Ray,Originally Posted by Ray
The US is not "hated", in general, at least not according to most studies I have been aware of. When pressed, most who express discontent with America are quick to point out that it is not America, Americans, or American culture that angers them, but rather American foreign policies and how they are implemented. They are angry at our government To which most Americans would say, "get in line, I'm angry too and this is my fight, not yours."
But then, most Americans and certainly our politicians seem to be blissfully unaware of how are policies are perceived abroad. It used to be that large states did not have to worry a lick about what people thought, and as to states, only had to worry about what stronger states thought. That may still be true about states, which is why we place so much emphasis on nuclear proliferation. Gaining a nuke gives any small state a much louder voice than they had before, and those states who are already members of that club don't like how that forces them to change their security/influence calculus. More importantly, what I believe is still overly ignored, is that in the modern era large powerful states must take into account how POPULACES feel about the impact of their policies. Populaces are hard to deter. Populaces are hard to target. Populaces create a massive problem for large powerful states. Observe the past 10 years of "War on Terror" by the US as exhibit "A."
This is not an impossible situation to deal with, but it is a very new situation requiring very new priorities and approaches than those employed for the past several centuries, or perhaps forever. It's a bold new world. We have departed an American Century and entered a Millennium that belongs to the average person everywhere. States are in denial and lashing out currently, but states are evolving slowly as well.
So, yes, the US has suffered a decline in the Middle East as populaces there have grown increasingly resistant to a family of US foreign policies designed for a Cold War threat that no longer exists, and policies that have been far too slow to adjust to the changing times. Equally, the US is enjoying a growth of influence in the Asia-Pacific region as populaces and governments there grow increasingly wary of (while at the same time enjoying the benefits of) the growing economic power of Regional powers such as India and China.
The US is right to shift focus to the Asia-Pacific region, but not to rekindle old programs built around designs to contain the Sino-Soviet conglomerate of old, but rather to re-balance to the world we live in today. A world where Taiwan and Korea are no longer critical terrain necessary to keep China on the mainland, but rather are economic giants in their own right and quite capable of funding their own security requirements. A world where the US shares as many security interests with China as it has in opposition, and should seek partnerships to maximize the economies of working those interests together. Trust but verify. it won't be the first time that navies worked together to secure their shared interests while at the same time trained to fight each other on the day conflicting interests came to the fore.
The US may well someday be viewed as am odd historic anomaly of powerful nations an "Empire who paid retail" for what it took and that subsidized the costs of security for other nations on the backs of the American taxpayers. This is all going to balance out over the next few decades, but hopefully without the need for some major cataclysmic event to force that change.
We live in a era of transition. How well the US fares in that transition will be based upon how well we envision and adjust to the world that is emerging, not how loyally and doggedly we cling to and attempt to sustain the one that has faded into history. Meanwhile small states have options. They need not join one team or an other, but wisely spread their bets across many partners. This is not a bad thing, nor is it a new thing. It is just something that has been on hold during the odd, ideologically divided era of Cold War that has so defined that American Century.
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