Is Decline Inevitable? Post Last Debate.

During the discussion we touched on the idea that all great powers rise and fall.  Decline is inevitable. Looking at the historical record there is no argument.  All historical empires, so far have disappeared or so diminished that they are no longer powerful.  The US is the obvious exception, but its "decline" is already assumed to have begun.  A quick search at Amazon finds dozens of examples.

I have not read any of these titles, but my assumption is that each will detail the wrong decisions of our leaders and the structural problems of our government or economic system.  But I am also assuming that these books are not just a description of the inevitable decline but a prescription of what can be done to avoid the decline.  

The study of the past is more than an appreciation of the other, it is also an opportunity to learn from those who are in reality not so different.  Why do care about threats to US power in IR?  The answer might be different for each practitioner or student, but for me it falls back to the Spider-Man doctrine.  "With great power comes great responsibility."  There are numerous examples where the US has squandered its power and avoided exercising responsibility.   It has even acted irresponsibly.  But I also believe that the US is the world's best hope for living up to the ideals of uncle Ben's maxim.  The demise of US power might mean the demise of US ideals that we have discussed throughout the semester.  This is not to say that the US must always be the sole military power.   As we prepared for the final debate it occurred to me that it is hard shelled US autonomy that is being threatened in the modern world.  But if the US can move to a more Liberal worldview or even a soft shelled attuned position, we might see the victory of our ideals without the need for victory on the battlefield.

This class has certainly required me to apply new learning to the big questions of the international system and challenged some of my beliefs.  I actually found myself appreciating the Realist point of view on a few matters.  However, I think that the future will be a better place when there is recognition of the notion that across hard boundaries we all want basically the same things.  As Greg and Scott noted in previous  posts, the first step might be agreeing on definitions.  What is the cap for class enrollment?

The Big Goodbye

And so here we are at the final blog, taking stock of the process of the last 15 weeks.  To sum it up, this class was a look at explaining and exploring the question “How does the international world work?”

First, I’ve learned that international relations scholars in no way agree on the way the world works. That is both reassuring and depressing; reassuring in that it proves the world is a complex and at times contradictory place, with multiple actors acting in a variety of ways for a multitude of reasons; depressing because if the best minds of this field can’t figure it out, what hope is there for the people actually running things. It’s also depressing because the level of confusion allows those with a seductive message to confuse the ignorant and advance an agenda that isn’t necessarily beneficial to their countries or the world.

I’ve also learned (or rather confirmed) that using scientific methods to try to explain human political behaviors can be something of a fool’s errand. There is no way to implement a control, the heart of all scientific experiments, with all conditions strictly monitored to ensure the experiment’s results are accurate and repeatable. You’d probably be hard pressed to find a group of humans willing to live for years on end under the strict conditions required to ensure accurate results.  Assuming that all people act rationally and in their own best interest is folly. And who determines what is “rational”? What makes sense to me might be unheard of for another culture.

Finally, I’ve learned the value of definitions. It’s incredibly difficult to have a successful discussion when the parties involved can’t even agree on what it is they are discussing. This might explain why so many IR scholars don’t agree on why the world works as it does (on a theoretical level). They can’t agree on how the world works and what are the key drivers of behavior in a world where some individuals are operating on a different plane of needs fulfillment than others.  When this is coupled with cultural differences, we wind up with a very complex planet.

Final Debate Group 1 and 2 Evaluation

As Professor Tamara pointed out, the final debate both sides were very respectful of each others positions.  Even though we spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to take each other down, we played nice. One of the key underpinnings of this debate and the entire class stems from our realization of ontological assumptions, and how that translates to the broader fallacy of compartmentalization. We've kept abstract principles in neat little boxes for the sake of communication and the a sake of habituated pedagogy. Moving past compartmentalization is one of those things that we cannot unlearn within one semester in grad-school; it doesn't begin to scratch the surface of how we can unsubscribe from the status quo. I sense that we've all had a hand in breaking down some of those barriers. At the same time, we as a group make significant strides in qualifying our definitions within the readings and interactive activities.

Team 2, at first glance, had sold this idea of the downturn of the American dream as a reason to believe that US power would cease its dominant presence on a global platform. I agree with this point very much from a personal standpoint because it is a causal factor, yet based on prompt it does not have solid grounds when we dealing with other controls for authority. The corrosion of the American Dream argument slowly became a question of which is the broadest network of threats to U.S. power as opposed to the strongestI am not sure how attached team 2 was to that notion considering the shift in argument in the rebuttal statement, but they continued to stand by it. America being able to "adapt and respond to changing conditions" with the diverse communities of "a nation of immigrants" didn't harmonize as nicely with the original claim as it did before. Personally, I do find the American Dream to be a comforting notion and an umbrella term for many tangible aspects of social mobility.

For Team 1, I believe that the credibility of our position held up because we did not rely on nor did we pinpoint GDP as being the sole threat to U.S. authority. The downturn of the U.S. also relates to the lack of financial control of its assets --which is just as encompassing as what team 2 argued for but with more concrete metrics. GDP is merely an indicator when we address personal wealth, joblessness, and near poverty reliance on welfare. Also, we previously admitted that GDP in an of itself is not capacious enough to cover global economic shifts in power. There are other aspects to this conversation such as foreign debt, the handling of the US Fiscal Crisis, responses to raise the debt ceiling, and raising minimum wage. Each of these are but an amalgam of factors that make up what we know to be a loss of economic influence in a global market where financial management is a big deal. All in all, this was a healthy debate. I enjoyed everyone's contributions to class discussion and within the asynchronous material.

