No One Has a Plan for American Decline
Foreign Policy · Nick Danforth ·
Amid Washington’s fractious foreign-policy debate, there’s one possibility too grim to think about.
Amid Washington’s fractious foreign-policy debate, there’s one possibility too grim to think about.
America’s geopolitical power is crumbling, and that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Hegemons, after all, rise and fall. Yet nobody in U.S. politics or punditry seems to actually want to talk about the consequences, especially for the American people. When it comes to decline, they either believe it won’t happen or won’t matter—in other words, that America can’t decline or that Americans will be just fine if it does.
Many in the neoconservative and traditionally conservative wings of the Republican Party believe that with the renewed application of its still considerable military and political power, America can remain the world’s dominant power for the foreseeable future. Republican restrainers, in turn, believe that if America forsakes dominance and conserves its power, global disorder can be kept at bay and the American people will be better for it. And while key figures in President Donald Trump’s orbit are all too worried about decline in racial or civilizational terms, they have their own dangerous and counterproductive ideas for how to reverse it.
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