America's Decline?

Here's an excellent article by Jonathan Rauch on something I've previously commented about, the perennial predictions of America's preemption by another superpower.

Rauch's comparison of today's predictions of European preeminence with those about Japan less than two decades ago is illuminating. But he skirts or even misses some important points. One is the lack of military power in any challenger right now; there exists nowhere an army with the numbers and technology to rival America's. Except for Great Britain, no European state can field a force that can even really assist the US in battle, owing to the enormous disparity in technology. And as I've pointed out before, all of Europe has gotten a free ride on the defense front since WWII, and when those countries are forced to shoulder the true burden of their own defense, their vaunted "superior economic models" will be revealed for the hollow shells they really are.

But that leads to the other important point. Even with the freebies on defense, Europe's main economies today are in no position even to be compared with Japan's in the late '80s. They are growing scarcely at all, have high rates of unemployment, and a desperate need for structural reforms that a coddled populace won't countenance. Add in a native population in decline, and a burgeoning but unaddressed unassimilated immigrant problem, and European countries leave much to be desired. They are not a threat to America -- they are mainly a threat to themselves.