Politics: The US has overreached itself and needs Europe's help, say the authors of this modest proposal. Post Washington: Why America Can't Rule the World by Tony Kinsella and Fintan O'Toole is reviewed by Ruairi Quinn.
I last met Tony Kinsella in February 2003 when we were, with thousands of others across the world, protesting at the imminent US/Iraq war. He told me then that he had an idea for a book that he wanted to write with Fintan O'Toole about the US, the world and the impact of the terrorist attack on Manhattan and Washington in September 2001. O'Toole and Kinsella had been collaborators, many years before, on the then- recently-established secondary schools students' union. Post Washington: Why America Can't Rule the World is the impressive outcome of their more recent collaboration.
Students of history will be familiar with Paul Kennedy's influential book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. In it, he analyses why a number of major powers around the world in the year 1500AD were overtaken and dominated for the following 500 years by a Europe which, at that time, was divided and backward. Kennedy's work was published in 1988, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet empire. In his historical analysis, Kennedy examines why wealthy powers, such as the Moguls in India, were not able to sustain their empires. Among the factors which contributed to their decline was what he describes as imperial overreach. This was a combination of pride and poverty in the mindset of the elite in the emperor's palace. Expectations and traditions interacted with obligations and demands upon resources, which could no longer be met.
It is against this background that Kinsella and O'Toole put forward the view that the world's hyper-power, the United States of America, is also heading for imperial overreach. They assert that the US cannot afford the armed forces it has or sustain its levels of public and private debt. The dream of a "pax Americana" or "the American project for the 21st century" will turn into a nightmare. Our world with Washington at its centre is unsustainable. Their response is to suggest a course of action that the rest of the world should take to enable the US to adapt to a more global multilateral world.
Their main thesis would no doubt be derided by the neo-conservatives currently in control of Congress and the White House. In addition, many Irish people directly in contact with vibrant and profitable US multinational corporations will find their view difficult to believe or hard to imagine.
But Kinsella and O'Toole devote no fewer than 300 pages to explaining and demonstrating, in considerable detail and with extensive research, exactly why they believe their predictions and observations are accurate. The US, they demonstrate, contrary to the perceived public impression of so many people in this country, has become a less open and socially mobile society with a widening gap between a rich elite and the rest. Despite having some of the best hospitals and universities in the world, access to them is dependent upon family wealth. For many, the American dream is moving from attainable reality to tantalising myth. Soon the very dream itself may become impossible.
Section by section, chapter by chapter, they look at the domestic economy, the role of agriculture, problems of pollution and obesity, the dominance of the religious right in public life and the destructive right-wing policies of the Republican party. In this, Kinsella and O'Toole cite numerous authors, official reports and US government publications to support their carefully argued case.
Let us be clear on one thing: this is not a tirade against the United States. On the contrary, they sing the praises of its achievements and recognise that it is a beacon to millions of people around the world. Furthermore, they understand and acknowledge the extraordinary international contribution that the US has already made in sustaining and supporting the values of freedom and democracy.
Theirs is a different message: how can the rest of us help the US help itself? They end on a positive and optimistic note. The international co-operation and integration of the European Union, they assert, is a model of soft non-military power, projecting successfully the values of market economics and democratic societies. That's why, they claim, so many other countries want to join the EU. Balanced, co-operative, multi-lateral action by different combinations of nation-states is, they argue, the way forward, rather than unilateralist action by a dominant hyper-power, which is itself at risk from within.
The military might of the US, which is bigger than the rest of the world combined, can, if harnessed to multi-lateral actions, be of enormous benefit. The transport capacity of the US armed forces in delivering aid and support following the catastrophe of the Asian tsunami is a positive model for the future and one within which the US can make an unique contribution. This is a book that I recommend to anyone concerned about the future of our planet and all of its people.
Kinsella and O'Toole have done us great service, as indeed has their publisher, Tasc, the Irish think-tank for action on social change.
Ruairi Quinn TD is Labour party spokesperson on European affairs
Post Washington: Why America Can't Rule the World. By Tony Kinsella and Fintan O'Toole, Tasc at New Island, 327pp. €13.99