U.S. Leadership At Any Price

Reihan Salam has an interesting piece in Forbes on the question of American hegemony. He writes:

Yet we simply can't afford to look inward. Our prosperity is so deeply enmeshed in that of the rest of the world--and particularly with the prosperity of China, which has become our economic Siamese Twin--that turning away is all but unthinkable. Just as importantly, there is no plausible successor to America as global hegemon. You might say that we are the hegemon by default. The real question isn't whether America will still be called upon to lead.

Rather, the question is: Where exactly do we intend to go?

He answers: We need to encourage a more middle-class world.

I think that's right, but it also raises the question of why "global hegemony" is even necessary for such a task.

It's become common place to hear commentators suggesting that the world "needs" a hegemonic power to keep things in line. Politicians like to call it "leadership." This, in turn, leads to the perception that America must retain its global hegemony at all costs, thereby conflating the obvious need for a robust military with the need to defend our hegemonic prerogatives around the world. And around and around we go, until we're spending more money on "defense" than at any time since WWII while America is objectively more secure than it was than at any point during the Cold War.

More broadly, the record on this policy is clear. Empires, as Salam concedes, fall. Most never get back up. Like our credit-fueled consumption binge, it is an unsustainable posture.

It's also curious to hear Salam advocate for continued hegemony. It seems to me that a voracious military budget would sap needed funds for any of the policies he advocates in Grand New Party.