> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Kilander [SMTP:peterk at enteract.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 20, 1999 5:34 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: hyperpower self-pity
>
> [So let me get this straight, it was Reagan who indirectly invented the
> Internet, not Al Gore?]
>
> New York Times 8/20/99
>
> FOREIGN AFFAIRS / By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
>
> An American in Paris
>
> LONDON -- Surely one of the oddest features of international affairs today
> is the fact that half the world thinks America wants to dominate
> everything
> and half the U.S. Congress doesn't even own a passport.
>
> The gap between how foreigners see America and how America sees itself in
> the world could not be larger, particularly after Kosovo. China and Russia
> openly complain about America throwing its weight around. But there is
> plenty of resentment of U.S. "domination" among America's European allies
> as
> well. You can read it in the European press, or hear it in little digs
> like
> the one making the rounds over here that "the Chinese lost more people in
> the Kosovo war than the Americans did."
>
> The gulf war showed the Euros how far ahead the U.S. military was in
> technological terms, and the Kosovo war showed how much wider that gap had
> become. This has left the Euros feeling victorious in Kosovo, yet
> diminished. As one British defense official remarked to me, "We have to
> avoid a situation where you [Americans] turn out the high-tech stuff and
> we
> provide the jolly good infantry."
>
> It's no wonder the French have coined a new term to describe America
> today -- "the hyperpower." The term "superpower" was too small. It's also
> no
> wonder that right after NATO's Kosovo victory the European Union declared
> its intention to form its own military force capable of acting
> independently
> of the U.S.
>
> This would be laughable if it were not so pathetic. The Euros will not
> catch
> America so easily. Consider just one reason: Devotees of Ronald Reagan
> like
> to credit him with the military buildup that enabled the U.S. to run so
> far
> ahead of all its allies and enemies. They are right about Mr. Reagan, but
> they are wrong about what he deserves credit for. The most important thing
> Mr. Reagan did was break the 1981 air traffic controllers' strike, which
> helped break the hold of organized labor over the U.S. economy.
>
> That was critically important for spurring the information revolution in
> America. How so? Ask yourself this: Why is it that the Europeans have lots
> of money and the same access to technology as Americans do, yet most of
> them
> have been slow to absorb computers and info-technologies? Answer: U.S.
> companies are quick to absorb new, more productive technologies because
> they
> can easily absorb the cost of the new investment by laying off the workers
> who used to perform that task. And as the overall economy becomes more
> productive, those workers get rehired elsewhere.
>
> The Europeans have moved slower because their rigid labor laws make it
> very
> hard, or very costly, to lay off workers. And if you have to pay for a new
> computer and the wages of an old worker, you are much less likely to buy
> the
> new computer.
>
> The world's eight largest high-tech companies are all U.S.-based.
>
> The deregulation of the U.S. economy has fostered the quick adoption of
> new
> information technologies, and these new technologies have given the U.S.
> military its great technological leap forward -- from laser-guided weapons
> to stealth technology to electronic warfare. These systems are now
> essential
> for fighting wars that modern democracies will tolerate, which is to say
> high-tech, remote-control, low-casualty wars. Without the economic and
> technological underpinnings that make such weapons possible, the Euros
> will
> have a hard time catching Uncle Sam.
>
> But just as the Euros need to understand their weakness, and how to manage
> it, America needs to understand its strength and how to manage it. The
> idea
> that the U.S. Congress, looking at a $1 trillion surplus, wants to cut its
> paltry foreign aid budget, refuses to pay its U.N. arrears, talks about
> free
> trade but then won't even expand Nafta to Chile, and treats foreign policy
> as a sport in which you pass sanctions against your favorite enemy, like a
> game of darts, should embarrass every American.
>
> Congress is split between those who believe the U.S. should act everywhere
> alone and those who believe it should act nowhere. The idea of a generous
> America, leading where it must, sharing where it can and financing the
> development banks to give a hand up to those most in need, has a shrinking
> constituency.
>
> It's crazy that at this moment the President has to spend his time abroad
> persuading foreigners that America is not a cheap imperialist, and his
> time
> at home persuading Congress that America still has a global role.
>