That is all. Guess we'll have had a good run.

You only need to learn from your past. During the WWII you had some of the best brains aailable working solely in the postwar plans. The Postwar Committe at the State Department brought in scholars from the best universities, money from private philantropy and experts in each field of analysis. Result: a complete change.

Is shaping the world policy can only be succeed by GUNS and MONEY ? What about culture influence?!!!

Your writing is plentiful of interesting things to consider Sir.
Western declining and Asian rising are likely taking place ( as everyone used to say). But I think that they so frequently use GDP as the key-factor to conclude about the power of a nation or a region.
As I know European rising and still leading the world today was through science, technology and lot of liberated ideas. It was not GDP, and millitary power is just the consequence.
Those things hardly exist in Asia ( Asia Pacific particularly). We Asian could be very good in learning and mocking perhaps but not innovating and liberating ( science and technoligy break-through)
We're very famous for our conservation and discipline you know.

To CFISHER6: You told the completely exact story, about those Chinese policy maker guys wear Western clothes and watch Western films. But, just only but that in their mind, their thought is not Western's way but Confucianism. Someone have been heard about Confucianism could wonder: Damn it! How Confucianism could be popular in this information age. But I wonder how could a man call him Asian if there're not Confucianism's thought in his mind.

I'm fine with open dialogue, but let it flow through the proper, legal channels. We don't need a Nixon/Kissenger Cheney/Bush hijack of foreign policy decisions, where the state department becomes a bystander and we lose transparency. I know that's not the intent of this proposal, but it could very well be the result.

You say GDP isn't everything; I say GDP is the ONLY thing. You talk about how other things are more important...technology, science, ideas. What you fail to understand is that GDP is "wealth"/money...it's the money that enables you to fund the science that creates the technology. It's the wealth that enables you to have the surplus manpower that you can dedicate to "ideas". It's a bald faced fact that he who has the money calls the shots. The West is finished; not only is northeast asia hungrier and more motivated, the West is decadent...lazy, smug and (as in Greece) enraged like a petulant child when their lavish welfare state is threatened.

around for 100 years or more.

The idea that the West has been on the decline and its attendant neurotic militaristic nationalism has been with us since the 19th century. Because the idea is so pervasive and long-lasting, I ask to what extent all of this stuff is hype based, in part, on our "Abrahamic" religious ideologies with their end time obsessions and, perhaps, racially tinged psychological fears- millions of sexually deprived Chinese men on the march, oh my!!

There are many interesting thoughts in Walt's column but he failed to notice one important and telling item. And that is where does the world send it brightest to be educated? It is certainly not China or Dubai it is Western Europe (particularly the UK) and most importantly of all the USA. Countries that cannot provide world-class educations to their own citizens are hardly likely to take over the world. Also, world-class educational establishment are not developed overnight like some office tower in Shanghai.

Thank you, Stephen, for writing an article that could have been authored by any 2nd year IR undergrad three or four years ago.

Many, many reasons to understand the extraordinary strengths of the US and for optimism in the future:

1) The US is the world's largest manufacturer, with a gross output of nearly $5 trillion ( >$2 trillion in GDP contribution) producing 20% of all the world's manufactured goods, a market share it has held for decades - Japan and the EU have had their shares decline precipitously, something rarely noted - also America produces one-third of all the world's high tech goods. (manufacturing jobs have been lost in less competitve industries, yet has remained strong in higher and higher value industries)
2) Spends nearly 40% of the world's research and development money, guarenteeing future prosperity
3) At $15 trillion, it remains by far the largest economy in the world, 4x's larger than China
4) The US is deliberative, self-critical, and self correcting, and so unlike incessantly criiticizing Europe and the Middle East, it is dynamic and fluid, changing as it needs to--identifying problems and rapidly fixing them
5) Its unmatched culture of leading universities, think-tanks, public debates, entrpreneurship, coupled with its domination of technology and science provides it with an extraordinary productivity and potential.
6) Despite what some may say, the US, without imposing, has the most attractive culture the world over; this is a reflection of the overt and subtle things about America and Americans which makes it so emulated and great.
7) The net worth of Americans even after the 'Great Recession' is some $60 trillion, a sum equivalent to the entire world's annual output (GDP).

Walt points out that economic might is translated through the ability to fund a military into political power (plus pure economic might).

Fine, but this is hardly sufficient.

The changing that went on over the last 70-odd years in the world was not due to a bayonet at the chest so much as an idea in the head. Western liberalism and capitalism were shown to produce this technological revolution (which the Middle East is still beating itself up about), as well as to be an excellent model for responsible governments. Isn't this the real reason China and the Soviet Union were finally forced to change?

Of course, memories are short and cycles between forces of want and production are endemic to all societies. Even in the West, we have overspent ourselves beyond our capabilities to maintain a debt (especially of very late) and despite the lessons of the fall of socialism in Russia and China. At least we still have democracy.

