A world without America as No 1
Kishore Mahbubani says US denial about its loss of dominance in a changing world will only undermine our ability to cope with new problems. Reform of global agencies remains the best hope
Long before anyone else, former US president Bill Clinton saw that America would have to prepare for the time when it would no longer be the No 1 power in the world. In his 2003 Yale University address on "Global Challenges", he said: "If you believe that maintaining power and control and absolute freedom of movement and sovereignty is important to your country's future, there's nothing inconsistent in [the US continuing to behaving unilaterally].
"[The US is] the biggest, most powerful country in the world now … But if you believe that we should be trying to create a world with rules and partnerships and habits of behaviour that we would like to live in when we're no longer the military political economic superpower in the world, then you wouldn't do that. It just depends on what you believe."
Long before 2003, Clinton wanted to begin preparing Americans for this new world. "Clinton believed … what we had in the wake of the cold war was a multilateral moment - an opportunity to shape the world through our active leadership of the institutions Clinton admired and [Charles] Krauthammer disdained," writes Strobe Talbott, former US deputy secretary of state, in his book The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation. "But Clinton kept that belief largely to himself while he was in office … political instincts told him it would be inviting trouble to suggest that the sun would some day set on American pre-eminence."
Sadly, few Americans have heeded Clinton's wisdom. Few dare to mention that America could well be No 2. I discovered this when I chaired a panel on "The future of American power" at last year's World Economic Forum in Davos. After citing projections that America would have the second-largest economy in just a few years, I asked the American panellists - two senators, a congresswoman and a former deputy national security adviser - whether Americans are ready to become No 2. To my shock, none could acknowledge publicly this possibility.