Is the American Century Over?

• Author: Smith, Anthony
• Position: Book review

IS THE AMERICAN CENTURY OVER?

Author: Joseph S. Nye, Jr

Published by: Polity Press, Cambridge, 2015, 146pp, US$12.95.

Assuming his guise as a conservative pundit, comedian Stephen Colbert once quipped that 'our greatest days are ahead of us, and we have the greatest history in the history of history, but this instant right now is completely screwed up, and we've got to save America from disaster' (interview with NPR, 4 October 2012). In amongst discussions of a possible US decline comes the sober analysis of Joseph Nye; one of the most astute observers of global politics and the commentator that has done most to popularise the importance of 'soft power'.

To Nye, there are specific types of power, and how they are combined has a resulting impact on global reach and influence. These are factors of hard power (forces of coercion and economic might) and soft power (the attractiveness of a given society). How does the United States track on these measures?

Nye notes, as a starting point, that it is a myth that the United States was ever hegemonic, and prefers to talk about 'primacy' or 'half hegemony' instead. He notes that fears of American decline have been around since about the end of the Second World War, about the time that the United States accepted a consistent global role, and the public became seized of the notion of potentially falling behind (to the Soviet Union in that era). He also rejects comparisons to the empires of the past, noting that that of the American Century can only be described as an 'empire by invitation'. If networks, rather than hierarchies, are significant in the modern world, the United States still has a substantive set of treaty allies (Nye calculates 60), and a larger number that 'lean towards' (100) the United States. Only 21 'lean against'. Nye notes that the European Union, which enhances Western hard and soft power, is in fact the world's largest economy if taken in aggregate.

The two core discussion points that emerge about American power in contemporary times are internal weaknesses (absolute decline) and/or the rise of China (relative decline). On the first of these questions, Nye is not blind to America's myriad social problems. He also notes Washington's growing polarisation, and wonders if the slow-by-design American political system is fit for purpose in the modern age. Nonetheless, there is no particular sense in the United States that democracy itself is illegitimate. Furthermore, the US economy is...