Revisiting a Book Review in the Context of Rising Tensions
Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American
Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power, Haymarket Books,
2017.
Researchers affiliated with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who regularly assess the danger of nuclear war declared that the probability of nuclear war has increased over the last year. Using their “doomsday clock” as a metaphor the dial was recently moved to 100 seconds to midnight; midnight signifying the onset of nuclear war. The scientists believe that the danger of nuclear destruction and devastating climate disaster is greater now than at any time since the early 1980s.
The context for this grim prediction is well-reflected
in a 2017 book by University of
Wisconsin historian Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American
Century. The author describes the twentieth century emergence of the
US as the global hegemonic power based upon economic superiority and
overwhelming military power. However, this economic and military dominance is
being challenged today.
Perhaps the most critical challenge to the American
empire, he suggests, is the rise of China, particularly as an economic
successor to US control of the global political economy: Chinese domestic
development, Chinese trade and investment with countries on every continent,
and an Asian financial and trading system that challenges the historic US
presence in the region. In economic terms the global system is changing from
unipolarity to multipolarity.
In response to this decline McCoy suggests that the
United States has embarked on a program to expand militarily programs around
the globe and in outer space including preparing for cyber space war,
occupying space, developing biometrics to identify potential enemies,
increasing drone warfare capabilities, and the creation of a whole panoply of
weapons that exceed the imagination of science fiction. In sum, therefore, the
new militarism is designed to forestall and overcome declining empire.
This book is a must read for the peace movement
because it indicates the dangerous world in which we live, the emergence of a
New Cold War with China, and the increased probability of global destruction.
It suggests that peace activists must continue to oppose militarism and develop
a public discourse that celebrates the emergence of a multi-polar world, a
world in which more countries can participate in global policy-making. The alternative
could be, as the atomic scientists warn, a nuclear apocalypse.
As to an older narrative of challenges to
United States hegemony during Cold War I see:
http://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2018/05/strategy-of-empire-in-decline-cold-war.html
