3: AMERICA’S RESIDUAL STRENGTHS
The table above summarizing America’s liabilities and assets points to a critical proposition regarding the American system’s capacity to compete globally: the foreseeable future (i.e., the next two decades) is still largely America’s to shape. The United States has the capacity to correct its evident shortcomings—if it takes full advantage of its considerable strengths in the following six key areas: overall economic strength, innovative potential, demographic dynamics, reactive mobilization, geographic base, and democratic appeal. The basic fact, which the currently fashionable deconstruction of the American system tends to slight, is that America’s decline is not foreordained.
The first crucial asset is America’s overall economic strength. America is still the world’s largest national economy by a good margin. Only the economically united European region slightly surpasses the United States, but even so the Western European model exhibits higher structural unemployment and lower rates of growth. More significant for future trends is the fact that the United States, despite Asia’s rapid economic growth, has maintained for several decades its major share of the world’s GDP (see Figure 2.3). Its 2010 GDP of over $14 trillion accounted for just around 25% of global output, while its closest competitor, China, made up over 9% of global output with a close to $6 trillion GDP. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace estimates that the United States will go from having a $1.48 trillion smaller GDP than the EU in 2010 to a $12.03 trillion larger GDP than the EU in 2050; and in terms of per capita GDP, the United States will increase its lead over the EU from $12,723 in 2010 to $32,266 in 2050.
FIGURE 2.3 PERCENTAGE SHARE OF GLOBAL GDP
It is true that according to current forecasts, China, largely due to its overwhelming population base, will surpass the United States in total economic size sometime in the twenty-first century; the Carnegie Endowment puts that date around 2030. For similar reasons, although not at the same speed, India should climb up the global GDP ranks over the next forty years as well. But neither China nor India will come even close to US levels in per capita GDP (see Figure 2.4). Thus, neither China, nor India, nor Europe can match the United States in its potent economic mix of overall size and high per capita GDP. This economic advantage—assuming America also exploits its other assets—can preserve America’s global economic clout and systemic appeal, as well as its suction effect on global talent.
FIGURE 2.4 PROJECTED GDP AND GDP PER CAPITA
SOURCE: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s The World Order in 2010
FIGURE 2.5 QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE EMERGING POWERS{3}
Partially driving America’s economic success is its second major asset: technological and innovative prowess derived from an entrepreneurial culture and superiority in institutions of higher education. The United States is ranked by the World Economic Forum as having the fourth most competitive economy in the world behind Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore, and a Boston Consulting Group ranking of the world’s most innovative economies placed the United States above every large economy with the exception of South Korea.
Moreover, comparative assessments of other “softer” aspects of social vitality suggest that the United States still ranks relatively high in some key qualitative categories used to measure systemic performance in other major countries (see Figure 2.5). It is worrisome that America is not at the top, but more important for the near- term future is the fact that the major aspirants to the global elite perform markedly worse in most categories. That reinforces the point developed later regarding the absence in the near future of any effective substitute for America with the capacity to wield both the soft and the hard dimensions of international power.
Highly important in this regard is America’s dominance in higher learning: according to a Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking of top global universities, eight out of the top ten universities in the world are American, as are seventeen out of the top twenty. These institutions not only provide America the means and technical know-how to maintain an economic—and even military—edge in pioneering the products and industries of the future. They also add to the domestic accumulation of human capital, as top researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs around the world immigrate to the United States in order to reach their full educational and economic potential. This fact should remind Americans of how critical their higher educational dominance is to their country’s domestic vitality, international prestige, and global influence.
The third advantage is America’s relatively strong demographic base, especially when compared to those of Europe, Japan, and Russia. America’s large population of 318 million is an inherent source of global clout. Moreover, the United States does not suffer from nearly the same level of population aging, or even population decline, projected elsewhere. According to the UN, by 2050 the United States will have a population of 403 million, 21.6% of it above the age of sixty-five. During that time period, the EU will go from a population of 497 to 493 million, with 28.7% over the age of sixty-five in 2050. The numbers for Japan are even more striking: it will go from a population of 127 million in 2010 to 101 million in 2050, and will have a public that is 37.8% over sixty-five by midcentury (see Figure 2.6).
One of the reasons for this felicitous discrepancy is America’s ability to attract and assimilate immigrants— despite recent domestic unrest about this subject. America currently has a net migration rate of 4.25 per thousand population; Germany attracts 2.19, the UK 2.15, France 1.47, Russia 0.28, and China–0.34. This ability to attract and assimilate foreigners both shores up America’s demographic base and augments its long-term economic outlook and international appeal. If America yields to anti-immigrant and xenophobic tendencies, it could jeopardize the beacon effect that has proved so beneficial to America’s dynamism, prosperity, and prospects.
The fourth asset is America’s capacity for reactive mobilization. The pattern of its democratic politics is for delayed reactions, followed by social mobilization in the face of a danger that prompts national unity in action. That happened in warfare, with “Remember Pearl Harbor” becoming a slogan that helped to mobilize a national effort to turn America into a war-making arsenal. The race to the moon, once it gripped public imagination, had the effect of spurring massive technological innovation. America’s current dilemmas beg for a similar effort, and some of America’s liabilities provide ready-made foci for social mobilization on behalf of socially constructive goals. An attack on America’s frayed and antiquated infrastructure is one obvious target. A green America, in response to global warming, could be another. With effective presidential summoning of popular support, America’s material assets as well as entrepreneurial talents could be harnessed to undertake the needed domestic renewal.
FIGURE 2.6 PROJECTED TOTAL POPULATION AND AGING
SOURCES: UN projections, assuming medium fertility variant (EU is EU 27 )
SOURCES: (1-4) UN projections, assuming medium fertility variant, EU is EU 27; (5) CIA World
