POWER CURVE: RISING, PEAKING, FALLING

Maple - as to the power of nation-states and empires, I am unsure if the moment of apogee, and the first moments of decline, are ever fully transparent to people at the time....but almost always seem to clear to those coming after...

I'll venture in Mapeleaf hope you don't mind. I voted that US power was/is on the rise. One example was the vote in the UN security council (15-0) to give Iraq one last chance to declare and to give up all WoMD. This was after considerable obstructionism by France, Russia and China to prevent it.

There was an excellent cover story on this theme in the NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago. Point was that, whether Americans want to view themselves this way or not, the US is an imperial power. Deciding on who should or shouldn't rule other countries (Iraq, Korea) or factions (PLO) certainly suggests imperial authority.

My question is: Do Bush et al. really understand what we're getting ourselves into with all this?

I don't know what frame of reference would produce any answer but one here.

Thus the rest of the world turns an (understandably) sceptical eye to the goings on and says, "Whoa there, big boy...I'm having difficulty recollecting just when it was we voted you in as Uber-Supremo."

Yes, Blatham, we are incredibly (fatally?) self-important. The Greeks knew about this flaw, this hubris. I don't think we're going to escape the consequences, do you? I voted for "peaking," but only because it's so hard to capture the tipping point, the rate of acceleration... And d'Artagnan: Bush & Co. understand very well. It's the American people -- who see themselves as separate from their government -- who don't want to see, don't take responsibility.

Tartarin

No, consequences will continue to accrue, that part is inevitable. There will be both good and bad, and both will stem from what the US has right and what it has wrong. I think it pretty clearly delusional to assume the US will escape the historical model of wounds self-inflicted and myopic self-reflection.

I'm not sure if you read Didion's recent piece which I've linked in a few places. There was a brief time after 9-11 when national introspection and self-doubt was legal. It didn't last long. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15984

Thanks -- you reminded me that I filed that Didion article and had forgotten to read it! Sitting in my bookcase are the half-read (in both cases) Didion book and Martin Amis' War On Cliche. I dip into them from time to time with pleasure.

Tartarin

My nightstand reflects your reading habits...a pile of books, some with pages marked, others where I didn't bother...and dog-eared papers and essays I've printed out sometime in the last year or two. It's chaos. But whatever my mood or hand reaches for will be worthwhile.

blatham, although I have not completed the essay, I thoughly enjoyed what I read. Didion definitely has a way with language. I'm afraid I am an internet news junkie...little substance there.

But it does raise to the surface, a feeling I have been harboring. The notion that weaponsl/technological might does not necessarily translate into moral right nor long term dominance. In that sense, one might argue that the U.S. may be falling on the power curve. I'm not much of a reader, so you and Tar may have to come up with an argument for/against my contention.

Nightstand? Nightstand?! Blatham -- my living room consists of a little furniture and many, many piles of books! By the time I get to bed, body and eyes have given up. (Well, the nightstand has a little tape recorder and a recorded book tape in it -- that's for going to sleep...!) No TV.

mapleleaf

It is, as bunnyrabbit says, a certainty not available to us presently. In terms of military clout, economic influence, and cultural pervasiveness, the US has no peer now. That'll change but it may be a slow process, and perspective on the how and why of it hopefully will not be available in our lifetimes. Might doesn't make right, of course.

To me, the worrisome part of this (aside from the ways in which I think the US may well be starting to dig her own grave right now) is the question of who would replace her? Canada, Denmark or Switzerland will have to bulk up a bit. But I don't want another state to replace her in the world...I don't want a new King, I want a democracy. If the US fails to evolve her power AND values towards an effective and just UN, then may historians (the few left alive) pee on every one of her flags with disgust.

Tartarin

Are nightstands illegal in your location near the border? Perhaps, in the dark of a moonless night, you ought to cross it.

There is no room here (are we having a bookish battle?) without books, magazines, essays, etc. Actually, include the car as another storage location. But I do my reading here at my desk or in bed at night, but the nighttime reading is for pleasure entirely, so everything I bump into that I really like goes there.

i guess i am going to have to get a book and learn to read, i feel so left out. can i get a night stand at the book store?

China? Eventually?

(I'm so dang pooped by the time I hit the hay, Blatham, that I don't read any more. Used to... but now I get up very early in the am, grab a cuppa, and sit reading for as much as an hour and a half. Brain works better then, absorbs more!)

Am enjoying the efforts to broaden the discussion beyond us/them, black/white, terrorists/Americans. Hope that the aftermath of what the US is putting the world through right now (should we all survive, that is) is a maturing of this nation. Our endless adolescent fantasy of power carried out with adult weapons has simply got to stop.

dys...I recommend the "Run Mistress, Run" series to bone up your reading skills.

dlowan...yes...what to do with the Yellow Menace? They won't be happy forever just making our running shoes and computers and....well, just about everything we use actually.

Tartarin...I do my concentrated reading in the morning as well.

"Run Mistress, Run" does that have pictures?

"Run Mistress, Run" sounds like some kind of canine training manual, from the dog's point of view...

Anyhow, back to the ostensible topic, I'm glad the Joan Didion article has been mentioned. I thought it was incisive. There was (and maybe there still is) the thinking that some in power would love to maintain, that questioning current US policies is unpatriotic. Osama Bin Laden et al are the ultimate evil, period. Trying to understand their motives is a waste of time and inappropriate. Find 'em and kill 'em. Period.

Will American unwillingness to accept ambiguity and complexity -- and to be patient -- be the end of us?