Can American Power Actually Grow?

...despite the economic downturn? You know what they say, in every downturn there's opportunity.

I mentioned that Obama was, ironically, acting like a unilateralist when he threatened the world with his protectionist flexing. I say ironic because the demand for a multilateral world (another way of saying controlling American power) is so great it's hard to believe a President looked upon so well would consider unilateral measures.

But Obama is the leader of the United States of America, and like his predecessor who was fond of saying this, it's not a popularity contest. Obama will look to preserve and enhance American power.

Speaking of which, all trends seem to point to a permanent and slow decline in American power. Many people have weighed in on that exact subject. They include Quebec intellectuals (who are too busy wasting our time with petty stuff anyway), European magazines and glitzy American publications. All have presented their cases to declare death to American power. All have rushed to claim a multi-polar world is back. Sure, some present persuasive, if not elegant, arguments to this possibility. But I remain unconvinced. I look over to America and still see a nation not ready to die.

What can I say? I don't scare easy.

Let me put it bluntly: There is no economy and society as powerful and free-standing as America. The sheer breadth of its enterprise is unmatched anywhere. The Germans, Japanese and Chinese (and the EU) can speak ill of America all they like (no doubt hoping to raise their own relative power positions) but they quite possibly face far more daunting tasks and realities. Of all the nations (and I say this with utmost respect to the aforementioned societies), I believe in America most to come out on top.

Now, that doesn't mean there aren't major concerns within the American empire. There are. On a nation by nation basis, when one looks at it as a whole, America is in the best position to succeed and progress.

It's odd. Here I am playing contrarian to the American declinists but I do feel Western civilization (I will post about this shortly) as a whole is on a slow downward trend. That's why, collectively, we must all root for America to cure itself. They're the last torch holders of Western culture. They rise and succeed; we all do. They fall and fail; we all do. It's as simple as that.

From Asia Times Online:

"The silliest thing that clever people are saying about the world economic crisis is that the United States will lose its position as the dominant world superpower in consequence. On the contrary: the crisis strengthens the relative position of the United States and exposes the far graver weaknesses of all prospective competitors. It makes the debt of the American government the world's most desirable asset. America may deserve to decline, but as Clint Eastwood said in another context, "deserve's got nothing to do with it". President Barack Obama may turn out to be the most egregious unilateralist in American history. "

"...To overpay unionized construction workers to build bridges, and bail out the bloated budgets of American states, the Obama administration will flood the world with so much Treasury debt that capital will flow out of the poorest countries to buy it. Rather than protest this outrageously unilateralist action, the rest of the world encourages him to do so, hoping that somehow the Obama stimulus package will get American consumers to buy their goods once again. During the Reagan years, the rest of the world had the right to grumble about the dominance of the American economy. Now that American policy has become a millstone around the necks of most of the world's economies, the rest of the world's leaders flatter Obama while he beats them. No Republican president ever had it so good."