Last night I was watching the BBC's Newsnight coverage of the 9/11 10th anniversary. Generally speaking, I thought it was a fairly decent report, considering it's the BBC (generally speaking, the BBC tends to have an anti-USA bias). However, throughout the report, people kept mentioning this "decline" of the USA's power, starting with 9/11. Generally, I would dismiss this, as it's just the BBC doing what the BBC does best, but it's a claim that I frequently see made by various people and institutions. It's gotten to the point where this is almost seen as a self-evident truth, but it's one that I want to question.
Typically, these claims come from two angles - one from the "War on Terror", the other being the rise of China, so I'd like to address these separately.
The commonly accepted view is that the USA was at the peak of its modern power in the 1990s. The history of the USA is typically one of ever growing power up until this point. USA was born out of a war, with the colonies beating down the then-greatest power on the planet (the British Empire). After that (and the Civil War), America was then on the winning side against an even bigger threat, WWI Germany. The USA then beat down an even-bigger foe with Japan, and was again on the winning side against an even stronger Germany in WWII. Finally, after a 50 year struggle between the two greatest powers this planet had ever seen, the USA emerged victorious, cementing its position as the world's only super power just in time for the nineties to kick in.
The USA then enjoyed 10 years as the sole superpower, the 21st century hit, and now it's beginning the decline. Or so the common mantra goes. People often point at 9/11 attacks (my deepest respects), and the failings of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as evidence of this claim. First, I'd like to point out that since that fateful day on September 11th, 2001 neither Al Quida, nor any other terrorist group have managed to successfully launch another attack on US soil (with the exclusion of the Arkansas shooting in June 2009). It would seem to me, that rather than signaling decline in American power, the situation marks in increase in power. Before September 2001, the USA was almost oblivious about any terrorist attacks, and since, no one has successfully enabled an attack. Now, there is an increased risk of an attack in the coming weeks, as US officials have pointed out, due to the anniversary of 9/11 (combined with Al Quida needing to reassert itself after the death of Bin Laden), but the fact that the US is now aware and alerted about such an incident implies increased power, not decreased. Any terrorist attack is far more likely to fail today, than it was 10 years ago.
Now, people may just say that Al Quida simply haven't bothered to launch another attack since then. This is possible, sure, but it isn't likely. The failed Christmas day bombing (which, I admit, was down to luck, not anything that the USA is responsible for), and the bomb found in that car parked in Washington, show that Al Quida are at least attempting to attack the USA. The amount of terrorist attacks, globally, has also increased... so why would the USA have seen such a decrease? I think the far more realistic argument is that terrorists have been unable to attack America thanks to improvements in the USA's intelligence services, the war in Afghanistan, and the special operations and drone bombings in Pakistan and Yemen. The killing of Osama Bin Laden was more of a symbolic gesture which, to me, just showed how much the tides had turned against Al Quida.
Which brings me to the next point: Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm not going to argue about their point, or justifications, instead, I'm going to talk about them in terms of declining American power. The first thing we have to address is that, with decline, is the implication that they were stronger before. To say that Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of American decline, is to suggest that the USA would have performed better at them at an earlier period. Is it reasonable to suggest that had these wars of taken place in the early 90s, rather than the earlier 00s, that the USA would have enjoyed greater success? No, I do not think it is.
One other thing to get clear about the Iraqi war is that the actual war, that is, defeating Saddam Hussein's troops, and ending his regime was won in about 6 weeks. Far quicker than the previous encounter with Iraqi forces during the Gulf War, which lasted about 7 and a half months. The problem with Iraq is that they were not prepared for such a fast fall of Iraq, and its sudden decent into Civil War.
As for Iraq, I often here critics coming out with lines like "Afghanistan is unconquerable, the British failed, the Soviets failed, the USA was doomed to fail". The ultimate problem with this quote, of course, was that the USA never set out to "conquer" Afghanistan, their main objectives were to disrupt Al Quida activities (which, as discussed earlier, we can say has been moderately successful, so far), and to replace the Taliban Government with a new one (they did this, but the new Government is so corrupt, anyway, it probably won't prove to be much better). Had the USA have treated Afghanistan the same way as they treated Japan and Germany (complete domination of the country, and setting up the country under Americanized systems, and ruling the country for a handful of years, before handing it back to the Afghan people in American-overseen elections), Afghanistan would have been in a far better situation, today.
A final point I'd like to make on these two wars is how they are by no means heavily-committed to, by the USA. There are more US troops in Germany than in Iraq (53,951 (2007) versus 45,600 (2010)). There are over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, but when you consider the 60,000 in South Korea and Japan, 10,000 in the UK, 10,000 in Italy, and the various other deployments of hundreds and thousands of troops in other countries across the globe (not to mention the million+ troops that are still at home), that 100,000 doesn't seem like it's an over-stretch. To argue that these wars are stretching the USA's military is just simply not true, the main problem, really, is that they under-committed.
I'm not saying, by the way, that either Iraq or Afghanistan are successful... they have had their successes, and their failures. But the failures have been down to tactical errors and under-commitment, not a decline in US power.
I'll talk about China, and my views on what will cause the US decline in another post, if this one proves to be popular.
