The End of the American Century

I might be going at things a little backwards. Most people concerned about our involvement in Iraq are probably looking for something positive to agree with. There isn’t much out there, ranging from the president’s most recent iteration of “stay the [ever-changing] course” to the Democratic rebuttal: “pull out now,” or “at least pretty soon.” Both options seem to offer great risks and only minimal chance of success.

When neither extreme offers an answer, reasonable folks look for someplace in the middle to find a compromise. This is happening in Congress as moderates from both parties try to build consensus around a plan for accelerated withdrawal that falls somewhere between Bush’s acknowledgement that his plan has large numbers of Americans in Iraq for decades and the anti-war Dems’ plans, which would have the troops home for Christmas, or at least Valentine’s Day.

For me, all sides seem to offer some compelling arguments, but only when they’re attacking the other sides. In other words, it seems clear to me that no matter what we do, it’s going to turn out badly. In other words, we’re pretty much fucked here.

To the Iraqis, “Oops.”

Imagine this as a platform for one of the dozen or so presidential candidates: “I promise [insert sound bite that substitutes for a complex military and political strategy], and I believe the results will be disastrous for the United States and for Iraq. Still, that’s what I plan to do.” But if you add up all the stark assessments of recent days, it’s hard to believe much of anything else. Petraeus, for all his confidence in the surge strategy, won’t project anything further than about a year out. Such projections, he concedes, have been unreliable in the past. Additionally, he’s afraid he just can’t say if the war in Iraq is making America safer.

This is a far cry from reaching Berlin by Christmas. Now that was a war that lent itself to calendar references.

What’s clear to me, and to most Americans, is what an unqualified disaster Iraq is right now. What seems unclear, or possibly just unacceptable to most everybody else, is that there’s nothing we can do about it. In fact, all sides make compelling arguments about how bad it will be if we do what the other side wants

Does this make me a pessimist? Probably, but maybe not entirely.

For a few years now, I’ve been thinking of these later years of my life as “The End of the American Century.” It’s coincidental that our American century happened to occupy roughly the 20th century and the end of a millennium, but it feels fitting somehow that the new millennium is going to look very different from the last one, America-wise. This suggests that the American empire was remarkably short lived. The Mayans, after all, had three thousand years, and they didn’t even have the wheel. We had everything from Silly Putty to manned space flight and we could barely squeeze out a century.

None of what I’m suggesting is particularly farfetched or even cynical. It’s obvious in Iraq, as it was in Vietnam, that American military power is unsuited for and ineffective against determined little insurgencies. But that can and should be seen as a good thing. We might even come to feel some gratitude to Bush 43 for so clearly illustrating in so short a time that American military domination is no longer an effective tool of foreign policy. In the end, if we want to have much influence on the world stage, it’s going to have to be as one nation among equals. The best hope for Iraq might be an international effort to rebuild, not destroy. We might try to get something started on that.

Or not. In any case, Iraq’s future is beyond the influence of American military determinism, as is the future of, say, Iran and Syria. The fundamental neocon principle of projecting American power abroad has been shown to be more than just a failure. It might, dare we hope, be America’s last such failure. In its place might arise a new American foreign policy of cooperation for mutual benefit, not premised on military threats. The possibilities are quite exciting, really. We’d just have to be patient with the rest of the world if they were suspicious for awhile.

American economic dominance also pretty much ended with the stroke of Y2K. The smart money for the new millennium is on China and India, but the millennium is still just a baby. Again, cooperation instead of domination might lead to possibilities that are difficult to visualize but not that farfetched. Imagine a significant part of our military budget going into education, and it’s possible to see an American economy that can still compete with the rest of the world. And imagine an economic theory based on cooperation rather than competition.

Personally, I think capitalism and competition are way over-rated.

If we weren’t spending all of our time and effort on world domination, we might be able to do a better job at home on some basics such as true universal health care, which by itself could save more lives than a dozen wars on terror. We might turn our creativity and determination toward developing energy sources which are cheap, clean, and entirely renewable. This would eliminate the risk losing Middle East oil.

Wouldn’t if be fun to thumb our noses at the sheiks and sultans? We could do the wave from coast to coast and find a way to hook that up to the grid.

The end of the American century does not necessarily mean total social collapse, as happened to the Mayans. Just as most countries have adjusted reasonably well to a post-colonial era, America could adapt well to a post-imperial era. We could be like France. Okay, Denmark then, but warmer.