What Walt doesn't factor besides the examples of good government is the rise of globalism. Now these working ideas are the norm not because of "nation building" (and Walt is speaking nonsense on the cost of the Iraq war); rather it is beause they kernel of the ideas are common to human nature. Indeed, it was feudalism, tribalism that doesn't scale well, abusive ideologies, and obsessive ethnic paranoia that are being left on the trash heap of history.

So Walt, your analysis is garbage. Sure China will economically rise. So what? Its "Communist" and ethinic ideas are going nowhere but down. The Middle East is becoming the Middle West (if you have not noticed BTW Iraq is democratic under its own steam while Afghanistan is still in the Iron Age due more to geography than choice). Iran is less settled as a theocratic state and Lebanon moved finally against the Syrian occupation. Where has democracy moved backwards by the will of the people? Well, except is complacent societies with illusions of an inexhaustable surplus.

But that surplus dries up due to economic forces alone and I do agree at least that there will be a return to sobriety in the West--it will be back to what works: capitalism and democracy.

The thing is, no matter how many stupid mistakes our leaders seem to make, over and over, we can always seem to count on the rest of the world making even stupider mistakes. Look at the latest example: At least our fed was wise enough to loosen monetary policy while the euros were staying tight, allowing us to start slowly recovering our manufacturing base and lessen the shock of the crisis, and compare us and them now. China is sitting on the mother of all bubbles on top of a demographic time bomb.

We are stupid, but the rest of the world proves again and again that it is stupider, and there's no reason to think things will be different this time.

It is also arguable that Western Democracy has flowered and its petals are now dropping.

Because it means it has new trading buddies. You see, unlike our neighbors across the Atlantic (Europe), America can easily trade with Asia. This gives us not only a trading advantage, but a military advantage. While European military power projection is limited by geography, making it more expensive to exert power overseas, in America it is less expensive due to the fact America is native to both oceans. Its cheaper to project power form North America than from Europe, doesn't make it cheap however.

Now, it would be foolish to think of Asia as one entity, while China, India, Russia are all separate parts of Asia and only share a part of that wealth. Any of these entities would need to expand in order to have clout to equal America. As it stands, none of them are even close to American economic, military and political power. While China may be growing at an impressive rate, it will not grow forever and ever. It will have stops, just like American growth has stops. In fact, such a stop will be catastrophic for China, as the legitimacy of the Chinese state depends on China having this unsustainable economic growth. While China may grow to be a large economy, just as Japan did, it will certainly not bury us like everyone thought Japan was going to do. And the latter two nations I mentioned are even further from American economic, military and political power than China, their combined economies are only as half as big as China's.

Oh, and what VMITCHELL said as well.

"...tell them to take a zero-based look at our current strategy and populate them with at least a few people who might not pass a Senate confirmation hearing and who haven't spent their whole lives repeating what everyone else has said before"

For these groups to take a "zero-based look" they have to be composed of young, different thinking, entirely new in politics people. I vote with both hands for this but this won't happen easy , if it happens at all.

There is only one and only plan A, the rest will all look like trying to patch a freaking sieve with countless holes.

Here is the A:
Have the political will to set the record straight, reassert American values and bring the house really in order, and tell the world US constitution is not to be humped upon.

Or else, 300 million will collectively share the fallout. For at least 10 years ahead.

I'm so tired of all this narrow-minded alarmist crap. China and India might overtake the US economy briefly, but the chances are that it won't last. The fate of a nation is not decided in decades, but in centuries and millenia. The US is still relatively young. All this media-jerkoff craze "Omfg the US iz going 2 die 2morrow e'erbody learn Chinese!!!11" is just taking advantage of your own stupidity. Even a Harvard professor has fallen for it.

Prof. Walt's argument is flawed in a way which is common amongst many declinist theories currently doing the rounds.

The points made about the structural political and economic problems in both Europe and the US are certainly accurate and important. Nevertheless, it is not adequate to simply address the shift of power towards the Asian region in the following vein:

"Asia's share of world GDP already exceeds that of the United States or Europe, and a recent IMF study suggests it will be greater than the United States and Europe combined by 2030."

Two major problems stand out here. First, if the structural problems of Europe and USA are to be examined, then so to should the structural problems of the Asian region be examined. China and India may be enormous countries, but they both face a number of significant social, political and economic challenges, this holds true across the broad region.

Secondly, it is too arbitrary to simply point to Asia as if it is one entity. It is not. Asia is made up of a whole gamut of countries from Kyrgyzstan to Japan. It is not a cohesive unit like a nation state, such as the USA, or even a regional security community such as the EU. Sure ASEAN exists in Southeast Asia but this hardly constitutes a comprehensive Asian community.

