Sunday, September 05, 2010

Did America's problems today begin with FDR's New Deal?

Thomas L. Friedman hits the nail on the head in today's New York Times:
n recent years, I have often said to European friends: So, you didn’t like a world of too much American power? See how you like a world of too little American power — because it is coming to a geopolitical theater near you.
America has been there in the past ... American cannot afford to be there in the future for countries around the world who depended on our protection but then bashed us behind our backs.

Could it change? He writes:
Great powers have retrenched before: Britain for instance. But, as Mandelbaum notes, “When Britain could no longer provide global governance, the United States stepped in to replace it. No country now stands ready to replace the United States, so the loss to international peace and prosperity has the potential to be greater as America pulls back than when Britain did.”

After all, Europe is rich but wimpy. China is rich nationally but still dirt poor on a per capita basis and, therefore, will be compelled to remain focused inwardly and regionally. Russia, drunk on oil, can cause trouble but not project power. “Therefore, the world will be a more disorderly and dangerous place,” [Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael] Mandelbaum predicts.
Friedman adds that America is about to learn a very hard lesson and concludes:
An America in hock will have no hawks — or at least none that anyone will take seriously.
And I have a question: did the beginning of the end start with FDR's New Deal?

1 comment:

Joy Jackson said...

It begins to sound more and more like another Dark Ages but on a worldwide scale, doesn't it?