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形同苏联后期的美国

Jul 1, 2020 Harold James

普林斯顿——苏联是一片盛产政治笑话的沃土，苏联的政治笑话在该国文化中就像美国的深夜喜剧那样引人瞩目。根据一则流行颇广的故事，一位在红场上大喊年迈的苏联领袖列昂尼德·勃列日涅夫是傻瓜的年轻人最终被判处25.5年的有期徒刑——其中侮辱最高苏维埃主席团主席判处6个月，而泄露国家机密则判处25年。

特朗普政府对前国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿的一本新书所作出的愤怒反应上演了类似的剧本。这本书之所以被视为危险，与其说是因为它侮辱了唐纳德·特朗普，还不如说是它揭示了总统“令人震惊的无知”以及彻头彻尾的无能。如果说之前还有人没完全看清楚，那么现在整个世界都知道美国缺少任何战略方向感或连贯的行政领导权。

事实上，从社会和政治冲突加剧开始，美国当前恐怖景象的许多层面都令人联想到苏联的最后几年。在当年的苏维埃，长期被压抑的种族对抗和相互冲突的民族愿望迅速浮出水面，从而将整个国家推向暴力、分裂和瓦解的深渊。而在美国，特朗普对遍及全国的反对种族主义、警察暴行和不平等的抗议活动所做出的反应是，进一步挑拨美国在历史上就一直存在的种族裂痕。而且，就像苏联帝国崩溃时的列宁像一样，南部邦联领导人的雕像几乎在所有地方都被推翻。

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Harold James

Writing for PS since 2001
196 Commentaries

Harold James is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University. A specialist on German economic history and on globalization, he is a co-author of The Euro and The Battle of Ideas, and the author of The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle, Krupp: A History of the Legendary German Firm, Making the European Monetary Union, and The War of Words.

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david kupferman Jul 6, 2020

The Good Professor I think has sipped a bit too much sherry - to assert America is a late stage Soviet Union is a fantastic sound bite but little bearing on reality nor on history. Limiting to the US-Russian lens is myopic. The World has seen 5th BC Greek Drahmas, Byzantine Solidus, Arab Dinares, Venetian Ducats, Dutch Guilders, UK pound all as reserve currency... In their time they stood strong against headwinds. While Traitor Trump can do more damage, US Democracy is resilient, nothing currently in the World is a suitable replacement for the Dollar. Or does the Professor play the Bitcoin market and hyperbole?
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Alfred Toberer Jul 6, 2020

To suggest we should trust some "currency" created by a non-state is hard to imagine in the forseable future. Why on earth would one trust such a currency be it physical or not, given the record of the past. One might trust the state very little, but one would be even more naive to trust some private currency venture.
Gold? In a orderly world, it may well be a safe vehicle; in a disorderly world it would probably be a different matter.
Sadly there are no easy answers to the currency issue. The euro, the dollar and pound all have their problems. Asian currencies? Asians don't trust their currencies so why would you trust them. And there I suppose is the basic problem world wide; a lack of trust in our institutions. Sadly, Corvid-19 if anything has reaffirmed the basis for that lack of trust.
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Ray Comeau Jul 6, 2020

The decline of America began a long time before Trump arrived on the scene. If one wanted you could look back and see the worse thing that happened to America was the implosion of the USSR. Upon its demise the US became unbearably arrogant and self-dealing, assuming it was somehow made king.
Trump was elected in large measure because the myth of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism was no longer believable by at least half of Americans.
What Trump has given the world is a look behind the curtain into the hollowness of those myths.
- Michael Seleanu Jul 7, 2020
  
  What Trump has given to the world is a look at the formerly-unthinkable scenario of how easily a corrupt narcissistic demagogue could wreak havoc on the most fundamental institutions of the American system of governance. If that was unthinkable, the corruption of the entire Republican party is actually incomprehensible, and no amount of political psychology has been able to explain such an aberation.
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edgyinchina Jul 5, 2020

The BIGGER question, particularly for the average person, should be: Where is the best place to store money assets? Should I change money into Canadian dollars, Euro's, Peso's or Yuan ???? After all, average people will only survive IF they have money assets stored somewhere ELSE... Crypto-currencies only work IF you have a computer connection, an internet connection...which means electricity... without that your crypto-currency is worthless...
- Michael Heng Jul 6, 2020
  
  Silver, gold and other precious metals assets. Bitcoin and similar crypto-currencies are super-high investments.
  - edgyinchina Jul 6, 2020
    
    I was asking for the ‘average person'... Price of gold is $1800 per oz... not exactly affordable for the ‘average' person, and othe precious metals are approaching the same unaffordable area.... got any other ideas ?
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Douglas Rattray Jul 5, 2020

Many would agree that the US is in decline on any number of measures. However this piece appears to be a headline grabbing, superficial comparison to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We should expect more rigorous analysis from an academic.
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Michael Heng Jul 5, 2020

A more searching question to ask is this. What is it in the USA that has launched Donald Trump into the White House? What have his predecessors and all others who matter done to create the conditions that sway American voters to choose Trump? Perhaps more than blaming Trump, we should blame these people.
If these people could realize their sins of commission and omission, why are they not coming forward to, at the very least, correct their mistakes.
- edgyinchina Jul 5, 2020
  
  You ask: 'What is it in the USA that has launched Donald Trump into the White House?'
  
