US Is Suffering from Hegemonic ‘Menopause’

It wasn’t all that long ago that both the U.S. Senate and the House Armed Services Committee were engaged in ongoing hearings aimed at reviewing the global safety challenges that the United States was facing. During these meetings, the “Chinese military threat” became the most prominent focal point for their concerns. The once unassailable United States of America was now being told by its leading generals and strategists that they had been ‘awestruck’ at the rate of progress that China had made in modernizing its military. More importantly, they were now beginning to worry that the “aura of fear” surrounding the USA’s military superiority was beginning to wane. This fear, aside from being the concern of every U.S. politician who subscribes to the “anyone other than us is different” mentality, really does have some factual basis, for it does appear that the power of the United States has begun to wither.

After the end of the war, the United States entered a golden age of financial prosperity, and it held a veritable capital monopoly across the world of finance. Throughout this golden age, the United States could often rely upon its military might to hold the world hostage and advance by promulgating its financial empire everywhere. At the same time, it could also rely upon a world that ran on the power of the U.S. greenback.

All Things Must Come to an End

Ever since the United States began unwittingly moving its physical economy into the brightly beckoning e-commerce world, the actual substance in the U.S. economy has been growing ever thinner. Although the United States created the world’s most unbeatable war machine, in the new era of a nuclear balance of power and mutual economic dependence, it has found that physical warfare is no longer viable, and reliance upon financial might alone is simply an untenable position. The reasons for the decline of American hegemony are not to be found externally, but rather, internally. They developed from the double-edged sword of the USA’s financial power: the parasitic nature of its selfish and monopolistic capital enterprise system. The famous U.K. historian Arnold J. Toynbee once said that “empires collapse as the result of foreign expansion and internal distortions within their societies.” The decline of U.S. hegemony stems from engaging in year after year of warfare in the pursuit of strategic resources, the bursting of the virtual economy bubble, and from the way the U.S. approaches its external “challenges.”

The Decline of U.S. Hegemony Will Be a Gradual Process

Even though it is in collapse, the United States is still an important player on the world stage. That being said, it doesn’t enjoy the mighty lead roles it once occupied. History tells us that on the eve of a mighty empire’s collapse, it begins to tilt slightly, but not topple over completely. At this particular point, the empire is at its most vulnerable, its most sensitive stage. Its leadership, especially, begins to become prone to all sorts of paranoid thinking. Compared with its past self, the United States of today is beating its chest more often, and doing so with an ever increasing volume. Its anxious speech, nervousness and faltering confidence are the outward manifestations of its hegemonic menopause. Obama said that the United States “will not be number two,” indicating precisely the USA’s pre-existing anxieties that it is possibly already “number two.” Throughout this especially sensitive period, the potential for the United States to make rash decisions is greatly increased.

Bear in mind that the U.S. president clearly stated that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty “applies” to China’s Diaoyu islands territory; the commander of the Pacific Fleet issued harsh rhetoric toward China over what he considered to be China’s “tendencies toward national revanchism,” saying “the way China goes about things is dangerous and one-sided,”* and the commanding officer of the U.S. Seventh Fleet asserts that “America welcomes the assistance of Japan’s air force in patrolling the South China seas.”* The United States has rarely ever issued language as strong and confident as this. We can also see that the United States is still embroiled in its financial woes, and yet, its annual military budget continues to skyrocket. The U.S. is about to enter a new round of elections, and you can be sure that all manner of politicians and interest groups will be out in force, beating their drums, and in general, creating dramas over political hot topics.

When all is said and done, the United States still possesses the world’s most powerful war machine. It is a superpower with great influence over world affairs. As soon as the U.S. makes one false step, as soon as it’s rate of decline becomes too steep for it to manage, it will be not only a disaster for the United States, but for the rest of the world as well. In short, we must remain exceptionally vigilant of any shifting trends in the USA’s behavior. Since U.S. decline is inevitable, a soft fall would be preferable to a hard landing that sends shock waves everywhere. Even then, should there be a hard landing, it would be a small price to pay. Where to go and what to do is, of course, primarily the choice of the USA. That being said, other countries ought to begin considering the decline of the USA and find ways to guide the U.S. to a soft landing.

The author is the assistant secretary to the China National Security Forum.

*Accurately translated, this quote could not be verified.