Recessional

I've often wondered if the people who brought us into Iraq have perhaps seen one Merchant-Ivory film too many. There is an unreal quality to the entire public dialogue on foreign policy this country seems to be having. There is also, more to the point, what I would call a dangerous delusion of the permanence of things, that this country has somehow been granted a quasi-divine historical exemption that will keep us in the top spot forever.

This has often been thought of before.

Our would-be viceroys, dreaming as they do of American exceptionalism, delude themselves into thinking that, since god loves us, or we're so special, that the laws of great power history have ceased to apply. It's likely that this idea should be filed in the same drawer that holds the New Economy balderdash of the 1990s.

In reality, America is currently making choices that seem sure to erode our position. One is the Iraq gamble, on track to cost $420 billion with the newest demand to Congress. Another is that we are taking no real steps to create a sustainable non-oil energy future. Add to that the simple fact that our industry is doing precisely what captains of industry thought a smashing idea a century ago in London and Manchester, which is to pump capital into developing economies - they sent sterling to America, we're sending dollars to China - and a worrying picture develops. If there is a challenge looming on the geopolitical horizon, it is China, a power that should be considered as the Wilhelmine Germany of the 21st Century. China is irredentist, politically unstable, and armed to the teeth; that's not a good combination.

The problem is that reality, let alone the analysis thereof, is no longer the basis of American policy. Which is why we're expending blood and treasure on a shithole in the Middle East instead of strengthening this country with, say, a new Manhattan Project to create new energy sources. Instead, we get macho posturing by chickenhawks and the pretense that our foreign-policy paradigm is a 'war on terror', which will seem like a kiddie party once China does what it has said it would do, which is recapture Taiwan and thereby instantly replace us as the dominant power in the Pacific. When that happens - not if, when - this country will have a very rude awakening.