Paul Kennedy: The U.S. Is Already in Decline

Mike Steketee, in the Australian (May 7, 2004):

THERE are increasing signs the US has overreached and faces decline despite its unrivalled military and economic power, according to Paul Kennedy, a leading historian.

In Sydney to address the Future Summit, a major conference on the nation's future, Professor Kennedy, of Yale University, said the US was top-heavy in expensive Cold War weapons systems such as nuclear submarines and suffered from a desperate shortage of "grunt" in army and navy personnel. This would get worse with large-scale resignations after soldiers return from Afghanistan and Iraq.

At the same time, the US was running massive economic and trade deficits that required the goodwill of overseas bond-holders for their continued funding.

"Even though in military terms it's much stronger in comparison to its rivals than either the Roman Empire or the British Empire at their height, I don't think there's any chance this empire is going to last as long," he said.

Professor Kennedy is best known for his controversial 1988 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which suggested the US might face the same problem of "imperial overstretch" that had seen the fall of other empires.

It is a thesis that tended to be dismissed as US dominance continued to increase. He said yesterday he was "pretty gloomy" about Iraq, with the US facing the emerging prospect that "if you stay you lose and if you go you haven't won".

The Bush administration had failed to think through its latest initiative to obtain greater UN involvement.

"That may well cause Ba'athists and al-Qa'ida to say we have already won," Professor Kennedy said.

"There's bitter resentment against (US Defence Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld and (deputy) Paul Wolfowitz for dismissing military assessments of how hard it would be and I think people are starting to crumble. "I think things are significantly worse than the US press presents them."

Professor Kennedy said Mr Rumsfeld was "my best card" in support of his argument about imperial overstretch because of his eagerness to make US troop commitments all over the world.

"Sixteen years ago the real issue was how to develop clever polices to manage global change that might be moving against you and to manage relative decline. They have been very clumsy in the military sphere.

"The area where they thought they were very strong -- soft power, which is the power to influence people through culture and ideas and ideology -- you just have to look at the latest research."

About 80 per cent of people surveyed worldwide disapproved of US actions.

"That's before we got these latest photographs (of American soldiers mistreating Iraqis)," Professor Kennedy said.