The Roman Empire`s f all did not happen overnight: its citizens were unaware of a long-term decline, ascribing problems on the borders to the normal incursions from barbarian tribes.

But over time, these attacks sapped the strength of the mighty empire, until the Romans moved their capitol to Byzantium, far from the fierce tribes that assailed their Western boundaries. Finally, they swarmed victoriously into Rome.

More recently, the British Empire over which once the sun never set went into gradual meltdown following the First World War in which it lost the flower of its youth in murderous land battles in France. It also expended much treasure in that futile and costly war. Its status as a global power was destroyed by the Second World War that emptied its treasury and weakened its hold over its f ar-flung colonies.

While the First World War was the first indication of America`s rise as a world power, the next global conflict cemented this position. It was widely recognised that the 20th century was America`s time in the sun.

And now? Is the Trump era a harbinger of an empire in decline? On the face of it, America is easily the most powerful nation on earth, with the biggest economy and mightiest military force ever seen. It spends around $600 billion a year on defence, or, to put it another way, a third of global spending.

Yet it owes some $20 trillion. Its infrastructure is creaking, and increasingly its citizens are being pushed into poverty. The question arises as to how long America can retain its position of global top dog.

Its decline has been long forecast but, thus f ar, these predictions have been of f the mark. The reason is that power is not absolute, but relative to other states. Thus, the Soviet Union`s collapse over a quarter century ago enabled the US to rule the world unchallenged, except by non-state actors.

In a piercing analysis of the nature and durability of power, Paul Kennedy examines the reasons behind the decline of superpowers. In his bestselling book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, first published in 1987, Kennedy discusses the rise and f all of great powers between 1500 and 2000 in the most recent edition.

His basic premise is that a state`s strength can be measured only relative to other states. Secondly, ascendancy over the long term correlates strongly to available resources and economic resilience. Finally, military overstretch and corresponding relative decline is the fate of powers whose ambitions and security needs are greater than their resources.

All this seems obvious, but when takentogether, these ideas provide powerful tools for analysing how and why a great power declines. If we apply them to America, it becomes clear that there is what Kennedy calls an overhang under which a state can continue to project power for a while even when its resources are constrained.

Trump has promised to raise military spending, even when the US is outspending all its adversaries put together. How long can this be sustained while it carries a $20tr debt? One factor Kennedy does not address is the role of leadership. A thoughtful leader will look at his resources and gauge the political will of his people before deciding on spending more money on his military, especially when there`s no immediate threat. This is what Obama attempted, but was forced by circumstances to commit more military assets to Iraq and Syria than he would have liked to.

Meanwhile, Trump is bent on creatingenemies, losing friends and expanding the military. At the same time, he wants to increase expenditure on the crumbling infrastructure. Clearly, he will have to cut back on some items, and this will probably be on money spent on the poor.

Whether all this leads to America`s decline remains to be seen.

China and Russia, theonly possible challengers to America, remain regional powers compared to the world`s only superpower. But as Russia has shown in Syria, it is capable of challenging American hegemony in regions it deems crucial to its own security.

In relative terms, however, American power remains supreme. Its technological edge is unmatched, and its level of training f ar in advance of most countries. And yet, its expenditure on the military now exceeds its resources, and we have yet to see how long this imbalance can be sustained.

Although Pakistan is certainly no great power, we should note that its military strength has declined in relation to India`s over the last two decades. As India`s economy has grown rapidly, it is far better placed to sustain a powerful military machine than we are. Just as the US bankrupted the USSR by forcing it to spend money it couldn`t afford on its military in order to match its rival, so too has India pushed us into an arms race we cannot sustain.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

As the term implies, the object of terrorism is to spread fear. And in this, jihadi outfits like Al Qaeda and the militant Islamic State group have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The use of random violence against innocent civilians was first employed by young radicals in the 19th century when groups of idealists ranging from nihilists to anarchists set off bombs in European capitals. Their aim was to bring bourgeois governments down and replace them with their own utopian models. In fact, it was an act of terror in Sarajevo in 1914 that triggered the First World War.

