The US is not a superpower anymore, is it?

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Next week the presidential elections will take place in the USA. Analysts discuss whether their results will influence the foreign political course of the country. Josef Braml, an expert on the US from the German Society of Foreign Policy, discussed the issue in Tagesschau from a geopolitical point of view. The expert believes that the point is not in who will win the elections – Barack Obama or his republican opponent Mitt Romney: US activity is limited in the period of a giant budget deficit. The consequences of economic troubles first of all influence the security policy of the USA, Braml thinks. The social and economic problems of the country are so huge that they put pressure on the political system, while Congress and the President ban each other's decisions. “The US global hegemony will not be able to provide the appropriate security, free trade or stability for the leading currency in the future. Instead of this they will try to place some global responsibility on their allies and opponents,” the German expert says.

If one looks at the record budget deficit of the USA - $1 trillion in 2011 – one understands how serious the situation is. The total debt of the US is too heavy for the economy and politics of the country. After mutual bans between President and the Congress and reduction of the credit rating by leading rating agencies, it should be expected that from January 2013 the country will reduce expenditure in almost all spheres, Braml states. In the next 10 years military expenditure will be reduced by $1 trillion.

Until now the US relied on an expensive policy of massive military presence in the world for providing itself with energy resources and transport paths. However, because of the poor socio-economic situation and vanishing internal political support this strategy cannot be continued. As a result, the security policy of America is changing at the moment. The number of unmanned aircraft for intelligence, defense, and destruction of enemy targets has been increased. The active shift to unmanned aircraft leads to the classic Air Forces losing importance and investment.

US foreign policy will still be concentrated on certain regions of the world where they have vital interests in the sphere of energy, i.e. the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The new priority of American security policy is the Pacific Ocean, for the US could compete there with China. To provide essential transport routes, the US has established close relations with Australia. Moreover, relations with South Korea and Japan have been launched to a new level. At the same time, Europe pales into insignificance for the USA. But America will continue to put pressure on its European partners to provide participation in international military operations. NATO will be influenced by the successful or disadvantageous implementations of Pooling and Sharing. The US expects that Europe will coordinate its defense expenditure effectively and support stabilization of troublesome states like Afghanistan.

The Libyan campaign is a good example of the fact that America will not be a front state in the future when a problem requires the international community to conduct a military operation. At the same time, this doesn’t mean that the US will stop using its military and special services to secure their interests in the world, the expert concludes.