US’ downward trajectory

S P SETH

The landing of the space vehicle, Curiosity, on the Mars by the United States is a brilliant achievement by any standard. Which testifies to the tremendous scientific and technological creativity in, what is still, the world’s most powerful country. But it might not continue like that. Look at some of the statistics. According to one report, the US is seventh in literacy, 27^th in mathematics, 22^nd in science, 49^th in life expectancy and so on. These are not the rankings of a great power.

And when even the US’s closest ally, Australia, starts to worry about its intractable problems, it is obviously time to take notice. During a recent US visit, Australia’ foreign minister, Bob Carr, pointed to it even as he praised the country’s underlying strengths in several sectors.  And he posed the question: “What is holding you [US] back? Debt and deficit. America is one budget deal away from banishing talk of American decline”

Bob Carr made it sound like a simple solution to stem the US decline, but it is not as simple as that. The debt and deficit is not a sudden phenomenon. It is the accumulation of a whole series of wrong policies to control the world with the dictum that: what is good for the US is good for the world. Its results are there for all to see from the Korean War to the folly of the long war in Vietnam and on to the Iraq and Afghan wars. And it is not over yet with the threat of military intervention to stop Iran from its nuclear ambitions.

Apart from considerable cost in human lives of these wars---the Vietnam War alone is estimated to have cost up to 2 million Vietnamese lives--- these wars added significantly to US debt and deficit over a period. The total cost of Iraq and Afghan wars alone for the US, including health care of wounded soldiers and other related expenses, is estimated at $3 trillion, a hefty contribution to an ongoing crisis brought about by a capitalist system run amuck.

It is a systemic crisis but the US continues to believe that it can work its way out by printing more money and raising more debt against US bonds.  Because the US is in a unique position as the world’s reserve currency, this enables it to raise ever more debt at relatively low borrowing costs. The money markets are prepared to bet on the US as credit worthy. But as the US debt is approaching 100 cent of its GDP, if it is not already there, something is going to snap somewhere in confidence chain to create a trigger effect to bring down the house. And this is even more so because the political gridlock in the US to deal seriously with its debt and deficit shows no way of sorting itself out, with the Republicans swearing by their mantra of tax cuts and spending cuts, and the Democrats favoring a mix of the two--- with rich paying more taxes and some cuts in welfare entitlements.

Even this might not solve the problem, but a political breakthrough might be a good beginning. As Gina Despres, the vice-chairwoman and principal executive officer of four large global mutual funds, has reportedly said, “We’re [the US] the least-ugly pig [compared to Euro zone] in the pen right now. But at some point that will change, and then we’ll be in trouble.” Because: “…when that happens you start to face rising interest rates, and then the interest on the debt component of gross domestic rockets, and then you’ve sort of lost the game.”

The point is that by letting things reach where the US is now in the ugly-pig race with Euro zone would suggest that the US’ best days might be behind it. And if you are the President of the United States you will feel constrained to assure all and sundry that this is not true, as Obama did recently. He said, “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline, or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they are talking about.” And if you are the presumptive president like Mitt Romney you might even go one further to declare that the 21^st century will be another American century. But, as the US columnist E.J.Dionne has argued, “American decline is the specter haunting our politics.”

Tom Switzer, an Australian columnist, commenting on the US decline, says, “The dollar is weak. Debt is of European proportions. Infrastructure is ageing…” He adds, “If the next president does not prepare his fellow citizens for this reality [of US decline], the American people’s reaction to setbacks at home and abroad is more likely to be angry and irrational.” And that really is the danger because the momentum of America’s past glory in political-power terms is likely to blind the US to real limits on its power. The specific blind spot in question, at the present time, is the confrontation with Iran, with growing pressure from Israel to bring it to its knees on the nuclear question. Israel will like to fight to the last American soldier to ensure its security against Iran or from anywhere else in the Middle East.

Even though the US has been on the downward trajectory for a long time, with the financial crisis of 2008 and continuing economic problems exposing it more markedly, the election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 raised all sorts of expectations about the US renewal. For instance, the US was said to have entered the post-racial phase with the election of an Afro-American, thus radically transforming the racial divide that sapped its national energies. But nothing of the sort really happened as Obama’s election is increasingly proving to have been largely a symbolic change. All through his term he faced questions about his American (whether or not he was born in the US) and religious (if he is Muslim) identity. These questions wouldn’t have been relevant if he were white.

Even as the country’s President, Obama had to cite proof of his American birth (birth certificate) to hopefully quash rumors.  But the doubters were never satisfied. And during the current election campaign, such sniping is still going on by the Romney camp. For instance, a Romney confidante recently said that he wished ”this president would learn how to be an American.” Another Romney advisor explained why the presumptive president had a special understanding of the “special relationship” between the US and UK because Romney is “part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage.” He was highlighting this when Romney recently visited London. In other words, Obama is still the target of race politics.

Even as the United States continued to face all sorts of problems, Obama’s election as president in 2008 appeared to be a game changer in renewing the US society. But all the racial sniping is likely to continue. The celebrated American writer, Gore Vidal, who died recently, expressed his utter frustration with the way his country was functioning or non-functioning in a 2009 interview with the Times of London. He said that America is “rotting away at a funereal pace.” In this way, “We’ll have a military dictatorship pretty soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together.”

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.