Much of the world was accustomed to occasional violence committed for political ends towards the end of the last century. England and Spain were racked by acts of terrorism committed by IRA and ETA separatists, respectively. The United States, too, had its share of right-wing nuts who created mayhem in the name of obscure ideologies.

But it wasn’t until 9/11 that the United States woke up to the scale of the threat from global jihad. Before this stunning attack on iconic American targets, most Americans considered terrorism to be a distant threat that did not directly affect them. Suddenly, the danger posed by Muslim extremists was very real, and the idea that the enemy could strike Fortress America caused a trauma many Americans still have not recovered from, although 15 years have passed since that dark day in September that changed the world.

Although over 30,000 Americans die every year in gun-related incidents, President Obama has been unable to change firearm laws to make it more difficult for criminals and unbalanced individuals to buy automatic weapons. And yet, Americans are more fearful of terrorism than they are of the far more real and ever-present danger of a mass shooting, a peculiarly American phenomenon. So much so that armed guards with dogs patrol trains despite the fact that no act of terror has ever been carried out on the land transport system. Draconian new laws have been enacted, and a vast security apparatus has been created to counter the perceived threat from jihadist terrorism. According to a recent poll cited by the Economist, 77 per cent of Americans who follow the news believe that IS is a serious threat to “the existence of the US”.

Fuelling this kind of idiocy, politicians like Donald Trump compete with each other to ramp up this threat perception. The Republican candidate recently said that if America didn’t get tough on terrorism soon, “we’re not going to have a country any more — there will be nothing left.” This fear-mongering is happening in a country that has suffered very few casualties in terrorist attacks since 9/11.

In France, the reaction to recent attacks in Paris and Nice has been extreme, and far from making the country safer, it has made it a laughing stock. By attempting to ban the burkini, a score of mayors in cities along the coast have simply marginalised Muslim women even more, and prevented precisely the kind of integration Western politicians and pundits have been calling for.

The UK has followed a more inclusive policy towards its immigrants despite a robust antiterrorism approach. When a judge recently sentenced Anjem Choudary, a rabble-rousing Muslim with extreme views, to over five years in prison, liberal voices questioned the ruling. Choudary had been accused of swearing allegiance to the IS, and persuading gullible young Brits to go to Syria to fight there. And while he was an obnoxious fixture on TV, forever being asked to comment on issues to do with Islam, he took care not to actually advocate violence. So while few tears are being shed on his incarceration, many have suggested that he did not actually break any law.

While most countries have calibrated their response to the terrorist threat in accordance with their own laws and political climate, Pakistan has been unable to implement its National Action Plan despite suffering from years of jihadi violence that has claimed around 60,000 lives. Political will is essential to combat this existential threat, something sorely lacking in Islamabad.

Many countries have used 9/11 to garner international support in their campaign to crush nationalist groups that they have dubbed terrorists. Thus, Russia has been successful in almost eliminating Muslim Chechen separatists; India has launched a massive crackdown on Kashmiris demanding freedom; and Turkey is using lethal force against its Kurdish population in the south-east in the name of fighting terrorism.

Thus, the ‘war on terror’ launched by Bush after 9/11 goes on. And while the IS loses territory and some of its earlier appeal, the threat it poses as an inspiration for feeble-minded young Muslims remains strong. Its message is amplified in the echo chamber of the internet, and alienated young Muslims, born and brought up in the West, are still capable of carrying out ‘lone wolf’ attacks. After all, it doesn’t take much organisation to drive a truck into a crowd, as happened in Nice when 86 were killed as they celebrated Bastille Day last July.

And yet, despite clear evidence that much of the motivation and ideological drive behind these jihadist attacks emanates from Saudi Arabia, the West is reluctant to restrain the House of Saud. Scores of billions have underwritten thousands of madressahs across the Muslim world. Here, children are taught little but the scriptures by semi-literate clerics, and are unfit to seek employment in productive work. Saudi Arabia also funds Wahabi mosques in the West where poisonous literature is distributed, and close-minded mullahs preach their message.

There isn’t much governments can do to stop deranged individuals from being indoctrinated on the internet and carrying out attacks. But they can and should drain the poison from the swamp and pressure Saudi Arabia to stop exporting its Wahabi/Salafi ideology.

irfan.husain@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan