Joseph Nye

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“It Faces A Rise In The Power Resources Of Many Others — Both States And Non-State Actors”

March 26, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

A little more from Joseph Nye, author of Is the American Century Over?, who takes a largely sanguine view of our path forward, arguing that the U.S. still has great assets while acknowledging that it will no longer be lonely at the top. From Nye in the Financial Times:

A century is generally the limit for a human organism but countries are social constructs. Rome did not collapse until more than three centuries after it reached its apogee of power in 117AD. After American independence in 1776 Horace Walpole, the British politician, lamented that his nation had been reduced to the level of Sardinia, just as Britain was about to enter the industrial revolution that powered its second century as a global power.

Any effort at assessing American power in the coming decades should take into account how many earlier efforts have been wide of the mark. It is chastening to remember how wildly exaggerated US estimates of Soviet power in the 1970s and of Japanese power in the 1980s were. Today some see the Chinese as 10ft tall and proclaim this “the Chinese century”.

China’s size and relatively rapid economic growth will bring it closer to the US in terms of its power resources in the next few decades. But this does not necessarily mean it will surpass the US in military, economic and soft power.

Even if China suffers no big domestic political setback, many projections are simple linear extrapolations of growth rates that are likely to slow in the future. Moreover, economic projections are one dimensional. They ignore US military and soft power advantages, such as the desire of students around the world to attend US universities. They also overlook China’s geopolitical dis­advantages in the Asian balance of power, compared with America’s relations with Europe, Japan and India, which are likely to remain more favourable.

It is not impossible that a challenger such as China, Europe, Russia, India or Brazil will surpass the US in the first half of this century but it is but not likely. …

The real problem is not that it will be overtaken by China or another contender but rather that it faces a rise in the power resources of many others — both states and non-state actors such as transnational corporations, terrorist groups and cyber criminals.•

 

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“It Will Be Decades Before China Is As Rich Or Technologically Sophisticated As America; Indeed, It May Never Be”

March 6, 2015 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

America’s obituary has been written prematurely many times, and, no, fucking ISIS won’t be the death of us. There’s always hope for a bright future for the U.S. as long as our immigration policies aren’t guided by politicians pandering to xenophobic impulses. From an Economist review of Joseph Nye’s Is the American Century Over?:

Europe is hardly a plausible challenger. Though its economy and population are larger than America’s, the old continent is stagnating. In 1900 a quarter of the world’s people were European; by 2060 that figure could be just 6%, and a third of them will be over 65.

By 2025 India will be the most populous nation on Earth. It has copious “soft power”—a term Mr Nye coined—in its diaspora and popular culture. But only 63% of Indians are literate, and none of its universities is in the global top 100. India could only eclipse America if it were to form an anti-American alliance with China, reckons Mr Nye, but that is unlikely: Indians are well-disposed towards Washington and highly suspicious of Beijing.

China is the likeliest contender to be the next hyperpower: its army is the world’s largest and its economy will soon be. (In purchasing-power-parity terms, it already is.) But it will be decades before China is as rich or technologically sophisticated as America; indeed, it may never be. By 2030 China will have more elderly dependants than children, which will sap its vitality. It has yet to figure out how to change governments peacefully. And its soft power is feeble for a country of its size. It has few real friends or allies, unless you count North Korea and Zimbabwe.

Hu Jintao, the previous president, tried to increase China’s soft power by setting up “Confucius Institutes” to teach its language and culture. Yet such a strategy is unlikely to win hearts in, say, Manila, when China is bullying the Philippines over islands in the South China Sea. The staging of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was a soft-power success, but was undercut by the jailing of Liu Xiaobo, a pro-democracy activist, and the resulting empty chair at the ceremony to award him the Nobel peace prize. “Marketing experts call this ‘stepping on your own message’,” says Mr Nye.•

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