Your computer will tell you that President Obama’s remarks in London today run about 4,200 words, if you run a word count check. If there’s a single word that describes the speech, it might be “triumphalist,” which has been defined as having “an attitude or feeling of victory or superiority.”
I am thinking here of one particular portion of the speech where Obama reassured his British hosts that, whatever the rise of new great powers from the ranks of what we once called the “Third World” may mean, these new powers can do nothing to disturb the position of the US and its allies as global top dogs.
Here’s the relevant excerpt:
And yet, as this rapid change has taken place, it has become fashionable in some quarters to question whether the rise of these nations will accompany the decline of American and European influence around the world. Perhaps, the argument goes, these nations represent the future, and the time for our leadership has passed.
That argument is wrong. The time for our leadership is now. It was the United States, the United Kingdom, and our democratic allies that shaped a world in which new nations could emerge and individuals could thrive. And even as more nations take on the responsibilities of global leadership, our Alliance will remain indispensible to the goal of a century that is more peaceful, more prosperous and more just.
Obama fleshed out why this argument is wrong with the following points:
This triumphalist tone may remind you (alas, I am dating myself here) of similar-sounding portions of George Bush the Elder’s 1989 inaugural address. Specifically:
We know what works: Freedom works. We know what’s right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.
For the first time in this century, for the first time in perhaps all history, man does not have to invent a system by which to live. We don’t have to talk late into the night about which form of government is better. We don’t have to wrest justice from the kings. We only have to summon it from within ourselves…
In 1989, it was hard to square George H.W. Bush’s rhetoric about the US triumphing at the Cold War’s end with the reality of US economic decline relative to Japan and Germany. In 2011, it’s hard to square his successor’s rhetoric about the US/UK alliance and its pivotal world role with various economic and diplomatic realities pointing to that alliance’s relative decline.
If things were as rosy for the Anglo-Americans in their position at the top of the global power pyramid, as Obama says, would we read stories like this one about the tremendous difficulties that the US is facing as its tries to wrestle the national debt and federal deficit back under control? How many military deployments can a bankrupt Uncle Sam undertake?
And would China be delivering ultimatums to the US regarding Pakistan, as happened earlier this month? These are just two stories, of course, but they show that (albeit anecdotally) the UK/US iron grip on global influence described by Obama is much more brittle than it looks.
No US leader has yet mustered the courage to go to London and say what really needs to be said to the ruling elites of both countries. It would be short and sweet and go like this:
And, in case any of President Obama’s speechwriters read this, here’s an idea of how that speech might sound.
