a long way by cutting down other expenses. Like, if we stopped producing corn-fed beef for civilians to buy and turned all that corn into ethanol for the military to burn, we could expand the military a little without actually hurting the economy. Things like that. But short of making changes the civilians would think of as privations, we may already have more military than we can afford.
3 comments
1. Unipolarity is not one of the hot topics in IR theory for political science academics (for better or worse). It's one of the hot topics for realists who don't like US foreign policy. There is more work going on than just that, but that's a lot of it.
2. Given that you are from the CATO Institute, I think most of us can probably predict your opinions on these issues. You think we are overstretched and Iranian nuclear weapons don't bother you. Check and check. What's a foreign policy issue where you *disagree* with the general CATO line on these issues? One of the things that makes this blog interesting is when Walt goes against the grain of what other realists think.
3. Nexon (author of the post above this one) is right. And he is very smart and people should read and buy his book (http://www.amazon.com/Struggle-Power-Early-Modern-Europe/dp/0691137935/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249667791&sr=8-1).
No, this isn't Dan Nexon. But it's someone that knows his work and thinks he is great.
The real fiction is that
The real fiction is that because it cannot be confirmed that Iran’s program is only for peaceful purposes, it must therefore be working towards a bomb.
This is untrue.
Iran is likely working towards a nuclear weapons capability, without building a bomb.
Having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as having one, and having a large stock of low-enriched uranium is not the same as having the highly enriched uranium necessary for a bomb.
News reports and some commentators have recently claimed that Iran has enough material for a nuclear weapon. These reports referred to Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium. This is a misleading claim. To begin with, one cannot make a nuclear weapon with low-enriched uranium. A nuclear weapon requires highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and Iran possesses neither. In theory, Iran could take its stock of low-enriched uranium and enrich it to a grade required for making bombs, but its low-enriched uranium is currently under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Diverting this material for military purposes would be discovered by the IAEA. (Detection of diversion is the IAEA’s technological strong suit.) Iran’s choices, therefore, are to cheat and get caught or to kick out the inspectors. Either action would represent an extreme departure from Iranian strategy to date and in any case would likely precipitate military action by Israel.
Even, in the worst case, if Iran were to obtain nukes, it would use them for deterrence, and could be contained.
Boondogling... a "highway to hell"
Well, Justin, thanks for calling my attention to your blog. I'll surely visit it regularly.
Let me point out, given Dan Nexon's comments, that I still think both books are contradictory with one another, but also that his (Nexon's) counter-arguments for "why they do not contradict" are also weak. Let me explain:
On the one hand, and following Brooks & Wohlforth, Dan Nexon supports the argument that because the U.S. faces no strong structural constraints it should follow the B&W advise and be more active in the intl. scene. In one part of his comments, Nexon says the argument in the book is that "administrative capacity is one of the two most important factors that account for whether systemic balances of power will emerge or whether a single state will become predominate. Balance-of-power dynamics (contra Waltz, Walt, and others) [...] don't matter very much." Well... you can't have it both ways. Hegemony cannot be "one of the two most important factors", and at the same time be the only explanation. In fact, the central argument in the book --as I already pointed out in my first comment-- is put foward in the final chapter when Wohlforth et al., say that at least Hegemony AND BoP explain the long history of Intl. Politics (roughly 50%-50%). So far for the theoretical part of the story. But what about the policy recomendations?
On the other hand, Nexon's attempted rebuttal repeats that: "The argument in World Out of Balance [...] is that the US doesn't need to worry about strategic overextension because it is unlikely to happen." And here we come to the major central contradiction between both books. The main policy recommendation in "World Out of Balance" is, according to the authors, that following their theoretical argument, the U.S. should not fear overextention (nor any other "structural constraint" for that matter --take that J.J.!), and instead try to be more active in the world; to try to re-shape it. Well, one more time, the two-faced Wohlforth has presented two disparaging arguments in two contemporary books on very related issues. In his --much more interesting book-- "BoP in World History", Wohlforth et al. introduce one very important idea: out of that roughly 50% of world history that is explained by Hegemony (and not BoP --that that Waltzy!), the main cause of its ultimate demise was not BoP but --be prepare for this one-- "boondoggling" (which seems to be just another academic word for "stupid and reckless state behavior"). Since "boondoggling" is given very much attention and explicative power in the book, one is left wondering why Wohlforth decided to write with Brooks another book recommending the U.S. to be much more active in World Politics now that there's no one to check its unlimited power. Wouldn't this very simple policy advise serve, in the end, as a "highway to hell"? Or to put it in less musical terms, as a maximization of the chances to screw it up? If one looks back at history and agrees with the idea that "power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely", why would you recommend such a risky Grand Strategy? In the end, if Waltz is wrong, as Wohlforth et al. claim, he is wrong in only half the story but not the whole of it. I think the big moral is that, maybe, for a change, more modesty is needed (in the academic world as well as in intl. politics). Take that Hegemon!
