On Wed 19 Feb 2003, Reed Tryte wrote:
> > I think he exaggerates U.S. economic decline, but that's my particular
> > bete noir.
>
> Can you elaborate on this? Aren't the US trade deficit and general
> economic decline eventually going to put some real limits on our empire?
I don't think Bina would argue with that (and neither would I).
But the way Bina gets there is weird, IMHO. After dismissing the idea that the war is about lowering the price of oil (with which I agree), he still wants to see it as immediately motivated by a desire to increase the profit rate. And since he's just argued that doesn't make sense, he decides that it must spring from the US's pure economic desparation, as if it were lashing about wildly in its death throes.
There's at least two problems with this idea. One is that, relative to its competitors, the US isn't doing badly. It's remarkable how long the US has been stumbling only to be propped up by Europe and Japan's talent for doing worse.
But in the second place, insofar as the US does have huge macroeconomic imbalances that could endanger its wellbeing in a big way in the near future, all evidence indicates that the people who are bringing us this war are completely oblivious. Such weakness doesn't enter into their thinking in the slightest. Quite the contrary.
Rather theirs seems to be aggressive strategy based on maximizing our strategic advantages. The US is arguably more dominant militarily right now than any country has been in human history. And there is a very good case to be made that in 25 years time this will still be true, which is even more remarkable.
So the Bushits want somehow to make that advantage pay. They want to remove the lilliputian cords that bind us and make the world face the cold hard truth that there is nothing it can do to stop us and it had best stop trying.
They are sure that somehow this will work to our advantage.
The weak part of this world view is how precisely this is supposed to benefit us economically. Aggresive Bushits see the US as dominant in the world militarily, economically and culturally. And because they see the first aspect stretching unbroken into the future, they assume the second two will naturally go with it.
But there is no good reason to assume that. On the contrary, there are very good arguments to be made that in 25 years time the US will not be economically or culturally dominant in the same way that it is now. And that its future economic weakness will only be hastened by this aggressive military strategy. And that in addition, economic weakness will decrease the US's strategic power. So that it would be much better off setting up new hegemonic (aka multilateral) institutions, like it did after WWII, to shore itself up. So that even from an elite perspective, this is a bad idea.
BTW, a very good article that sums up the Bushit world view (from a mildly critical liberal perspective) is "American Primacy in Perspective" by Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth in the July/August 2002 _Foreign Affairs_.
Michael