THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER
Looking in on America
Hank Eso
Sunday 5 October 2008
America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand.
~~Woodrow Wilson, 1916
The niche of this column has been its strident effort to remain impartial in its observations, regardless of the subjectivity of the issue under consideration. Since the Republican and Democratic Parties chose their nominees for the US presidency, I have deliberately shied away from commenting on the forthcoming presidential elections. My recuse must now come to an end.
It is my firm belief that the choice of who leads America from January 2009 onward, is naturally the remit and exclusive preserve of the Americans. That choice, of course, is now whittled down to two people: Barrack Obama and John McCain. Nonetheless, it would be delusional for Americans and the peoples of the world to think that whomever Americans elect as the next US president, matters little to the rest of the world. It could hardly be so. On this and other global matters, I share fully in those prescient words of Woodrow Wilson, “America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the ground”.
Yet, wishful as my fellow-non Americans and I may be, the choice is not really something we can control nor do anything about. We can only hope and pray that God and fate would give the Americans the wisdom to discern the difference in the choice they make, and the courage to do what is right. As things stand, the presidential packages are twined. A vote for either team would elect Barrack Obama and Joe Biden or John McCain and Sarah Palin. Insights into both teams are remarkably stark and revealing.
The Biden-Palin vice-presidential debate on Thursday 2 October, offered Americans and the world an unvarnished glimpse into the mindset of what many hope, will represent the constructive vision of a purposeful government. The debate, was perhaps, more revealing than the earlier McCain-Obama debate. Many – as much as 50 million in the US and another 250 million worldwide - watched the debate for the same reasons: to gain insight into the coming presidency and its next “heartbeat”. Many others, however, watched the debate for the same reason aficionados go to sports car racing: to see who will crash out. Gratefully, neither the gaffe-prone Biden renowned for his foot-and-a half-long words nor the greenhorn Palin, acclaimed for her political mis-education bombed.
United States of America is powerful and far too important to the rest of the world. Yet, America’s relevance would mean utterly naught, absent the rest of the world, friends and foes alike. Interdependence and globalization makes such realities imperative and inescapable. Consequently, the world is not immune to the global allergy that Ronald Steel defined in 1967 as “Pax Americana”. Indeed, a time-tested cliché that remains dominant and relevant, proclaims that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold. The possible outcome of forthcoming US presidential elections has combined with the jitteriness in US financial sector to give the rest of the world a serious pause. Understandably, the unlikely outcome of either, could spell trouble, globally.
In his seminal book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Paul Kennedy observed “the relative strengths of leading nations in world affairs never remain consistent, principally because of the uneven rate of growth and different societies and of technological and organizational breakthroughs….” The question in many minds now, is whether America has peaked and commenced its decline as a great military, economic and political power and how this might affect the world geopolitical dynamics.
The prevailing concerns notwithstanding, the fact remains that even though China and Russia strive as resurging superpowers to provide a counter balance to the US, America remains for now, the sole and dominant global hegemony. The ongoing financial crisis - the worst since the Great Depression – though particular to the US, is telling of America’s global reach and impact in good and bad times. As German Chancellor Angela Markel recently observed, the shock the crisis induced on the global economy translated to a “test of its mettle”. Read differently; we are all in this together.
Still, an American presidential election year such as this, is an appropriate juncture for Americans and the rest of the world to reconcile and take stock of global realities and the state of their political interplay. Indubitably, after eight years of Republican Party leadership rule, the results of America’s domestic and global leadership has been mixed at best, but more skewed to the negative or counterproductive, when compared to the Bill Clinton years in office. Ironically, such a reality does not diminish America’s global influence or the widely held expectations about its global responsibilities. Neither is it a guarantee that Americans will largely vote for the Democratic ticket.
Incrementally, the world has been shocked and troubled by America’s increasing unilateralism. Additional worries pertain to its exceptionalism. Hence, the tendency of its current leaders to choose precepts over accepted practices trouble many well beyond American shores. Reasonably, such an attitude has not been without costs and American allies and detractors are respectively mindful of the dire consequences of such sustaining that status quo. But its will be up to the Americans to decide.
Both at home and abroad, astonished learners and followers of American democracy continue to express concerns over the incremental erosion of America’s leadership values, including in the human rights and ordered liberties areas, all under the guise of fighting global terrorism. Another basic grouse is that increasingly and as dictated by partisan politics and national interest considerations, the US is perceived to be making global policies based on marginal national interests rather than collective security considerations.
In the forgoing context, many outside America now believe that the outgoing Republican Party leadership as well as those followers in the rightwing fringe, are inclined to accepting biased and warped public policies predicated mainly on fallacious historical notions and presumed truths. Critics of American foreign policies also claim that most of the contemporary policies are freighted with misconceptions. Many cite US policies on the Middle East, Kosovo, Iran and Pakistan, climate change, global commodities pricing, alternative energy as glaring examples. Furthermore, they underline mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan to buttress their concerns. They also blame US mixed signals as being responsible for the impetuous policies that got Georgia into trouble with Russia.
While it is America’s prerogative to articulate its foreign policy in consonance with its national interests, such rights are deemed subsidiary and peripheral when collective security of the international system is involved. Interestingly, well beyond prevailing concerns about America’s exceptionalism, the larger segments of the global community are hardly indifferent to the correlation between the predilections of the current American leadership and the wellbeing of the less affluent nations of the world. In our globalized system, where the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is being pursued haltingly, many still look up the America despite what they consider its glaring ambivalence. Such expectations are based on precedents and America’s historical record of altruism, which led to the founding of the American Peace Corps, USAID, and the World Food Program.