But collapse is possible, as Jared Diamond documents in his book of that title. It could be triggered by an oil crisis, climate crisis, credit crisis, or an as-yet unidentified crisis. Like the Mayans, it could happen very quickly. In the end, perhaps our future depends on our ability to rethink ourselves into a new paradigm.

The American Century is over. Long live the new world order, whatever it turns out to be. Despite my tendency towards cynicism, I’ve been thinking of the last few years as a beginning.

My Summer Vacation

The weather begins a subtle but perceptible change that tells me fall is almost here. Afternoon temperatures are still in the mid-80s, but nights are cooling off faster. With nighttime lows in the 40s, the house is slightly cold as I write this. Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll start turning on our geothermal heat overnight to take the edge off the morning chill.

Around the neighborhood, leaves show the first signs of turning, and the pear tree in our backyard is already dropping fruit and leaves.

Summer went by so fast that it’s hard for me to believe it’s almost over. It seems like only a few weeks ago that I turned in grades for the three classes I taught spring term and immediately left on a five-day motorcycle trip. Travel throughout the Northwest occupied most of my time this summer, and I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home.

My first trip was to a BMW motorcycle rally in John Day. I’ve belonged to the Oregon BMW riders for over twenty years and have many friends in the club. Although I haven’t owned a Beemer for some time now, they still let me tag along and only slightly give me a bad time because I ride a Honda.

Shortly after getting back from the rally, I left again for Laguna Seca and the world motorcycle grand prix races in Monterey. These are the best riders on the fastest bikes in the world, and Laguna Seca draws tens of thousands of enthusiastic riders every year for the races and the festival atmosphere that goes with them. I was out for two weeks, making my way down through the redwoods and the Oregon and California coast. Usually I camped alone, but I also stayed with friends in Santa Cruz and met another friend and his sister in Big Sur, where we camped during race weekend. It was a great trip and I was out for two weeks.

As soon as I got back, I started setting up our little travel trailer and Mary and I left for another two-week vacation on Orcas Island in Washington state’s San Juans. We took four days getting up there, staying on the northern Oregon Coast. On Orcas we did the usual tourist things. We rented a kayak and took some lessons and an evening tour around the island. It was good fun, but I was a little surprised that I didn’t fall in love with it. I thought I was going to have to buy one.

I was more excited to rent a sailboat and take it out solo for a great afternoon in a brisk wind on East Sound. I sailed quite a lot on Klamath Lake when we first moved here twenty-three years ago but reached a point at which the limits of lake sailing dimmed my enthusiasm. I don’t doubt, though, that if I lived on the coast I’d soon be back into it.

For the most part, we spent our vacation enjoying the spectacular scenery and the good fun we always have together.

We got back from the San Juans a few days earlier than I expected, which made me realize I could still make it up to Portland for a meeting of Honda VFR riders. I hang around an internet discussion site devoted to this bike, and the Pacific Northwest subgroup was hosting its third annual get-together. After only two days at home, I expressed an interest in going up and got an invitation from the organizer to stay with him, so I hooked up with two other riders from Southern Oregon and made the trip.

There were about fifty guys, and my host Tim and his wife put on a magnificent barbecue, and all of us had a great evening of food and motorcycle talk. The VFR goes back to the mid-80s Honda superbike race machine, and the street version is now in its 6th generation. It’s widely celebrated in the motorcycle press as the best all-around sport touring bike ever made, and although there is plenty of competition now from other manufacturers, it’s still regarded as a superb and spirited sport tourer. It exaggerates but not too much to say it has a cult following.

The next day we made a group ride up to Windy Ridge to view the Mount Saint Helens spectacle. Mary and I were there a year or two after the eruption, and although there are visible signs of recovery, the immense power and devastation of the blast are still quite apparent.

Still, our stop was brief. Being motorcyclists, we were more interested in the power we were sitting on, and during the day we put in about 300 miles of scenic and spirited riding. I was rather proud to be able to stay with all but the fastest riders. (I believe in the Goldilocks principle of motorcycle pacing: people who ride faster than I do are riding too fast; people who ride slower than me are riding too slow. I like all my rides to be just right.)

Now it’s time to settle in at home and start to slowly catch up on all the deferred maintenance of my life. Mary is back at school and students return tomorrow. By choice, I’m not teaching this fall. I am taking a couple of classes: Spanish and Tai Chi. I look forward to being a student for a few weeks again.

It remains to be seen whether the community college will have any classes for me winter or spring, or if I’ll feel like taking them on. For now, I’m content to settle into fall, the cool and colorful season that invites us to wander aimlessly through our external and internal landscapes.