GREAT POWERS DEPEND ON THE PERCEPTION OF OTHERS THAT THEY ARE POWERFUL

The U.S. is probably still perceived as the most powerful nation in the world, but have Obama’s policies begun to whittle away at that?

Until 1900, Britain was the most powerful nation in the world and perceived as such. Then it entered into a war in South Africa against the poorly armed Boers and suffered some embarrassing defeats. Although Britain eventually won, the perception of powerful evolved into one of weakness.

Have the Afghanistan and Iraq wars diminished the perception of U.S. power? Have the policies of President Obama’s withdrawal of our troops, his refusal to act when Assad crossed that ’red line’ in Syria that he himself drew, and his inability to keep Putin from carving up the Ukraine damaged the perception that the U.S. is the most powerful nation on earth?

Here is an excerpt from “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914” by Margaret MacMillan:

"The greatest power of all, the British Empire, had no [military] alliances with anyone [but] that had not caused it concern. But 1900 was not a good year. The British had gone blithely into a war in South Africa the year before against two much smaller Afrikaner republics: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The odds -- the whole British Empire against two tiny states -- should have made the outcome a foregone conclusion, but the British had in fact done very badly in what was called at the time the Boer War. Although the Afrikaners were on the run by the end of the summer, they did not finally concede defeat until the spring of 1902. Equally worrying, the war showed just how unpopular the British were in much of the world. In Marseilles, locals gave a warm reception to a party from Madagascar on its way to the [The Paris] Exposition whom they mistook for Afrikaners. In Paris, an enterprising fashion house made a hat in gray felt, à la Boer. At the Exposition itself the modest Transvaal pavilion with its flag flying proudly, drew a large crowd, eager, said the Hachette guide, 'to show their sympathy for the heroic little nation which is defending its in¬dependence in the south of Africa.' Piles of flowers dedicated to 'the hero,' 'the patriot' or 'the lover of freedom' surrounded the bust of Paul Kruger, its former President.

"That sympathy mixed with pleasure when British forces suffered one defeat after another was echoed throughout Europe. Commentary on the Continent made much use of the image of David and Goliath. The Ger¬man weekly Simplicissimus had a cartoon of a dead elephant being pecked by carrion birds as ants swarmed towards it with the comment 'the harder they fall ... ' There was also shock at the brutal tactics the British used to deal with Afrikaner guerrilla warfare. General Kitchener, who took over command, had local women and children rounded up and placed in con¬centration camps so that they could no longer feed and shelter their fight¬ers. Through yet more British incompetence, the camps became places of disease and death. A French cartoon had Kitchener as a great toad squatting on Afrikaner corpses and obscene cartoons circulated of Queen Vic¬toria. Her son and heir, Prince Edward, as a result refused to visit the Exposition.

"Great powers depend on their prestige and the perception of others that they are powerful as much as material factors such as their military and their economies. In 1900 Britain was looking weaker and dangerously alone."