January 20, 2002

"It's America's World Now," says

"It's America's World Now," says John Humphrys in the Sunday Times, "but not necessarily forever." Actually, that's what the headline says. In the course of the meandering article, however, Humphrys, with seeming reluctance, reaches something like the opposite conclusion. (Yet another curious example of the headline-writer failing to have read the article carefully enough to know what it says-- why does this happen so frequently in British newspapers?)

America may one day be brought to her knees, but he's damned if he can figure out how. Arab terrorists couldn't do it; the Soviet Union, which once looked so promising, suffered from a pronounced Baywatchlessness. The quest continues:

I asked one of the most senior figures in the British military the other day how the world would look in 50 years. Would America still be the great superpower? Of course not, he said. It will be the European Union.

Very funny. Moving on: even China, which seems a pretty good candidate for a future rival, is dismissed because of "serious internal problems." "Perhaps," he weakly suggests, "the United States will simply implode?" The answer is: probably not.

So what is the point of this windy article? Beats me, beyond a cursory denunciation (apparently required by the editorial boards of all British newspapers for every article) of Camp X-Ray and an excuse to wheel out this old instructive story:

when a conquering [Roman] general drove his chariot into a defeated city, to the roar of the crowds, he would have a slave behind him whisper into his ear: "Remember that you are mortal."

This a slightly less edifying version, perhaps, of the erstwhile British aspiration to function as "the Greeks in the Roman Empire," and it sells the British a bit short. They are, after all, allied with the US, even if their press isn't fully on board. Yet I believe the role of the slave with the hubris-deflating message is one that the Europeans generally (and the British press specifically) delight in fulfilling. At any rate, it's more or less superfluous. The United States already knows it is mortal. It's just a lot less mortal than its enemies imagined it to be.

Plus, we have Baywatch.

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 20, 2002 11:59 AM | TrackBack