Nick, from Argentina.
Nick, With respect to the
Nick,
With respect to the contradiction (or lack thereof) between the two books.
The BoPinWH team argue that two factors turn out to be most significant in explaining why some systems get "rolled up" and become dominated by a single power: system closure and administrative capacity.
1) They argue that systemic balances of power often emerge when a system "expands" to bring in an erstwhile outside power that can balance against an existing dominant power. Think the Romans running into the Parthians, the Han facing the Xionghu, etc. Given that we now live in a global system, the only way that would be relevant as a "check" on unipolarity is if we encountered extra-terrestrials.
2) They also argue that systemic balances of power emerge when the domination-seeker lacks the administrative capacity to hold or maintain control over subordinate states. This is best illustrated by the example from Hui's work: Qin was able to unify China at the end of the Warring States period because it developed effective means of extracting resources from conquered territory and redirecting those resources to conquest. It thus overcame the "loss of strength gradient" associated with expansion, in which the cost of controlling far-flung territories starts to outweigh the benefits of doing so. In other words, multistate balances tend to emerge because no state has the organizational and managerial skills to conquer the whole system--or, if it already dominates the system, to hold onto it.
You aren't identifying a "contradiction," here, but rather arguing that B&W underestimate the risk that taking a "free hand" in international politics would exceed the US's administrative capacity. In other words, this is an empirical dispute; it does not involve a logical problem. But I hope it should be reasonably clear why, at least if you buy B&W, this isn't a big deal. The examples in BoPinWH concern imperial conquest--Assyria, the Inca, the Qin, Rome, etc--not about a unipolar power operating in a multistate system. So, yeah, I think that B&W would consider it suicidal for the US to launch a campaign of conquest and annexation against, say, the Western Hemisphere, as that would most likely be beyond the "administrative capacity" of the US. But that's not within the range of policy options that they're considering when they talk about the US being relatively unconstrained.
I won't bore you with the reasons why I think system expansion turns out to be a major factor leading to balancing failures (in other words, that BoPinWH has it backwards), that incorrect perceptions of relative threat play a greater role than Wohlforth et al. allow, and why the "administrative capacity" argument is mostly right but needs much more development to work. I want to mention those points, however, to make clear that I'm merely engaging the question of logical consistency and not trying to defend the substance. Indeed, I disagree with Brooks and Wohlforth. I thought that was clear from my commentary.
Oh, and thanks to Scott for his kind words.
Thanks
Dan, thanks for your elaborated response and clarifications. I guess I'll sit down to read carefully your article in World Politics (61:2, April 2009) in order to better understand your view on the whole issue. It seems to be much more complex that I thought at first. All best!
-Nick.
Polarity, blah
I have to admit I never understood the IR theory obsession with 'polarity'. There is a tendency towards reductionism, and another tendency towards exporting the dynamics of pre-21st Century Europe (constant, existentially threatening security dilemmas, the possibility of hegemony), and exporting (rather absurdly) to intercontinental international relations including the U.S., China, South Asia, and any number of areas only tenuously "controlled" by the great powers (and even that word is an exaggeration).
Here is the barebones facts of the matter. Military and economic interdependence can only suggest, they don't dictate. A country can do whatever it wants with the means at its disposal. The tendency towards military impotence of the rest of developed world (Europe, Japan) continues apace. The United States' relative demographic and economic weight will continue for some time (as will its military spending). Other countries are only regional military powers with only limited projection capabilities. It follows that U.S. military unipolarity (if that is a useful term) will continue: Gulf War 1, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan Iraq, nothing can stop the U.S. from doing anything it pleases with its armed forces. That will continue. U.S. economic superpowerdom has largely been a myth, ever since the 1960s really, with plenty of countries/regions proving equal negotiators. That tendency, will, no doubt, continue.
Now, if one wants to call that order unimilieconomulti or whatever is completely up to the prof,,
An IR Rookie...
Only an IR rookie can say (as if he were saying it for the first time!):
"Here is the barebones facts of the matter. Military and economic interdependence can only suggest, they don't dictate. A country can do whatever it wants with the means at its disposal."
Well, dah! Let me tell you that if you had read TIP by Waltz any time in your life you wouldn't be saying that. Structural Realism does not argue that polarity "dictates" behavior. In contrast, the structure of a system "constrains" actors' choices and behavior. That's the central key to Waltz's argument; and that's why he does not include "rationality" as a necessary component of his theory. Only the need to survive and an anarchical system.
So, please read again (or for real!) TIP and then find out your comments were not that original nor correct. Also, in the process, you'll find that maybe "polarity" has some explicative power still.
I have to admit I never
I have to admit I never understood the IR theory obsession with 'polarity'.
Well, what is the customer base fcor IR theory?
Americans who are interested in US foreign policy, right? And both those individuals and the IR theorists would like to influence the US government.
And the US government thinks in terms of its own power, and its influence on the rest of the world. There are competitors and client-states who get some choice in who to be clients of.
If you hope to influence the US government, wouldn't your background assumptions fit into that? If you start out with some other assumptions about the world and some other goals, your customers will not understand your product.
The United States' relative demographic and economic weight will continue for some time (as will its military spending). .... It follows that U.S. military unipolarity (if that is a useful term) will continue: Gulf War 1, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan Iraq, nothing can stop the U.S. from doing anything it pleases with its armed forces. That will continue.
That will continue "for some time". Then what?
At some point it will change. Probably sooner than later. Our economic troubles have continued through how many presidential terms now? All of Bush II, we palliated things with a real estate bubble and some big financial scams. All of Clinton, we palliated things with the dot.com boom that turned out to be largely scam. Things weren't great during Bush I. Reagan kickstarted the economy when the iran/iraq war brought oil prices very low and kept them there for awhile, plus he did an incredible amount of deficit spending. Carter. When have we had a healthy economy, in living memory? Nixon was the one who tried out price/wage controls and replaced the silver coins with base metal.
The USSR never quite decided they couldn't afford their military. They kept a large military past the point they couldn't feed it. Their military kind of fell apart though while the USSR did. After some time will we do something like that?
Put it this way -- If you're 40 years old and you have an IRA, you're betting that the US economy will hold together long enough for your retirement to pay off. Does that seem like a good bet?
Since the USA will not attempt a soft landing, we can expect a sudden catastrophic change "after some time". But that will not happen "for some time". And of course maybe things will work out. Maybe there will be a big world war and we'll come out of it as well as we came out of WWII. Or something else.
So the central problem I see with your analysis is that it will be good "for some time" and then it will fail badly. We need to predict how long it will be good. At least some estimate of a minimum we can depend on.
And there's the question whether to think past that time. It may not be worthwhile to think ahead that way. After all -- how long do you plan to live?
How Long Will American Empire Last?
I am suggesting that according to current economic and demographic trends, there is nothing to suggest fundamental revision of the U.S.'s status as 'sole superpower'. (That does not exclude limited retrenchment, such as withdrawal from Afghanistan or Iraq).
The end of other states as great powers in peacetime can be traced fairly closely to inexorable trends. It should have been no surprise by Suez in 1956, that 50 million Britons could not hold their own in a world with 180 million wealthy Americans and 250 million militarized Soviets. Perhaps we should also have been more skeptical of the state like the Soviet Union's when it spent so much for so long on defense, distorting its entire economy for a pointless military-industrial complex. A state's projection of power abroad cannot long outlast its economic and demographic base at home.
The U.S., in contrast, has (at the risk of a McCain moment) a good fundamental base. The current crisis will pass eventually, I do not believe the U.S. will de-industrialize any time soon. It has decent fertility rates (unlike the rest of developed world) and (whether it likes it or not) receives massive immigration. The U.S. spends about 5% of GDP on defense which by historical postwar standards, is neither high nor unsustainable. We can also assert, with some confidence, that no other countries will become comparable intercontinental military powers for at least two decades. After that, I would not want to speculate as to when in the next century the great Asian nations will reach economic parity with the E.U. and the U.S.
I think the U.S.'s fall into normalcy, if it occurs, will be rather graceful. It doesn't have enough of a formal empire for a dramatic collapse like for the British or the Warsaw Pact. The problems of healthcare and the prison system are literally comparable, in terms of waste and inefficiency, to the madness of the Soviet military-industrial complex or their agriculture. But it is a (slightly) lower order of magnitude, that I don't think sufficient to bring about a general collapse.