Thanks everyone! Take care.

Pre-Class Debate Two -Declaring Victory

I wanted to write a pre and post blog on the last debate just to see if my opinion changes once we have the live session.  As of right now it seems that team one was able to clearly identify a threat to US security and explain the implications of that threat.  US power is based on its ability to dominate both the economic and military world.  If the near future means that it will no longer be the dominate player in these two areas then its power will by definition wane.  This is not to say that the US will not continue for some time to be the largest military or have the greatest GDP as group two rightly points out.  But the distance between the US and other economic powers is shrinking.  US economic liabilities, as detailed in group 1's second post and ignored by group 2, already have required the US to shrink its military.  The future is projected to be more of the same.  The US will no longer be able to afford a global military presence.  It will need more from NATO but that too will mean a reduction in US influence and power.  It is relative not absolute values that are important to American power.

Group two did a nice job in the first post of offering the end of the American Dream as the great threat to America.  "It is only logical to then understand that the corrosion of the American Dream is by far the greatest threat to the power that it has created." I actually liked this more esoteric approach to the question and I was looking forward to an expose of the growing economic gap, the shrinking middle class, the high costs of higher education, rising consumer debt, etc.  

But in the second post group two did a little switch.   The follow up post agrees that economics is the driver of American power, but now group two sees American ingenuity and gumption as the savior of the nation and so thankfully the American Dream is still alive.  "We believe it is America’s ability to adapt and respond to changing conditions and challenges through the ingenuity and knowledge creating abilities of its citizens, whose free minds are energized by the tangible and intangible power of the American Dream that will allow America to continue as a global leader. And that is why the demise of the idea of the American Dream would therefore pose the greatest threat to U.S. power." So in the end they were not arguing what IS the greatest threat to US power.  They were arguing what WOULD be the greatest threat to US power.  

A multi-lateral Asia

The readings and soliloquy this week dealt with great powers, hegemony, and the international order. Of interest to me was the Mark Beeson article regarding hegemonic power transitions in East Asia. In my other class, I recently explored the possibility of NATO expanding, specifically outside of Europe by incorporating one or more of the liberal democracies (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea). But another idea that occurred to me, which I wasn’t able to explore due to space constraints, was the idea of a multi-lateral trans-Pacific security organization.

            One significant idea that would need to be dealt with would be China. To my mind, one of the great weaknesses of either NATO’s expansion or an Asian security organization is the Chinese perception of being encircled and countered. One way to try to address the dragon in the room would be to try to include it from the very beginning. While China could never be considered a liberal western democracy, there is a precedent in NATO of including members who may not quite be up to scratch politically when the dictator-run Portugal was included at NATO’s founding. It was an acknowledgement that Portugal’s role in the organization was more important to NATO’s success than exclusion over its less-than-ideal governmental structure. The same approach could be used to incorporate a possibly hesitant China. The ideals of the organization would need to dance around the nature of the government but could easily focus on economic and military security, freedom of the commons, sovereign integrity and so on. 

            A benefit to this organization would be to provide an easier place for regional disputes to take place. China and Japan could discuss their issues over the Senkaku/Diayou Islands away from their home constituencies. It could also provide a forum to coordinate policy regarding North Korea, an issue of concern to several states in the Asia-Pacific realm. Smaller states would be provided a voice and direct interaction with the great powers of the region and face less pressure to deal with them bilaterally and from a position of weakness.

            This also ties in to the Ikenberry article and would allow for a hierarchical order based on negotiated rules and institutions, creating a security community versus hegemonic domination and competition between two or more great powers.

            I’m intrigued by the concept of an Asia-Pacific security community and this is an idea that I will probably continue to explore as my coursework continues.

Human Rights Norms and Cultural Arrogance

The discussion for this week (#13) was directed at the concept of the global public sphere. One of the readings, which I don’t think we delved in to, was the article by Thomas Risse and Kathyrn Sikkink discussing the internationalization of human rights norms and how that can lead to behavioral changes. The article itself dealt with the role of transnational advocacy in norm diffusion, but it lead me to think about whether or not this particular view deserves to be perpetuated.

            The view of “human rights” such as it exists in the 20^th and 21^st century world, is primarily one derived from the dominant western cultures. My guess is that it shares a cultural history with the global abolition and suffrage movements. But it presumes that the Western idea of equal rights for all, across the board, is somewhat culturally arrogant. Who are the citizens of the UK, France, the US, etc. (or at least parts of them) to tell the people of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Burma, and numerous other countries that the way their country operates (typically in a very realist, “might makes right” manner) are in some way inferior? Why do I get to determine which cultures are or are not upholding my ideal and publically chastise them? It was this same mentality, taken from the opposite direction, which led to the enslavement of African and Indigenous Americans by these same European cultures. The justification was that those cultures were inferior and therefore not worthy of equal treatment. The Bible was used to justify the terrible treatment of others.

            Is this merely an extra-long period of cultural guilt, where we try to make amends by encouraging these same cultures to act like we act? If the goal is to persuade these sometimes-ancient cultures to adopt our viewpoint, does the approach by Amnesty International and Greenpeace and others to loudly and publically shame these countries really accomplish anything? Do they really accomplish the things they claim to influence or are they taking credit for the actions of others that provide the goal they were seeking?

            I realize I’m delving into the world of anthropological theory and cultural relativism, but the reading for some reason got my hackles up, with the general assumption that our culture is inherently superior to others. To some extent, examples lived are much more effective than examples lectured.