Is American Decline an Illusion?

Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Beckley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of Unrivalled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower, and co-author, with Hal Brands of Danger Zone. They discuss his article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Strange Triumph of a Broken America." They discuss the paradox of American power: Americans always think their country is in decline even when it is going from strength to strength economically and remains the most powerful and dynamic economy in the world. Michael recounts the many metrics that show that the American economy has vastly outstripped not only its autocratic rivals but its allies and the countries of the global south. They discuss the historical tradition of declinism in America and why it finds a ready audience. They also discuss America's great strengths --its geographical position, its relatively healthy demographics and its decentralized political institutions which have allowed the country to be a resilient source of innovation and dynamic economic growth. They also touch on how these strengths have also been, in a sense, liabilities. How they can lead to domestic political and social fragmentation as well as chronic strategic insolvency. They consider the danger of declining powers and how Russia and China fit into that framework, as well as relative versus absolute decline, what social psychology tells us about the propensity for risk taking when it comes to either holding onto what one currently has as opposed to seeking speculative gains as well as the degree of damage that the Trump Administration can do to the nation's traditional comparative advantages.

Michael Beckley's Latest in Foreign Affairs:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/strange-triumph-broken-america-michael-beckley

Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower:
https://a.co/d/5bpnkN5

Understanding America’s Contested Primacy:
https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2010.10.21-Understanding-Americas-Contested-Supremacy.pdf

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia