In every aspect of human existence, change is a constant. \u00a0Yet change that actually matters occurs only rarely. \u00a0Even then, except in retrospect, genuinely transformative change is difficult to identify.\u00a0 By attributing cosmic significance to every novelty and declaring every unexpected event a revolution, self-assigned interpreters of the contemporary scene — politicians and pundits above all — exacerbate the problem of distinguishing between the trivial and the non-trivial.<\/p>\n
Did 9\/11 \u201cchange everything\u201d?\u00a0 For a brief period after September 2001, the answer to that question seemed self-evident: of course it did, with massive and irrevocable implications.\u00a0 A mere decade later, the verdict appears less clear.\u00a0 Today, the vast majority of Americans live their lives as if the events of 9\/11 had never occurred. \u00a0When it comes to leaving a mark on the American way of life, the likes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have long since eclipsed Osama bin Laden. \u00a0(Whether the legacies of Jobs and Zuckerberg will prove other than transitory also remains to be seen.)<\/p>\n
Anyone claiming to divine the existence of genuinely Big Change Happening Now should, therefore, do so with a sense of modesty and circumspection, recognizing the possibility that unfolding events may reveal a different story.<\/p>\n
All that said, the present moment is arguably one in which the international order is, in fact, undergoing a fundamental transformation. \u00a0The \u201cpostwar world\u201d brought into existence as a consequence of World War II is coming to an end.\u00a0 A major redistribution of global power is underway.\u00a0 Arrangements that once conferred immense prerogatives upon the United States, hugely benefiting the American people, are coming undone.<\/p>\n
In Washington, meanwhile, a hidebound governing class pretends that none of this is happening, stubbornly insisting that it\u2019s still 1945 with the so-called American Century destined to continue for several centuries more (reflecting, of course, God\u2019s express intentions).<\/p>\n
Here lies the most disturbing aspect of contemporary American politics, worse even than rampant dysfunction borne of petty partisanship or corruption expressed in the buying and selling of influence.\u00a0 Confronted with evidence of a radically changing environment, those holding (or aspiring to) positions of influence simply turn a blind eye, refusing even to begin to adjust to a new reality.<\/p>\n
Big Change Happening Now<\/strong><\/p>\n The Big Change happening before our very eyes is political, economic, and military. \u00a0At least four converging vectors are involved.<\/p>\n First, the Collapse of the Freedom Agenda<\/em>: In the wake of 9\/11, the administration of George W. Bush set out to remake the Greater Middle East.\u00a0 This was the ultimate strategic objective of Bush\u2019s \u201cglobal war on terror.\u201d<\/p>\n Intent on accomplishing across the Islamic world what he believed the United States had accomplished in Europe and the Pacific between 1941 and 1945, Bush sought to erect a new order conducive to U.S. interests — one that would permit unhindered access to oil and other resources, dry up the sources of violent Islamic radicalism, and (not incidentally) allow Israel a free hand in the region.\u00a0 Key to the success of this effort would be the U.S. military, which President Bush (and many ordinary Americans) believed to be unstoppable and invincible — able to beat anyone anywhere under any conditions.<\/p>\n Alas, once implemented, the Freedom Agenda almost immediately foundered in Iraq. \u00a0The Bush administration had expected Operation Iraqi Freedom to be a short, tidy war with a decisively triumphant outcome. \u00a0In the event, it turned out to be a long, dirty (and very costly) war yielding, at best, exceedingly ambiguous results.<\/p>\n Well before he left office in January 2009, President Bush himself had abandoned his Freedom Agenda, albeit without acknowledging its collapse and therefore without instructing Americans on the implications of that failure.\u00a0 One specific implication stands out: we now know that U.S. military power, however imposing, falls well short of enabling the United States to impose its will on the Greater Middle East.\u00a0 We can neither liberate nor dominate nor tame the Islamic world, a verdict from the Bush era that Barack Obama\u2019s continuing misadventures in \u201cAfPak\u201d have only served to affirm.<\/p>\n Trying harder won\u2019t produce a different result.\u00a0 Outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates caught the new reality best: \u201cAny future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should \u2018have his head examined,\u2019 as General MacArthur so delicately put it.\u201d<\/p>\n To be sure, Freedom Agenda dead-enders — frequently found under K in your phone book — continue to argue otherwise.\u00a0 Even now, for example, Kagans, Keanes, Krauthammers, and Kristols are insisting that \u201cwe won\u201d the Iraq War — or at least had done so until President Obama fecklessly flung away a victory so gloriously gained. \u00a0Essential to their argument is that no one notice how they have progressively lowered the bar defining victory.<\/p>\n Back in 2003, they were touting Saddam Hussein\u2019s overthrow as just the beginning of American domination of the Middle East. Today, with Saddam\u2019s departure said to have \u201cmade the world a better place,\u201d getting out of Baghdad with U.S. forces intact has become the operative definition of success, ostensibly vindicating the many thousands killed and maimed, millions of refugees displaced, and trillions of dollars expended.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia remains in the field, conducting some 30 attacks per week against Iraqi security forces and civilians.\u00a0 This we are expected not to notice.\u00a0 Some victory.<\/p>\n Second, the Great Recession<\/em>: In the history of the American political economy, the bursting of speculative bubbles forms a recurring theme.\u00a0 Wall Street shenanigans that leave the plain folk footing the bill are an oft-told tale.\u00a0 Recessions of one size or another occur at least once a decade.<\/p>\n Yet the economic downturn that began in 2008 stands apart, distinguished by its severity, duration, and resistance to even the most vigorous (or extravagant) remedial action.\u00a0 In this sense, rather than resembling any of the garden-variety economic slumps or panics of the past half-century, the Great Recession of our own day recalls the Great Depression of the 1930s.<\/p>\n Instead of being a transitory phenomenon, it seemingly signifies something transformational. \u00a0The Great Recession may well have inaugurated a new era — its length indeterminate but likely to stretch for many years — of low growth, high unemployment, and shrinking opportunity.\u00a0 As incomes stagnate and more and more youngsters complete their education only to find no jobs waiting, members of the middle class are beginning to realize that the myth of America as a classless society is just that.\u00a0 In truth, the game is rigged to benefit the few at the expense of the many — and in recent years, the fixing has become ever more shamelessly blatant.<\/p>\n This realization is rattling American politics.\u00a0 In just a handful of years, confidence in the Washington establishment has declined precipitously.\u00a0 Congress has become a laughingstock.\u00a0 The high hopes raised by President Obama\u2019s election have long since dissipated, leaving disappointment and cynicism in their wake.<\/p>\n One result, on both the far right and the far left, has been to stoke the long-banked fires of American radicalism.\u00a0 The energy in American politics today lies with the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street, both expressing a deep-seated antipathy toward the old way of doing things.\u00a0 Populism is making one of its periodic appearances on the American scene.<\/p>\n Where this will lead remains, at present, unclear.\u00a0 But ours has long been a political system based on expectations of ever-increasing material abundance, promising more for everyone.\u00a0 Whether that system can successfully deal with the challenges of managing scarcity and distributing sacrifice ranks as an open question. \u00a0This is especially true when those among us who have been making out like bandits profess so little willingness to share in any sacrifices that may be required.<\/p>\n Third, the Arab Spring<\/em>: As with the floundering American economy, so with Middle Eastern politics: predicting the future is a proposition fraught with risk. \u00a0Yet without pretending to forecast outcomes — Will Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya embrace democracy?\u00a0 Can Islamic movements coexist with secularized modernity? — this much can be safely said:\u00a0 the ongoing Arab upheaval is sweeping from that region of the world the last vestiges of Western imperialism.<\/p>\n Europeans created the modern Middle East with a single purpose in mind: to serve European interests.\u00a0 With the waning of European power in the wake of World War II, the United States — gingerly at first, but by the 1980s without noticeable inhibition — stepped in to fill the void.\u00a0 What had previously been largely a British sphere now became largely an American one, with the ever-accelerating tempo of U.S. military activism testifying to that fact.<\/p>\n Although Washington abjured the overt colonialism once practiced in London, its policies did not differ materially from those that Europeans had pursued.\u00a0 The idea was to keep a lid on, exclude mischief-makers, and at the same time extract from the Middle East whatever it had on offer.\u00a0 The preferred American MO was to align with authoritarian regimes, offering arms, security guarantees, and other blandishments in return for promises of behavior consistent with Washington\u2019s preferences.\u00a0 Concern for the wellbeing of peoples living in the region (Israelis excepted) never figured as more than an afterthought.<\/p>\n What events of the past year have made evident is this: that lid is now off and there is little the United States (or anyone else) can do to reinstall it.\u00a0 A great exercise in Arab self-determination has begun.\u00a0 Arabs (and, arguably, non-Arabs in the broader Muslim world as well) will decide their own future in their own way.\u00a0 What they decide may be wise or foolish.\u00a0 Regardless, the United States and other Western nations will have little alternative but to accept the outcome and deal with the consequences, whatever they happen to be.<\/p>\n A Washington inhabited by people certain that decisions made in the White House determine the course of history will insist otherwise, of course. \u00a0Democrats credit Obama\u2019s 2009 Cairo speech with inspiring Arabs to throw off their chains.\u00a0 Even more laughably, Republicans credit George W. Bush\u2019s \u201cliberation\u201d of Iraq for installing democracy in the region and supposedly moving Tunisians, Egyptians, and others to follow suit.\u00a0 To put it mildly, evidence to support such claims simply does not exist. One might as well attribute the Arab uprising to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 Those expecting Egyptians to erect statues of Obama or Bush in Cairo\u2019s Tahrir Square are likely to have a long wait.<\/p>\n Fourth, Beleaguered Europe\u2019s Quest for a Lifeline<\/em>:\u00a0 To a considerable extent, the story of the twentieth-century — at least the commonly-told Western version of that story — is one of Europe screwing up and America coming to the rescue.\u00a0 The really big screw-ups were, of course, the two world wars.\u00a0 In 1917 and again after December 1941, the United States sent large armies to deal with those who had disturbed the peace.\u00a0 After the first war, the Americans left.\u00a0 After the second, they stayed, not only providing soldiers to safeguard Western Europe, but also rejuvenating the shattered economies of the European democracies.<\/p>\n Even with the passing of a half-century, the Marshall Plan stands out as a singular example of enlightened statecraft — and also as a testimonial to America\u2019s unsurpassed economic capacity following World War II. \u00a0Saving continents in dire distress was a job that only the United States could accomplish.<\/p>\n That was then.\u00a0 Today, Europe has once again screwed up, although fortunately this time there is no need for foreign armies to sort out the mess.\u00a0 The crisis of the moment is an economic one, due entirely to European recklessness and irresponsibility (not qualitatively different from the behavior underlying the American economic crisis).<\/p>\n Will Uncle Sam once again ride to the rescue?\u00a0 Not a chance.\u00a0 Beset with the problems that come with old age, Uncle Sam can\u2019t even mount up.\u00a0 To whom, then, can Europe turn for assistance?\u00a0 Recent headlines tell the story:<\/p>\n The crucial issue here isn\u2019t whether Beijing will actually pull Europe\u2019s bacon out of the fire.\u00a0 Rather it\u2019s the shifting expectations underlying the moment.\u00a0 After all, hasn\u2019t the role of European savior already been assigned?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it supposed to be Washington\u2019s in perpetuity? \u00a0Apparently not.<\/p>\n Back to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n In the words of the old Buffalo Springfield song: \u201cSomething\u2019s happening here.\u00a0 What it is ain\u2019t exactly clear.\u201d<\/p>\n American politicians stubbornly beg to differ, of course, content to recite vapid but reassuring clich\u00e9s about American global leadership, American exceptionalism, and that never-ending American Century.\u00a0 Everything, they would have us believe, will remain just as it has been — providing the electorate installs the right person in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n \u201cTo those nations who continue to resist the unstoppable march of human, political and economic freedom,\u201d declares Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, \u201cwe will make clear that they are on the wrong side of history, by ensuring that America\u2019s light shines bright in every corner of the globe, representing a beacon of hope and inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is America’s moment,\u201d insists Mitt Romney.\u00a0 \u201cWe should embrace the challenge, not shrink from it, not crawl into an isolationist shell, not wave the white flag of surrender, nor give in to those who assert America’s time has passed\u2026.\u00a0 I will not surrender America’s role in the world.\u201d\u00a0 With an unsurprising absence of originality, the title of Romney\u2019s campaign \u201cwhite paper\u201d on national security is An American Century<\/em>.<\/p>\n Governor Rick Perry\u2019s campaign web site offers this important insight: \u201cRick Perry believes in American exceptionalism, and rejects the notion our president should apologize for our country but instead believes allies and adversaries alike must know that America seeks peace from a position of strength.\u201d<\/p>\n For his part, Newt Gingrich wants it known that \u201cAmerica is still the last, best hope of mankind on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n The other Republican candidates (Ron Paul always excepted) draw from the same shallow and stagnant pool of ideas.\u00a0 To judge by what we might call the C. Wright Mills standard of leadership — \u201cmen without lively imagination are needed to execute policies without imagination devised by an elite without imagination\u201d — all are eminently qualified for the presidency.\u00a0 Nothing is wrong with America or the world, they would have us believe, that can\u2019t be fixed by ousting Barack Obama from office, thereby restoring the rightful order of things.<\/p>\n \u201cIs America Over?\u201d\u00a0 That question adorns the cover of the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, <\/em>premier organ of the foreign policy establishment. <\/em>\u00a0As is typically the case with that establishment, Foreign Affairs <\/em>is posing the wrong question, one designed chiefly to elicit a misleading, if broadly reassuring answer.<\/p>\n Proclaim it from the rooftops: No, America is not \u201cover.\u201d\u00a0 Yet a growing accumulation of evidence suggests that America today is not the America of 1945.\u00a0 Nor does the international order of the present moment bear more than a passing resemblance to that which existed in the heyday of American power.\u00a0 Everyone else on the planet understands this.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s finally time for Americans — starting with American politicians — to do so as well.\u00a0 Should they refuse, a painful comeuppance awaits.<\/p>\n _____________________<\/p>\n Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the author, among other works, of <\/em>Washington Rules: America\u2019s Path to Permanent War<\/a> and the editor of <\/em>The Short American Century: A Postmortem<\/a>, forthcoming from Harvard University Press.\u00a0 To listen to Timothy MacBain\u2019s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses how his students have come to accept perpetual American war as normalcy click\u00a0here<\/a>, or download it to your iPod\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n