  Our leaders, our politicians are merely a reflection of the population that elects them... If you have selfish, nasty, mean and ignorant citizens... You get selfish, nasty, mean and ignorant leaders... Garbage in, Garbage out...
  
  'If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.' A. Lincoln, delivered to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838.
  - Michael Heng Jul 6, 2020
    
    Thanks for your comments and quote.
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- Barry Rosenfeld Jul 5, 2020
  
  You are 100% correct. despite the obvious, to those who care to look, decline of the US, at least in relative terms, during the past three years, a large part of the population is pleased with and supports the worst POTUS since Buchanan or Harding (take your pick). As Cassius told Brutus, the problem is in ourselves - as is the solution.
  - Michael Heng Jul 6, 2020
    
    Thanks a lot for your response and quote
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YL Chang Jul 5, 2020

More similarities: Brezhnev died in office at 76; Andropov became General Secretary in ill health at 70, Chernenko at 73 and died after a year. In 2016 Hillary Clinton was 69, Donald Trump 70, today 74, Joe Biden 78, Nancy Pelosi 80, Mitch McConnell 78. Gerontocracy both. In the USSR it was understandable, because they had lost a whole generation of men in WWII who would have been at the prime of life in the 1960s-70s. The lack of political talent in the US today has deeper reasons.
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The Priory Jul 5, 2020

I suppose we should be even slightly encouraged by the fact that an American academic is prepared to make the comparison with the end of the USSR even if it is a mealy-mouthed piece that dribbles off to nothing. The ugliness of Trump is the ugliness of America . He's Obama without the smiley face . All the shiny pretence of humanitarianism wiped away . We're in Syria for the oil, we'd like to be in Venezuela for the oil, but our attempts have been so incompetent we haven't managed it yet. And so on , and so on. America isn't going to collapse. it is collapsing not because of protests or Covid , but because it hasn't the imagination to re-invent itself. The selection of a 77 year old brain dead shell like Biden as a candidate for anything would be laughable, but as a competitor for the presidency it's either tragic or farcical - you decide. Still you can maintain the fantasy of America as a shining light if your pockets are well-filled and the fridge in your ivory tower is well-stocked.
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Gary Marshall Jul 5, 2020

The US is falling apart and it's all the fault of 1 fellow who has held office for 3 and 1/2 years. Before Trump it was paradise.

If it weren't for universities, most academics would be pumping gas for a living.
- lang Jul 6, 2020
  
  This is a mischaracterization of the article, which cites "the US system's dysfunctions." But the comment is typical of Trump defenders and Trump himself: shift blame from his disastrous record by pointing to predecessors' mistakes, actual or imaginary.
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- edgyinchina Jul 5, 2020
  
  I didn't see where the author said: 'Before Trump it was paradise'... Can you point to the paragraph that's in. ? ? ? ? ?
  - Jul 5, 2020
    
    This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
    - edgyinchina Jul 6, 2020
      
      I read your reply several times, and I reread the entire main piece again, AND the comment where you insinuated the author said 'before Trump it was paradise...I guess the question was too easy when I asked YOU to point out those words: 'before Trump it was paradise' in the original piece... because you again cite your manifesto and your dogma, but don’t answer the question I posed to you... The author never said anything like 'before Trump it was paradise', so why do you insinuate that that is what he said, when he clearly did NOT ????
      - Jul 6, 2020
        
        This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
        
        Jul 6, 2020
        
        This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
        
        Jul 7, 2020
        
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        Jul 7, 2020
        
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Peter McLoughlin Jul 3, 2020

There are many who hailed the demise of the USSR: there are many who would welcome the same of the US. Within a decade Russia was rebounding under Putin. How would America respond to its reduced global status? The former case has not make the planet any safer; the latter would make it only more dangerous. Certainly military numbers have fallen after the Cold War. But that is no comfort: military forces were much reduced in the lead up to World War Two. What the Cold War showed is that nations cannot fight global-scale wars anymore. Dangerously, leaders seem to have forgotten that. They are not watching the pattern of history and learning from the past.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
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Elizabeth Pula Jul 2, 2020

RE: "annus horribilus"...

