The Christian Science Monitor reported this morning on the enduring signs of US power despite the economic crisis. Many people seem panicked about America’s status as a superpower, so the Monitor investigated scholarly opinions as to whether ‘the American century’ is over. 

Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein brings his take to this coverage…

Still, what seems clear is that the experience of the Bush years, now drawing to a close amid the worst economic calamity in eight decades, have bolstered those who long predicted a clipped American eagle. “What George Bush did was turn a slow decline into a precipitous one,” says the noted Yale University sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, who has been predicting the end of the American empire since the 1980s.

“We’ve had two standout factors: the Iraq war, which not only demonstrated but actually accelerated this decline in power, and then the way this president put the American government in such deep debt,” Mr. Wallerstein says. “What we see playing out before us is the culmination of these actions.”

The Monitor concludes….

But for the moment, it’s the financial crisis that is providing a gauge of America’s enduring leadership capacity. With many economists citing international coordination as key to righting the global economic ship, one test will come Friday when finance ministers of the world’s seven major economies meet in Washington.

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