The U.S.'s Downgraded Superpower Status

General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway, two American symbols, both lost their 3A credit rating. China, the U.S.’s number one creditor, first asked the U.S. to guarantee the 10 billion dollar reserve assets Beijing invested in U.S. bonds, and then called for a new global currency to replace the dollar weeks later. All of this happened in March.

These latest events warn us that changes are coming faster and harder than what we or our statesmen expected. America’s 3A credit system and its status as a superpower are going down as fast as the U.S. economy.

President Obama recently admitted that the U.S. is not winning in Afghanistan, the most significant acknowledgement of the difficult reality. What message was Obama sending to the American people through this statement? “If you aren’t winning, you’re losing,” Milton Bearden, former CIA analyst, said recently.

The current global situation is proof that the U.S.’s superpower status is wearing out.

Pakistan, a nuclear nation, is splitting despite lots of aid and support from the U.S.

Analysts who are very familiar with Iraq have announced that Iran is the strategic winner in Bush’s Iraq War, even though Washington’s troop surge seems to be a big victory. The Iraq War has encouraged Iran greatly by cultivating a new regional superpower, and it seems that Iran may become a major architect of the new Iraq.

It is unfortunate that people have forgotten during Bush’s age of arrogance that it is the military, economic and moral forces that uphold American superiority. The Abu Ghraib scandal, America’s invasion of a sovereign country without provocation and the stupidity that allowed radical Muslims to describe the U.S. as the enemy of 1.5 billion Muslims have all sent the moral superiority the U.S. possessed before 2003 up in flames.

Washington’s uncritical support of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians is considered excessive hypocrisy by lots of countries. Therefore, the conflict between the U.S. and Islam might be irreversible. Muslims believe that Islam will never lose its moral high ground – and they will not give it up easily.

Even The National Interest, a politically conservative publication, acknowledged these problems. Robert Pape stated in the latest issue that “The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq War, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today’s world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration years as the death knell for American hegemony.”

Now the U.S. economy is suffering from a large-scale reduction, and it is time to get rid of this spiritual shackle of superpower heritage and accept a more peripheral agenda. This doesn’t mean isolationism or retreat. The U.S. still needs of a large amount of high-quality military forces, but they can only be used when it is affordable and there are national interests at stake. The Iraq War does not conform to these requirements.

The myth that the U.S. can afford to send forces and naval ships anywhere at any expense is still present in the American mindset. China has found a more flexible way to secure resources, however. The Washington Post reported that China was making huge purchases and locking in low prices on oil, minerals and other strategic global resources. It’s like making a big economic conquest without sending even a single soldier. In contrast, the U.S. efforts for oil look clumsy.

Iran also uses guerrillas in order to attain regional hegemony. Last year, Russia reminded other countries that it has “privileges” in its peripheral countries by invading Georgia. Superpowers are being replaced by regional hegemonies as the world is carved up into spheres of influence, which are easier to defend.

The U.S. should admit that war, like politics, is an art of possibility with some limitations. The Bush administration could not fulfill its commitment to democratize the Muslim Middle East.

Another unpleasant truth is that the model of Western democracy is not attractive to most of the Arab world. Democracy isn’t appealing in many other parts of the world either, such as in Russia and China.

It is time to lower our geopolitical sights and end this unrealistic holy war. We should not expect “them” to become like “us.”

The U.S. took a number of years to restore its moral authority after the Vietnam War, and this time, it might be even harder to do.