Since you mentioned "Soviet". I just thought that I would write just a few words about
"propaganda". Propaganda is not inherently or necessarily bad. Way back during the Cold War, US messaging slammed the Soviets. However, the Soviets really have a grasp of the intellectual context for public complex messaging. So do the Chinese. At times I think they have a better grasp of the significance and the importance of English word choice, perhaps even better than the British and the Germans at times, the FED is way up there too. However, Americans don't necessarily because of the Hearst news presentation styles, and subsequent messaging techniques based only on advertising. There really is a difference especially when you add levels of propaganda to the mix.

Since we are way past the Cold War, and have stepped beyond the FOX mix into the NO-GO zones of the present, we now get "annus horribilus" to scale to devour everything.

If VOA could merge with CSPAN, and the Academic leaders, with some touch of real class, maybe PS could really become a new leader of the PAC.

I've very liberally absconded with another little link that could help to clarify that Fake News and Mixed Messages are equally problematic. Clarifying all messages to stay on the point without a pitch or sell could help to help explain the dilemmas that many are experiencing to calm reactive behaviors that are out-of-control globally.

"Academic think tanks focus on producing extensive research reports and books, whereas advocacy think tanks focus on marketing their ideas with condensed materials. Think tanks of all types typically also organize conferences, provide briefings to legislative committee staff, and testify as policy experts.[24]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy

Yes, politics is complicated, but a straight face with sincerity can mean a lot to explain that due to circumstances of ignorance, no one is ever perfect in our very real world. Blame throwing accomplishes nothing. A few steps of sincerity in the present just might offset a lot of hatred, anger, and shame of the past of all peoples.

Unfortunately, the latest messaging about Christianity and slavery in the US, from NPR, was a pretty pathetic attempt to accomplish nothing.
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dushyant dushyant Jul 2, 2020

Regarding the point made in para 4, where America's brightest are sent to Wall Street are compared to Soviet Union's Gosplan, only to extract and destroy value than create it; a more apt comparison may be with the California tech giants, where the brightest and best gather and engineer social networks that poison public sphere and destroy common reality. This is tragic given the vast potentials of A.I. The best and brightest are being wasted.
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Michael Public Jul 2, 2020

Relevant vs absolute decline. Most who say America is in decline are absolutely right in relative terms. In the 1960's America was 30%+ of the World's economy, today it is about half that, and in 2040 it will be half that again. The ability to throw its weight around is diminishing as the rest of the World change of rice growing peasant into semiconductor engineers.

In absolute terms there is no decline. Even the worst case black swan event - Covid-19 - will only knock America back about 2 years in GDP terms. The fall of the Soviet Union put Russia back ... who knows...50 years?

A final thought - if you however measure decline as using another metric, economic inequality - then America is heading for guillotines in the town squares (if not soonish, then after AI adoption enters full swing in 10 years time and the gini coefficient doubles).
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Michael Public Jul 2, 2020

Empires in decline have similarities. However, they have differences too. Americans have an (un)natural ability to apply their efforts towards profitable commercial ends, whereas Russians prefer to pontificate on the meaning of life while drinking heavily. Not that either of these is more noble, only different. Rome declined for centuries before it finally fell apart.
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j. von Hettlingen Jul 1, 2020

