Post-Class Debate Takeaways

This week's debate about the greatest threat to U.S. hegemony was a great way to end the semester. There is obviously no right (or wrong) answer to this question and I know I personally didn't come away with my foot firmly in one corner over another. The biggest takeaway for me was that all four forecasts were interconnected in some way. This made it difficult to completely refute another group's argument because there was usually a connection to your own. My group argued that the administrations pursuit of isolationist policies and our new "America First" mentality is the greatest threat to U.S. hegemony. Looking at it from the big picture, it is easy to see that the other arguments from the other three groups are all intertwined into our forecast:

1. China Group - As the U.S. withdraws from the international, this opens the door to countries who are eager to to fill the gap. Cue the rise of China.
2. Internal Division - The "America First" mentality and the administrations position on immigration is sowing internal division and increasing polarization domestically. This division makes it harder for us to course correct in the future and further isolates us from the rest of the world. 
3. GWOT - Isolationism is also not conducive for a country that has a global military presence and requires vast resources to keep the machine operating. Being cut off, or voluntarily removing ourselves, from the rest of the world will reduce our resources and make it difficult to sustain this global military presence. 

Another element that stood out about this assignment was that it challenged us to look at our country from a different perspective. Throughout our entire lives we have been hearing that "America is the greatest country in the world" and taught that we are the example to the rest of the world of how a country should be. We've been drinking the "'Murica Kool-aid" so to speak. This module reminds us that power transition is inevitable. Throughout history different actors have risen to power only to eventually see itself fall. It may not happen right away - the Roman Empire was in power for over 1500 years - but there is inevitably a downfall at some point. This exercise forced us to consider a future where our country is no longer the leading power and forecast our own demise. A rather bleak task if you ask me.

Reflecting on this module, I almost wish there was another week of class where we could have tied the past two weeks together. In Week 14 we touched on the different scenarios of transitions to a new global order: hegemonic institutions, constitutional moments, human projects. In Week 15 we debated what the greatest threat is to the leader of the current global hegemonic institution. If we had a Week 16, it would have been interesting to hear from the class what type of scenario would be most likely to happen if the U.S. were to fall. Would we transition to a new Hegemonic Institution- maybe with China on top? Would there be a new Constitutional Moment as a result of a global war, like WWIII?  Or would change result from a Human Project scenario? All four arguments this past week seemed to forecast a new hegemonic institutional order as the most likely scenario, but maybe the debate would have changed people's opinions. At the very least, I think we would have had a very entertaining class discussion about the future.