The Changing of the Guard. O Render da Guarda
«(…) In the long run at least, it is a merciless measure. Notwithstanding this, imperial powers in decline are almost invariably in denial of the fact. That was the case with Britain from 1918 onwards and, to judge by the behaviour of the Bush administration (though perhaps not Obama’s), which failed to read the runes, preferring to believe that the US was about to rule the world in a new American century when the country was actually in decline and on the eve of a world in which it would find its authority considerably diminished, the US may well make the same mistake, perhaps on a much grander scale. The financial meltdown in 2008 belatedly persuaded a growing number of American commentators that the United States might after all be in decline, but that was still a far cry from a general recognition of the extent and irreversibility of that decline and how it might diminish American power and infl uence in the future.
It
has been estimated that the total budgetary and economic cost to the United
States of the Iraq war will turn out to be around $3 trillion. Even with this level of expenditure, the armed forces have come under
huge strain as a result of the war. Deployments have got steadily longer and
redeployments more frequent, retention rates and recruitment standards have
fallen, while the army has lost many of its brightest and best, with a
remorseless rise in the number of offi cers choosing to leave at the earliest
opportunity. Such has been the inordinate cost of the Iraqi occupation that,
regardless of political considerations, the financial burden of any similar
proposed invasion of Iran, in practice likely to be much higher, would always
have been too large: for military as well as political reasons, the Bush
administration was unable to seriously contemplate similar military action
against Iran and North Korea, the other two members of its axis of evil. The
United States is, thus, already beginning to face the classic problems of
imperial overreach.
The burden of maintaining a huge global
military presence, with over 800 American bases dotted around the world, has
been one of the causes of the US’s enormous current account deficit, which in 2006
accounted for 6.5 per cent of US GDP. In future the American economy will find
it increasingly difficult to support such a military commitment. The United
States has ceased to be a major manufacturer or a large-scale exporter of
manufactured goods, having steadily ceded that position to East Asia. In recent
times it has persistently been living beyond its means: the government has been
spending more than it saves, households have been doing likewise, and since 1982,
apart from one year, the country has been buying more from foreigners than it
sells to them, with a consequent huge current account deficit and a growing
volume of IOUs. Current account deficits can of course be rectified, but only
by reducing growth and accepting a lower level of economic activity. Growing
concern on the part of foreign institutions about these deficits led to a
steady fall in the value of the dollar until 2008, and this could well be
resumed at some point, further threatening the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve
currency and American financial power. The credit rating agency Moody’s warned
in 2008 that the US faced the prospect within a decade of losing its top-notch
triple. A credit rating, first granted to US government debt when it was
assessed in 1917, unless it took radical action to curb government expenditure».
In
Martin Jacques, Quando a China Mandar no Mundo, 2009, 2012, Temas e Debates,
Círculo de Leitores, ISBN 978-989-644-196-8, Penguin Books, ISBN
978-0-713-992-540.
Cortesia de TeDebates/CdeLeitores/PenguinB/JDACT
JDACT, Martin Jacques, Literatura, Economia, China, Conhecimento,
