Dream of global empire fades by Jeffrey D. Sachs Project Syndicate 12:10pm 31st Mar, 2004   March 31, 2004    A year ago, the United States tried to bully the world into supporting an unprovoked war, claiming that anybody who didn't believe in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was either a fool or an accomplice of terrorists. Now we know that the government and its few allies were wrong. Yet the Bush administration's bullying behavior continues.    The United States could be a force for good. A World Health Organization study shows that America could finance the control of many other killer diseases (including AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis) for a fraction of the money it wastes in Iraq. Instead, we give less to the world's poor as a share of national income than any other donor country, while the annual U.S. military budget -- about $450 billion -- roughly equals that of the rest of the world combined.    Despite its wealth and military might, America's ability to project power -- for good or ill -- will decline in future years, for at least five reasons:    • Budget crisis. Thanks to President Bush's tax cuts and military spending, which contribute to budget deficits of $500 billion per year, the United States will have to raise taxes and limit budget spending. The annual military budget, increasing by $150 billion since Bush took office, will need to be cut.    • Massive foreign debt. Asia's central banks hold hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. securities. Japan alone has foreign exchange reserves of around $750 billion, much of that in U.S. treasury bills. China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan together have another $1.1 trillion in foreign reserves. Only Asian central banks have prevented the dollar from falling even more precipitously than it has.    • The world is catching up. America's big technological lead will narrow relative to Brazil, China, India and other major economic developing regions. China will have an economy larger than America's within 25 years -- potentially 50 percent larger by 2050. India, too, will close the wealth gap, with an economy conceivably the size of America's by 2050.    • Declining relative geopolitical power. China and India, which together account for about 40 percent of the world's population, will begin to play much larger global roles. With or without American protectionism, Asia's technological capacities and incomes will grow. So prosperity will be more widely spread, even if America's ego gets hurt in the process.    • Demographics will weaken U.S. militarism. Much of Bush's support comes from white fundamentalist Christian men -- a social group fighting a rear-guard battle against the growing social power of women, immigrants, other religions and secularism, such as the teaching of modern biology and evolutionary theory. The religious right's backward-looking agenda -- and its Manichaean worldview -- is doomed. By 2050, America's white population is likely to be only half of the total, down from today's 69 percent. By 2050, 24 percent of the population will be Hispanic, 14 percent will be African American and 8 percent Asian.    In the face of these factors, dreams of global empire will likely fade. This may happen sooner rather than later if Bush loses in an election that is certain to be close. Whatever the outcome, the United States cannot postpone forever its relative decline.    (Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University).    ©2004 Project Syndicate Visit the related web page
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