Andrew Sullivan recently wrote a column for the Times Online called "America wakes up to the shift in global power."  Sullivan's column is a response to recent Pew Research Center polls that have found record levels of support for positions on international affairs commonly labeled "isolationist."  According to the polls, 44 percent of Americans feel the U.S. should "go its own way" on international affairs; 49% of Americans believe the U.S. should "mind its own business."  The same poll shows a majority of Americans think of China as the world's pre-eminent economic power and that 47% think Afghanistan will revert to the Taliban after U.S. troop withdrawal. 

Sullivan interprets the polls as showing a new public recognition of global realties.  It is rare for me to disagree with Sullivan, however, I feel the poll results are skewed by disappointment with current U.S. international policy, a populace manipulated by politicians and media, public recognition of American hypocrisy, a poor economy with unsustainable debt, a very short-term perspective, a widespread zero-sum worldview, and a more-interconnected world.  That is to say, the poll results reflect pessimistic dread and misunderstanding more than reality.  That is not to say, however, that America isn't on a dangerous path.  I have clarified my position on America's standing in the world in my article, The Default Power and the Sword of Damocles.

To suggest that the results of the Pew polls - given the way they were asked and current American overextention - amounts to isolationism is unfair.  Isolationism is a charged word, suggesting a return to the Monroe Doctrine, whereby America pledges zero engagement in foreign affairs in exchange for being left alone.  I don't think advocating the U.S. "going its own way" or "minding its own business" is the same as zero participation in international affairs.  It's more than possible that polled individuals self-qualified these statements by factoring in America's current beligerence. 

Let us examine Americans's collective state of mind from the September 11th attacks until now: a "conservative" President Bush and a lazy and complicit media terrorized Americans into believing that Al Qaeda was in Iraq, malls in Ohio were terrorist targets, and that the terrorists attacked us because they hate freedom, based-on a simple color-coded scheme for measuring threat levels used for political gain.  The people are confused now because their anti-war candidate appears to be escalating hostilities.  The attractiveness of America's ideals loses lustre when this is realized and the two ensuing wars turn out to be about managing sectarian strife and supporting a puppet regime.  Given the awareness of the incompetence of our previous President and the dubious causes for which our young men and women are dying in droves, a step towards "isolationism" via a smarter and softer international policy is an attractive option. 

Among the many idiotic responses to Sullivan's Sunday Times column, Jim Smith's comment is a beacon of reason in a sea of fear and loathing:

But I think America doesn't really have it so bad. It may not be able to manage being hegemonic, but still has power that is unmatched. It has far and away the most military spending and most powerful military, the largest economy, a top innovator, a growing population, a very influential culture, still has a lot of political and diplomatic power, etc etc. I think it is inevitable that power shifts away from America. After WW2, with all other developed nations in rubble, the US economy was over half the size of the world economy. Of course that will shift and it has, and it will continue to. The US is now 25% of the world economy with 4% of the population. The relative size of the economy will shrink. But still, America, along with Europe, will have some of the highest standards of living for at least as long as our lifetimes. I think all the doom and gloom is unfounded.     

Indeed, a simple comparison of China and America suffices to show the idea of American decline and replacement by China is not a reality, but unfounded.  As the Economist reports:

China’s economy is still less than a third the size of America’s at market exchange-rates. Its GDP per head is one-fourteenth that of America. The innovation gap between the two countries remains huge. America’s defence budget is still six times China’s. As for the Treasury bills, dumping them is not an option for China: a tumbling dollar would hurt its own economy (see article). And as American consumers spend less, while Chinese stimulus boosts its domestic spending, the huge and politically troublesome trade imbalances are shrinking. In the meantime, the danger of overegging China’s economic expansion abroad is that it will fuel protectionism at a time when American unemployment is painfully high.

In terms of geopolitical power, China has neither the clout nor the inclination to challenge America. Confidently though China’s leaders now strut the world stage, they remain preoccupied by simmering discontent at home: there are tens of thousands of protests each year. For all the economic progress, all sorts of tensions—social, cultural, demographic, even religious—haunt the regime and help explain why it resorts to nationalism so often. So it is odd, and wrong, that America’s approach towards China is driven by its own insecurities.

America remains, in the words of Joseph Joffe, "the Default Power."  What that means is that no one is powerful enough to challenge it.  It is advantageous for America to be conscious of its own weaknesses now, when it's rule is secure.  It signals to leadership that profligate debt-based spending at home, beligerence abroad, and spurning of the international community is in no one's best interest.  A more-responsible global outlook could accomplish much. 

Where this starts is in purging the zero-sum Platonism from our collective way of thinking.  Economic development in the rest of the world does not mean America loses power.  While the Marshall Plan directly enriched Europe, its principle beneficiary was the United States, which gained major trading partners and diplomatic, cultural, and economic influence over a free-for-all zone destroyed by two wars.  If China and other countries become wealthier, it is through international cooperation and an increasing interconnectedness.  As the world superpower, America has the opportunity to lead a great economic cooperation that makes everyone better off at no one's expense.  The Neocon policy, however, far from offering a solution, paints America not as Class President, but as class bully.  No one wants that, least of all Americans it seems.