Is the American Century Over? by Joseph S. Nye Jr. (review)

Abstract

One of the interminable debates about foreign policy is whether the United States is a declining power or a country that has already regressed into a hasbeen superpower. Some observers along this continuum appear open to the proposition that America’s waning can be reversed. However, pessimists regard America’s decline as virtually complete and maybe even irreversible. Needless to say, the jury is still out. The issue of America as a declining power is multidimensional, and it opens up spirited and engaging discussions among many learned scholars and policy practitioners. Joseph S. Nye Jr., one of the most original thinkers on this and a variety of other matters on US foreign policy, couches this debate in a wider context in his new book, Is the American Century Over? In it, he defines the “American century” in stark terms when he discusses the Cold War and post – Cold War periods — an era when the United States enjoyed “a preponderance of power resources,” when it was capable of “setting the rules” for other nations, and when it was capable of “getting the [foreign policy] outcomes one prefers.” Nye’s focus is on the period when the United States established the noncommunist economic order and successfully managed it from 1945 until the economic crisis of 2008. His description of the American century includes “the period since the beginning of World War II, when the United States, without full control, had primacy in economic power resources, and became a central actor in the global balance of power.” The American century’s date of birth, he says, is 1941, and its date of death “uncertain.” Nye handles the issue of American “decline” in his customary erudite style. He