Twilight and the tyranny of numbers

Three books out writing the epitaph for America's leading role on the world stage. One of them - the last of the three reviewed, The Frugal Superpower, by Michael Mandelbaum - strikes me as getting it right:

The Frugal Superpower argues that the Afghan War is no aberration. It marks the beginning of a new era of constraint in US foreign policy. After the crash, it is increasingly apparent that “mounting domestic economic obligations will narrow the scope of American foreign policy”. In a brief but remorseless work, Mandelbaum first sets out “the tyranny of numbers” and the growing claims on America’s budget. In his view this will make America less able to play the central role in the international system that the US, and the rest of the world, has come to take for granted. America will “no longer provide as large a market for other countries’ exports”. And there will be no further Iraq or Afghan wars, since the US will lack the resources to embark on expensive exercises in state-building.

The Iraq and Afghan wars have hardly been advertisements for the beneficial use of American power. So many people, both in the US and around the world, might greet the prospect of a new era of American foreign policy restraint with applause and relief. Mandelbaum believes, however, that a diminished American global role will destabilise international relations and will open the way for Russia and China, in particular, to challenge the global order established by the US in the aftermath of the cold war.

In the mean time, the hope that China is just another Japan-style bubble strikes me as ephemeral at best.