AFP: David Furst, file photo

Pillars of the Next American Century

By James Kurth
The American Interest, November-December 2009

Edited by Andy Ross

The 20th century was famously called the American century. In the 21st century, a series of events has punctured the dream: the 9/11 attacks, the setbacks of the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the global recession. At the same time, China's ascent has paralleled America's descent. This century is more likely to be seen as a Chinese one.

The United States can still be the most prominent of the great powers. But to do this, America will have to renovate certain pillars that raised the United States to global power and prosperity in the 20th century.

When discussing power, most analysts focus upon military power. The United States first achieved supremacy in vast conventional forces (World War II), then in nuclear weapons (the Cold War), and most recently in information-age warfare. Many analysts focus upon the ideological power of liberal democracy, free markets, and the open society.

The essential base for all power in international affairs remains economic power. Economic power in turn entails strength in three component dimensions: industrial, financial, and technological. During the first American century, the United States led the world in each of these three dimensions.

Throughout the 20th century, the United States was the largest industrial or manufacturing economy in the world, innovating whole new sectors like aerospace, computers, and telecommunications. And during much of the 20th century, the United States was the world's leading financial power.

The United States was also the leader in developing new technologies. The U.S. university system provided a vast pool of scientists and engineers to develop new inventions and innovations. Then the American free market system enabled entrepreneurs to harness these new inventions and innovations to build new industries.

The American way of war has two central features: overwhelming mass and wide-ranging mobility. But Soviet armies were even more massive. The United States responded by drawing upon advanced technology, first nuclear technology and weaponry and then computers and telecommunications. These innovations amounted to new versions of the American way of war.

Although the United States remains the largest manufacturing economy in the world, China is projected to overtake it by 2015 or so. China's industrial superiority has translated into financial strength. At $2 trillion, China's reserves of foreign currencies now exceed those of any other country. In the past year, the Chinese government has used its financial strength to implement the most successful economic stimulus program any government has yet deployed to address the global economic crisis.

In the United States of recent years, finance has become the largest single economic sector. The historical analog to the U.S. economy and economic policies of today is the United Kingdom of the 1930s. By then, the British economy centered on finance, and British governments devised economic policy accordingly.

The economic sectors of sustainable energy, biotechnology, and medicine/health are clearly of vital importance. If the United States can achieve leadership in them, as it did in aerospace, computers, and telecommunications, it will have secured a robust pillar for American leadership in the world in the 21st century.

It should be a prime objective of the U.S. government to maintain and enhance America's technological superiority. This entails encouraging and enabling the university system, the free- market system, and the education system for the general population.

We need to re-create a successful American way of war. When the United States fought wars in the 20th century, it relied heavily upon the ground forces of allies. It was this secret that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps rediscovered and applied in Iraq in 2006–07. The U.S. military is now trying to apply a similar strategy in Afghanistan.

The United States will always have to rely upon local forces, whether local militaries or merely local militias, who have their own capabilities for effective counterinsurgency. The U.S. military can never do the job by itself. The United States should normally seek to solve its problems without using the U.S. military for counterinsurgency operations.

American popular culture is chiefly popular with the young. As for the attractiveness of American values, most of the political leaders in other countries are realistic men who cannot really believe that American ideals should be promoted for their own sake. American leaders will have to act in the style of realists.

Although rebuilding its economic and military power pillars will make the United States the most prominent power in the world, it will no longer be a dominant one. There will be other great powers as well, like China, India, the European Union, and Japan. The United States must lead on issues of world importance, including threats from terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation, the global economy, global epidemics, and global warming.

The century from 1815 to 1914 was an era distinguished by no general wars and by rapid economic growth, a rare era of peace and prosperity. And if any one nation was identified with that peace and prosperity, it was Britain. By the end of the 19th century, it was widely acknowledged that the century had been a British one. But Britain was not a dominant power on the scale of the United States after 1945.

The United States will never again be a dominant power like it was during the American century. But a century can still be shaped and defined by a nation that is only the most prominent of the great powers.

More by James Kurth
 

AR  I sense anachronism in any U.S. attempt to impose its national stamp upon the 21st century. We need to overcome nationalism and see our problems in a global perspective. Readers may find a roadmap to this end in my next book.