Andres Martinez: The Next American Century
[Andres Martinez is the director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program at the New America Foundation.]
In 1941, prior to the U.S.'s entry into World War II, the co-founder of this magazine, Henry Luce, penned an essay in LIFE that exhorted "unhappy" Americans, "[distracted] with lifeless arguments about isolationism," to "create the first great American century" — the first, mind you, not the last. We are now entering the second decade of what will be an even more markedly American century; in fact, the Americanization of the world will characterize the foreseeable future far more than the past.
It's true that Brand America took a hit this decade. The global superpower botched an election at home and an occupation overseas. Its vaunted financial markets were roiled by sketchy accounting early in the decade, then triggered a global economic crisis later on, thanks to Wall Street's leveraged gamble that it had conquered risk once and for all. All these missteps dented the U.S.'s credibility but were also a reminder that, fairly or not, the U.S. retains an enviably large margin of error. And times of economic dislocation only accentuate America's competitive advantage — its nimbleness and adaptability....
And yet doomsayers continue to decry America's decline. This isn't new. As far back as 1988, when Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was a best seller, the commentariat latched onto his (more hedged than remembered) warning that America ran the risk of "imperial overstretch" — "the awkward and enduring fact that the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country's power to defend all simultaneously."
So, what happened next? Well, the Berlin Wall collapsed, much of the world embraced market capitalism, and the U.S. shrank the globe and took it online with a revolutionary new technology that strengthens its cultural dominance. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping the Pax Americana has become far lighter. Despite the nation's two long-running commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 288,000 American service members posted or deployed overseas and a defense budget of 4.6% of GDP are near post–World War II lows (in 1987 the corresponding figures were 524,000 service members overseas and a defense budget in excess of 6% of GDP). And this historically modest investment dwarfs the military spending of the next nine powers combined....
There are two ways of measuring American power and influence at a given point. If you measure them merely in terms of how much richer the U.S. is than the rest of the world, then 1945, when much of the rest of the world lay in ruins, would definitely be our heyday. At the end of World War II, the U.S. was responsible for a third of the world's manufacturing exports. And under that yardstick, the Marshall Plan, aimed at rehabilitating Europe's lost prowess, would have been a mistake, as it was bound to eat into U.S. global market share.
But a more appropriate measure of American influence and power is the combination of the country's wealth and its sway in the world. Back in 1941, Luce noted that "American jazz, Hollywood movies, American slang, American machines and patented products are in fact the only things that every community in the world, from Zanzibar to Hamburg, recognizes in common." He had no idea: at a time when there are as many people studying English in China (or playing basketball, for that matter) as there are people in the U.S., seven of the 10 most watched TV shows around the world are American, Avatar is the top-grossing film of all time in China, and the world is as fixated on U.S. brands as ever, which is why U.S. multinationals from McDonald's to Nike book more than half their revenue overseas. If you bring together teenagers from Nigeria, Sweden, South Korea and Argentina — to pick a random foursome — what binds these kids together in some kind of community is American culture: the music, the Hollywood fare, the electronic games, Google, American consumer brands. The only thing they will likely have in common that doesn't revolve around the U.S. is an interest in soccer. The fact that the rest of the world is becoming more like us — in ways good and bad — underscores the extent to which we are living in an American century, even as it erodes, by definition, the notion of American exceptionalism....
So stay anxious, and alarmed, about the fate of the country. That's the best way to ensure that this century, like its predecessor, will be an American one.
Read entire article at Time.com
In 1941, prior to the U.S.'s entry into World War II, the co-founder of this magazine, Henry Luce, penned an essay in LIFE that exhorted "unhappy" Americans, "[distracted] with lifeless arguments about isolationism," to "create the first great American century" — the first, mind you, not the last. We are now entering the second decade of what will be an even more markedly American century; in fact, the Americanization of the world will characterize the foreseeable future far more than the past.
It's true that Brand America took a hit this decade. The global superpower botched an election at home and an occupation overseas. Its vaunted financial markets were roiled by sketchy accounting early in the decade, then triggered a global economic crisis later on, thanks to Wall Street's leveraged gamble that it had conquered risk once and for all. All these missteps dented the U.S.'s credibility but were also a reminder that, fairly or not, the U.S. retains an enviably large margin of error. And times of economic dislocation only accentuate America's competitive advantage — its nimbleness and adaptability....
And yet doomsayers continue to decry America's decline. This isn't new. As far back as 1988, when Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was a best seller, the commentariat latched onto his (more hedged than remembered) warning that America ran the risk of "imperial overstretch" — "the awkward and enduring fact that the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country's power to defend all simultaneously."
So, what happened next? Well, the Berlin Wall collapsed, much of the world embraced market capitalism, and the U.S. shrank the globe and took it online with a revolutionary new technology that strengthens its cultural dominance. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping the Pax Americana has become far lighter. Despite the nation's two long-running commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 288,000 American service members posted or deployed overseas and a defense budget of 4.6% of GDP are near post–World War II lows (in 1987 the corresponding figures were 524,000 service members overseas and a defense budget in excess of 6% of GDP). And this historically modest investment dwarfs the military spending of the next nine powers combined....
There are two ways of measuring American power and influence at a given point. If you measure them merely in terms of how much richer the U.S. is than the rest of the world, then 1945, when much of the rest of the world lay in ruins, would definitely be our heyday. At the end of World War II, the U.S. was responsible for a third of the world's manufacturing exports. And under that yardstick, the Marshall Plan, aimed at rehabilitating Europe's lost prowess, would have been a mistake, as it was bound to eat into U.S. global market share.
But a more appropriate measure of American influence and power is the combination of the country's wealth and its sway in the world. Back in 1941, Luce noted that "American jazz, Hollywood movies, American slang, American machines and patented products are in fact the only things that every community in the world, from Zanzibar to Hamburg, recognizes in common." He had no idea: at a time when there are as many people studying English in China (or playing basketball, for that matter) as there are people in the U.S., seven of the 10 most watched TV shows around the world are American, Avatar is the top-grossing film of all time in China, and the world is as fixated on U.S. brands as ever, which is why U.S. multinationals from McDonald's to Nike book more than half their revenue overseas. If you bring together teenagers from Nigeria, Sweden, South Korea and Argentina — to pick a random foursome — what binds these kids together in some kind of community is American culture: the music, the Hollywood fare, the electronic games, Google, American consumer brands. The only thing they will likely have in common that doesn't revolve around the U.S. is an interest in soccer. The fact that the rest of the world is becoming more like us — in ways good and bad — underscores the extent to which we are living in an American century, even as it erodes, by definition, the notion of American exceptionalism....
So stay anxious, and alarmed, about the fate of the country. That's the best way to ensure that this century, like its predecessor, will be an American one.