It is no secret that the rest of the world still expects America to do the “heavy lifting” on various critical global matters. Such expectations tally with America’s undeniable superpower role. Before the invasion of Iraq even those averse to American intrusive gunboat diplomacy as a tool of democratization, saw it as “empire-building for noble ends rather than for such base motives as profit and influence”(Ibid, Ronald Steel). Such acceptance or expectations, however, are by no means synonymous with other nations surrendering their sovereignty or rights to hold contrary opinions, complain or indeed, differ from America on an array of issues. As a custodian and beacon of democratic values, America can persuade, prod and even coerce its allies and foes into doing its biddings, but it can no longer dictate. It cannot dictate, not because it does not have the wherewithal to, but because it has long eschewed dictatorships, be they big or small, malignant or benevolent.
Equally, those outside America vent their frustrations as well as awareness that the US is hobbled by its own internal contradictions. As a nation, the US remains the vanguard of capitalism, but nonetheless a hugely outsourced, off-shored and indebted nation. With eleven trillion dollars in deficit, heavy indebtedness to countries like China, a collapsing financial sector and overstretched military, America irritates it allies by engaging on trade policies and patterns that smack of protectionism. In this context, it elicits very little sympathy, if any, from developing nations, which have been pushing for fair global trade policies meant to bring about some equity.
Unquestionably, the ongoing US financial crisis has vast implications and varied impact on global socioeconomic and political dynamics. Hardly any region of the world is immune. Though entirely domestic and particular to America, it will in the broader sense call for a review of how other nations follow and model their policies after America’s. The broad implications will inevitably include shifts in trends and in modulation of global import and export policies as nations seek to shield their economies from the negative impact of this crisis. Indeed, for the developing countries, the risks are even greater, the main ones being the possible shrinking of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the recalibration of world productive balances. Moreover, there are dire implications for America also.
More importantly, Americans have to understand that the global confidence on their country’s financial regulatory abilities stand thoroughly shaken to its foundation. A corollary is the now deep-seated conjecture as to the wisdom and merits of western laisser-faire adventurism in the financial sector, where financial conservatism within the eastern bloc, seems now a proven, wiser and more grounded option. Assurances, reassurance and remedial action will be imperative. However, American cannot do so with a weak and unfocussed leadership or one that is parochially insular in its outlook and disposition. Also, As William Greider once argued, “You can't sustain an empire from a debtor's weakening position--sooner or later the creditors pull the plug.” In this context, the US must maintain and ongoing dialogue with China.
While he was certainly grandstanding, Russia’s President Dimitri Medvedev had a noteworthy point, when he recently attributed the US politics-reshaping and tipping point financial crisis to financial “egoism” and declared that, “the time when one economy and country dominated are gone for good”.
All these are critical and salient factors those outside America take into account in wishing that Americans would do well on 4 November, by choosing a leadership that is more experienced, political shrewdness, less insular and better attuned to global political dynamics. Anything less would be foolhardy.
We already know what the choices
are. It comes down to two political tag teams: Obama-Biden and
McCain-Palin. The former is running on promises of “change”, but
cannot escape the dismal republican record of the past eight years and what
The New York Times called McCain’s “act of incredible cynicism or
appallingly bad judgment”. The latter runs on the “promises” of hope
and “change” but need to convince an exceedingly battered and skeptical
national electorate of its bona fides. Moreover, for both teams, the
present financial crisis, unmasked the dichotomy between the rich and the poor
in America and the fact that it is still the poor that pays the bills when the
rich or the politicians screw up. Additionally telling, is how both teams have
reacted to the financial crisis, given that except for Governor Palin, Senators
McCain, Obama and Biden are lawmakers, who had a critical role to play in
passing the $700 billion bi-partisan bailout plan, which must be repaid or
tagged on to the burgeoning national deficit.
Looking in on America, several points are to this observer, indubitable. First, whomever Americans elect as president next month will primarily be an American president before anything else. Second, hopes aside, the rest of the world will have nothing to do with making that choice, but must consequently, accept and deal with the elected candidate. However, how the new president governs, will largely depend not just on US domestic considerations, but also, on how he handles the tangible and cosmetic divide that separates America and the rest of the world as well as the ties that bind. A real handshake of mutually reinforcing and respectful partnership with other global leaders, regardless of ideological persuasion, will surely go a long way.
What's more, while non-Americans can do nothing to influence the electoral outcome next month, they do have a stake in the eventual outcome at the polls. After all, American politics has become too intertwined with global geopolitical realities and therefore, far too important to be left strictly to Americans. The world, this observer included, is watching with bated breath. We expectantly hope that Americans will do the right thing, for their sake and for our common destiny. May the best team win on 4 November!
With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.
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Hank Eso is a columnist for Kwenu.com (New Jersey). His commentaries on Nigerian politics and global issues have appeared in The New Times (Lagos), African Profile International (New York), The Nigerian And Africa Abroad, (New York), African Market News (New Jersey) and in Gamji.com and Nigeriavillagesquare.com © Hank Eso, Sunday 5 October 2008. Email: hankeso@aol.com