Alwaght- John Ikenberry, a theorist of international relations and United States foreign policy and a professor of Politics and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, in a 2014 article titled the “The Future of the Liberal World Order” that was published by the Foreign Policy magazine pointed to the world power. Ikenberry suggested that a change of the global power, decline of the US power, and demise of the unipolar global system are collectively under way. The age of the US is nearing its end, and an East-styled world order is taking the place of the West-fashioned world order. The American theorist continued that the world is witnessing rise of emerging powers while the American strength is under a process of erosion. The global power change is taking place because there is a transfer process that takes power from the West and delivers it to the East. China is in the center of this big change, and the American media can confirm that very soon China will overcome the US as the biggest global economy. So, the world is exposed to an essential change, a change of global power from a concentrated to multipolar power. Ikenberry dubs this condition “power distribution system”. China is the biggest beneficiary of this power shift.
There are other ideas expressed about the US power's abatement by a number of economic and political pundits who keep a close eye on the course of the US policies and their outcomes for Washington. They follow here in brief.
Gideon Rachman: American decline
Gideon Rachman, the foreign policy commentator of the Financial Times, maintains that the US must scrutinize ways to deal with its strength decline. He continues that Washington will never experience the domination over the world it saw following the fall of the rival Soviet Union. From 1991 up to 2008, the year it suffered an overwhelming economic crisis, the US experienced 17 years of its global hegemony. But as a result of the social and economic troubles of 2008 recession, not only Washington lost its superior global position but also it is now far from restoring it afresh. Those days are gone for the US, according to Rachman. The fast economic and military developments of China pose a long-term threat to the American global hegemony. In fact, suggests Rachman, today the vying is between a rising China and a wilting US around a series of cases. In addition to China, the weakening America also faces such emerging powers as Brazil, Turkey, India, and Iran. Each and every one of these countries have their own independent foreign policy priorities that restrict the US potentials for engineering a fresh world order.
Michael Cox: power shift and Western decline
Michael Cox, the professor of the international relations at the London School of Economics, notes that in the early 21 century the world faced a reality of power shift in which the US and the West have been declining and a new world order has been under fashioning by countries of BRICS, an acronym of an association of five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
Noam Chomsky: America is an empire in decline
Noam Chomsky, the prominent American theorist and thinker, calls the US the declining empire. In Chomsky's point of view although the principles of the US' imperialistic superiority have been altered, Washington has considerably lost the capability of implementing its imperialism. America is seeing a depletion of its power both at home and abroad, maintains Chomsky.
Fareed Zakaria: The Post-American World
Fareed Zakaria, the American neo-realist theorist believes that the world is moving from the American age to the post-American age. Zakaria argues that the world we have ahead is a world in which the US does not have the economic leadership nor does it have the geopolitical superiority. At the same time, it does not dominate the culture of such a new world. Rather, it is seeing its power declining. Zakaria adds that the world is viewing “rise of the rest” to shape a new global outlook. In this outlook the global power and wealth is under transfer. The power and wealth are moving away from the US. The American theorist maintains that the world is stepping into the post-American world, a world whose direction and nature is determined by many people in many areas of the world.
Brookings Institute: The post-American age
The Brookings Institute has its word on the decline of the US power. It says that many economic and political observers believe that the US power is abating. Since the economic crisis of 2008, the issue of fall of American power was raised in China and some other countries. Some people, including the American of them, believe that the unavoidable attrition of the US power has started and the world is entering in the post-American age.
Harvard Business School: broken American political system
According to the findings of the Harvard Business School, the American political system is broken and the economy is struggling as it falls. The US growth and welfare ended twenty years ago. The American dream is at stake, according to the HBS. The Americans no longer trust their political leaders and the political polarization has hit remarkably a new high record. The Americans are disillusioned with their country’s political mechanism and are less trusting the two major political parties. These political and economic conditions indicate that the American dream is subject to risks.
Joseph Nye: US power decline outlook
In the viewpoint of Joseph Nye, the American soft power and public diplomacy theorist, the future of the American power is harshly challenged. He maintains that the 2008 economic crisis can be regarded as the onset of the US decline. The National Intelligence Council has predicted that up to 2025 the US will still be called a global power but it will lose global domination. Nye says that in the current century we can compare the American power to British power in last century, and then come out with the notion of falling US hegemony. But, Nye says, America will not absolutely fall, rather, its fall will be relative.
Alfred McCoy on US power
Alfred McCoy, the American professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, notes that death of the US as a superpower can be faster that everyone imagine. McCoy says the demise will be complete by 2025. He adds that global power and wealth transfer from the West to the East is under way.
In 2012, 65 percent of the Americans believed that they country was on the brink of collapse. McCoy argues that the biggest drive for this collapse is the American militarism.
William Norman Grigg: The reasons behind US decline
The American collapse has happened, says Grigg, because the US showed signs like poverty, crime, illiteracy, and other maladies that are characteristic of the “third world.” Grigg ties the roots of US power decline to the "wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice, and politics without principle."
Stephen Cohen: end of US' sway
Stephen Cohen, the professor of the Russian studies at the Princeton University and New York University says that the US will lose power and influence. He continues that American sway in the world is fading away and it is hard to predict its restoration. The standards of living in the US have seen a shrinkage compared to developed and developing countries. According to Cohen, the US was a country with power, wealth, and influence. However, everything is changing and the dream of liberalism is nearing its end.