Harold James says the US under Trump reminds him of the Soviet Union in its “final years.” The USSR collapsed towards the end of 1991, after 69 years of existence. The communist regime had been on its sickbed for several years when in 1985 the last Soviet leader, the 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm of a decaying empire hidden behind the Iron Curtain with a stagnant economy that had fallen behind the West.
Gorbachev believed reform was necessary for survival. He ushered in political openness (“glasnost”), which brought new freedoms and democratic elections, and perestroika (“economic restructuring”), which loosened government control on the Soviet economy and permitted limited private enterprise. The changes made him popular abroad, but he was reviled by many Russians as the USSR struggled through the transformation.
Since George W. Bush won the disputed election of 2000, the US had been in gradual decline. Obama managed its declining capabilities politically and economically. After the corrupt, ignorant, incompetent and mendacious Trump took over in 2017, the US global standing had hit rock-bottom. Lacking “strategic orientation or coherent executive leadership” – as if it was not enough – he insults longtime allies, trashes decades-old alliances and scraps multilateral agreements.
The year 2020 has become America’s “annus horribilis,” with Trump facing his bid for re-election amid a raging pandemic that has much his disastrous management to thank for. The social, economic and political factors have sadly aggravated the long-suppressed tensions at home. For the rest of the world, many fear the era of the US dollar's “exorbitant privilege” as the world's primary reserve currency may soon come to an end.
The author says, “the circumstances to which the dollar owes its longstanding hegemony are now changing. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving a more digitalized form of globalization. While the cross-border movement of people and goods plummets, information is flowing like never before, ushering in an increasingly weightless economy.”
What threatens the dollar’s dominance is Trump’s weaponisation of the currency “for political ends.” According to the author, “financial and secondary sanctions were highly effective in their original form, when they were directed against small, isolated bad actors like North Korea. But their more extensive deployment against Iran, Russia, and Chinese companies has proved counterproductive. Not only Russia and China but also Europe have quickly taken steps to develop alternative mechanisms for international payments and settlement.”
In recent years “non-state digital payments systems are also undergoing rapid development…in places where the state is weak, distrusted, or otherwise lacking credibility. The payments revolution will likely occur fastest in poor countries…. in Africa or some former Soviet republics. New digital technologies already offer these societies the means to move from poverty….and the chance of innovation and prosperity.”
It remains to be seen whether cyptocurrencies, that lack government backing will win the trust of the wider public, and be the “alternative safe assets” beating the dollar’s “longstanding centrality.” In the past the US currency “reflected global demand for a deep, liquid safe asset….. the dollar’s long reign over the international financial system depended on the US remaining economically stable, financially credible, and culturally open. Now that the US system’s dysfunctions are being laid bare, the rest of the world may start to question its basic competence and state effectiveness.”
No doubt Covid-19 has made the US an “international embarrassment,” with over 2.6 million confirmed cases and over 127.000 deaths. “Under these conditions, the dollar won’t be able to buy as much internationally as it once did, and it may even start to look like the old Soviet ruble, even if there is a dramatic change in leadership and strategy." The author seems to suggest that even if Joe Biden beats Trump in November, it might be too late to repair the damage inflicted on the US, because its “malaise had become terminal,” that had ushered in the end of the Soviet era.
Let us hope that the author's pessimism will not come to pass. Americans had gone through a lot in history, and they will survive the Trump presidency. As long as they come to terms with the new reality - a multipolar order - they will learn to cope with their future.
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Petey Bee Jul 1, 2020

Trump will be out relatively soon, or a little over 4 years worst case. The role of the dollar will change little in that time. Alternative systems will grow to be more resilient, but would they offer holders of wealth the comforts and privileges of the US-EU financial system? Unlikely.

On the other hand, the dysfunctions and abuses of this country's management are proceeding with inexorable momentum. Driven at the root by simple greed, they are politically bipartisan, and evolved very effectively to resist reform. This will not go away.

While the unwinding of an empire is a long road, it looks like the decoupling of the US-China symbiosis (and EU-China also) are proceeding in earnest. China possesses the biggest industry in the world already, and is on track to reach both technological and military parity in the early 2030s. Dreams of any direct or indirect victory, of the neocon type, are out. Sabotage of 3rd parties is in, especially Latin America and South Asia.

I'm not sure if the Soviet example is quite right. The educated there, equivalent to the "professional managerial class" of the present day US, were thoroughly disillusioned with the system already in the 1970s. This was in parallel to a sentiment that existed here but was successfully stopped around 1980. What will be the legacy of "centrist" aka pro status quo Dems and Republicans, coopting and defeating the left and right wing efforts at social transformation? No way to tell.

The only thing I would be confident of, is that our habit of supporting right wing regimes abroad, for their business friendly features, will be regretted.
- edgyinchina Jul 5, 2020
  
  I don't think Putin's Poodle will be gone soon, as you suggest in the opening line of your comment.... Delayed and or cancelled elections are more likely, followed by emergency declarations citing possible massive voting fraud. With the GOP (Government of Putin) controlled US Senate and SCOTUS, It'll be game over for the US... Putin wins, without firing a shot....
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Robert Wolff Jul 1, 2020

Metaphysics, Lies, Sarcasm and [the finale] Humor mean "The End is Nigh!"

Since America is so badly in need of spiritual leadership I am predicting a Catholic 'Canon of Last Rites' given by Papal Decree to all Americans who die of Coronavirus:
"All Americans who die of Coronavirus are granted entrance to Heaven."

This could calm the national delirium.
- Michael Public Jul 2, 2020
  
  "...are granted entrance to Heaven."
  Materialism is on the rise. Many Americans would prefer a fiscal decree that if they die of Covid-19, they pay no income tax for that year. Of course, the irony is lost on them...
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Alex Eduardo Gudiel Nistal Jul 1, 2020

Excelent poit of view and vision about the possible future of EE.UU.
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形同苏联后期的美国

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