Declinists need to stop construing and selectively employing facts and data in a way which suits their argument. Without nuanced analysis of what is an extremely complex situation - we are left with unhelpful polemics.

Certainly, the US and Europe face challenges, but so do most (if not all) nations and regions on earth. It is too early to be tolling the bell of the decline.

Judging by some of the comments here, there still seems to be at least enough hubris to go around. Take a look at the Emirates Air map Prof Walt posted. Miss the point? How many US or European airlines have such a global network? Take a look at students enrolling in science courses, especially in more advanced programs, in the US -- 80 to 85% are foreign students, a majority of those from Asia. It'll be hard for the US to keep their high-tech edge with such a transfer of brain power.
It hardly takes "centuries or millenia" to decide the fate of a nation. There are enough illustrations of short little flowerings, and then complete oblivion.

Political correctness has destroyed Europe and in 20-25 years it will be Islalmisized.

If any of you saw how Eric Holder replied to questions about Islam then you'll understand how political correctness is destroying the US too.

You can view the video here ..

http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/liberal-lemmings-and-the-lunatic-left/

It's part of an article entitled, 'Liberal Lemmings' which makes the case that liberals are actually mentally ill because they are willingly bringing about their own demise.

Mike

"I don't want to go all Spenglerian on you (or even Kennedy-esque)"

For my money I always thought the declinism seen in Kennedy by so many was exaggerated. He certainly laid out the Soviet Unions problems stark as anyone possibly could in 1987. When you control for the Soviet Unions implosion in his "future trajectory" I don't think the return-to-multipolarity thesis is necessarily very off from actual events, given the language used.

I still think it's a great post though. The west's - I'm sorry the atlantic's - position can only diminish from here, and has in the last decade and a half.

As a layman with an intellectual interest in foreign policy, I find the essay by professor Walt fascinating; not for its content, but for its ever so elegiac tone. While the west has been the dominant force in the world for hardly 500 years (its more like 300), its impact has been far more damaging to the history of civilization than anything that preceded it. Aspects of western hegemony Voyages of "discovery"; genocide, the invention of racism (although bigotry is far older), slavery, imperialism, colonialism, cultural destruction, indentured labor, economic exploitation, Inquisitions, environmental degradation etc. have forever scarred history in a way that few other civilizations have. The damage that was done ranges from the large scale such as the economic and social devastation of the original peoples of Asia, africa & australasia to the horrifying fact that the most popular cosmetics in the world are "fairness" creams. While the last few centuries have been labelled as the "Enlightenment" or "The Age of Reason"; by most historians, I suspect that it may someday be declared a prolonged Dark Age for everybody other than Europe and its successor; America.

If this is indeed the end of the "West"; then its finest thinkers and artists will be remembered and venerated as those of earlier cultures from the Mesopotamians to the Mughals are today. Nearly everything else that the west has produced will not be missed by the rest of the world, which has been consigned to the periphery of the Human Story by greed and exploitation at a scale never seen before. Perhaps it is time that someone else take up the mantle of leading a planet that can no longer sustain the way of life that has dominated its history in recent centuries. We can only hope they will do a better job.

As usual, we find that contemporary commentators vastly overstate the "dominance of the West". For the record: The West did not come close to matching the East in any measure, economic, political, industrial, or cultural until it just caught up with China alone some time between 1800 and 1820. Historians (I am one, an economic historian) have known this from about 1800. When, oh when are we going to stop trotting out this silly notion? Dispensing with the 'West's domination model," itself less than 100 years old, casts a completely different light on economic and global developments over the last two centuries, and allows us to draw different conclusions about the world to come.

an epistemic community. What would it take to make one? We've so many brains in this country, might as well put 'em to use somehow.

One of the most prominent obstacles was nationalism. It is nationalism, not racism. There're not racism in East Asia but nationalism is super-intense due to China's thousands years of tributary system when China was the leading of the region for the past thousand years. Adding to that bad national sentiment was WWII Janpanese's expansion that has created hatred among those nations. So you maybe likely will see a Japanese company doing bussiness with a China company ( very friendly and well-understand each other) but standing side by side is another "hard to happen" story.

East vs. West: Part II

A really interesting article. Thanks for sharing. Let go of the past. Don't be obsessed with anyone else but rather self, concentrate on doing what needs to be done to better yourself instead of watching how others advance. In the end, everyone will grow back to what her/his true potential allows. You will be fine. But disciplines and current political news principles must be re-asserted, after that is done, there are going to be millions of good plan B's, and many problems exist today might mysteriously disappear.

As commented on the post "Europe's decline after World War II was immediately followed the era of American liberal internationalism. With NATO and Japan as junior partners, the United States underwrote a variety of global institutions (mostly of its own making), maintained a vast array of military bases, waged and won a Cold War, and sought-with world top news stories varying degrees of enthusiasm and success-to spread core "Western" values and institutions to different parts of the world."