Project For A Newly Humbled Superpower

Time's Joe Klein has this take (following the 'Waving Goodbye to Hegemony' piece in the NY Times magazine) on the "new American century" that the neocons worked so hard to create-

"You watch McCain talking about the world and it very quickly becomes apparent that he is talking about a place that existed maybe 15 or 20 years ago, a globe where the U.S. is hegemon and where the challenges are always binary and manichean. It's us v. the Soviets...or now, us against radical Islamic extremism, a threat that he gins up into the one of the Greatest Ever, the 'transcendent threat of the 21st Century.' Maybe so. Maybe Osama and the Cave-dwellers will be able to produce a 9/11, or worse, every decade or so ... maybe we'll have to continue to spend $200 billion a year to fight that threat.

But probably not. It is at least equally likely that the global threat to American hegemony will be softer--a three-way competition for markets and resources with Europe and China, as the Times piece suggests; or even more diffuse than that. Maybe the Chinese way of gaining influence--offering to build huge public projects like dams and pipelines and power plants, while making absolutely no ideological demands--will prove more successful in winning second-world hearts and minds than our own naive, noisome bang-bang has been. Maybe a good part of that $200 billion could be more profitably spent elsewhere, in other ways...

...It would be nice if, at least once in this campaign, we had a serious conversation about this among the Presidential candidates."

Or, to put it more succintly, Atrios says, "I do think it's been quite obvious for some time that the neocons who dreamt of American hegemony have basically destroyed it."

I'd add that I agree that this should be discussed by the candidates... it is an issue the average American thinks about. But the problem is the Joe Kleins of the world. Our major media figures obviously do care about these issues and write articles for them in their publications. But it's all just talking into the wind; it never becomes a serious national discussion (unlike the Clintons/Obama feud). When the candidates are interviewed by, say, Tim Russert, it's about horserace and strategy. If media figures are wondering why we've not had a serious discussion about this during the campaign, they need only look in the mirror.