THE SOCIAL STORM RAGING IN THE US THREATENS TO HARM AMERICA'S GLOBAL STANDING

Are we entering a post-American era?: The longer the US is mired in divisions and internal strife over the moral validity of its founding values, the less the Western world will be able to resist the Chinese and Russian onslaught

 

By  Doron Feldman

 

Israel Hayom

July 23, 2020

 

For hundreds of years, humans fought to be free from the shackles of authoritarian regimes. With the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and transition to what was considered a single superpower global system – dominated by the United States – some people, such as Francis Fukuyama and Joseph Nye, believed that American-Western-Liberal democracy had completed its ideological task and would quickly carry the rest of mankind toward an optimistic future. In the 21^st Century, a significant portion of the world's population has enjoyed, in terms of GDP, the highest quality of life ever on this planet. Alongside this wealth growth, technology is advancing and impacting all aspects of our lives. Science and medicine are flourishing and allowing us to live longer. Schooling and higher education is overwhelmingly accessible, no longer the dominion of a privileged minority. But despite this progress, which is even palpable in developing areas, it feels as if Western society has lost its way and is now at a crossroads.

 

This sense of being lost is exacerbated by the harsh ideological-cultural and sociological-economic rifts among Democrats and Republicans, and between liberals and conservatives, over the soul of America. This mighty struggle has only intensified amid US President Donald Trump's clashes with Democratic governors over the handling of the corona crisis, the murder of George Floyd, and the ensuing waves of protests.

This is far more than a cultural disagreement. The schism between "liberal" America and "conservative" America should be viewed as a "suppressed civil war" – where the sides are engaged in an uncompromising battle for hegemony without the use of weapons. These powerful internal processes aren't just shaking American society to its core, rather, to a large extent, they are also undermining the United States' moral authority to lead the Western world in the spirit of liberal democracy.

Over the past 100 years, the mightiest superpower on earth played a decisive role in navigating mankind's ship toward better shores. The leadership of the free world, warts and all, stood up to dictatorial-fascistic regimes, enlisted the resources necessary to fight them, advanced the democratization of many countries across the globe, and imbued the world with modern capitalism along with American culture and values. Today, the US is still the world's preeminent economic-military power. Western society, however, is facing a rising threat. A new balance of power has emerged in which the US is no longer the sole hegemon and must share its influence with competing global superpowers.

Russia and China are working to challenge the pro-Western world forged in the wake of the Second World War. Disappointingly, despite their adoption of capitalist principles, they have bolstered their brutal mechanisms of oppression, and have created international-territorial crises across the planet, all while promoting unfair and non-transparent international economic policies that undermine the balance of trust with their foreign partners. Parallel to their suppression of individual freedoms, the Russian bear and Chinese dragon are striving to create an alternative economic order.

Similar to the rebalancing of the global playing field toward the tail end of the 19^th Century – with the gradual decline of the British Empire, the spread of the market economy, and rise of Germany, Japan, and the US – China and Russia are trying to weaken the Western-American capitalist system and the status of the US dollar. Among these revisionist actions is China's "New Silk Road" initiative, which seeks to expand China's global influence, increase its power in the Third World, and threaten American dominance.

However, this isn't the first time a rising global force has threatened the standing of another power. Some will say that despite the Chinese regime's faults, the governmental-economic alternative it provides has advantages compared to the Western option. But this trend needs to set off alarm bells in the West, because in the not-so-distant future it will have to confront the very real questions about the values and way of life it desires. The social storm raging in the US threatens to harm America's global standing. It also weakens its ability to evoke the values that propelled it and the West to such great heights in the first place.

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming US presidential election, the American and Western interest is identical. The longer the US is mired in divisions and internal strife over the moral validity of its founding values, the less the Western world will be able to resist the onslaught and uphold the values of liberty and freedom sowed in the wake of the Second World War.