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State of the Union

By Ben Coleridge - posted Tuesday, 15 February 2011


Right now President Barack Obama is telling Egyptians that the only way forward is democracy and that the achievement of democracy depends on a united approach by all the parties at play on the Egyptian scene.  He gave a similar message to his own people - unity is the key - in his recent State of the Union address. 

This address was remarkable in a variety of ways. 

It featured an audience of Republicans and Democrats sitting side by side in the chamber in a sign of bipartisanship after the shooting in Tucson of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. But the speech was of interest beyond the abnormal seating arrangements. It was a speech clearly designed to be reconciliatory, to bridge the political chasm between Democrats and Republicans which has been deepened during the last two years by acidic debates over healthcare reform, the deficit and taxation.

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The issues which face the US, he said, could only be dealt with in cooperation: ‘We will move forward together, or not at all - for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.’  

Curiously, this State of the Union was also markedly adversarial.

The challenges that Obama set the Congress were cast in relation to ‘the other’: those competitors or adversaries who appear to be challenging US supremacy in arenas from science to education. In the speech, it was not just the destructive product of disharmony that warranted a new spirit of bi-partisanship.

Obama held up the spectres of foreign competitors to spur the gathered congress to action: South Korea has faster internet than the average American household, China and Europe are building faster rail networks and, while other countries’ students are studying science and maths, America’s youth are falling behind. In light of these perceived threats to American primacy, the task Obama set was for Americans was to ‘out-innovate’ and  to ‘out-compete’ their challengers, to ‘beat’ them,  and in so doing re-affirm America’s position as un-challenged global leader.

In a telling image, Obama described the present as another ‘Sputnik moment’, a moment where the challenges presented by America’s rivals would spur Americans to unity, action and innovation. The strategy behind the speech could not be clearer: if you want to bring people together, find yourselves a common adversary. It is the oldest trick in the book.

Even if Americans are culturally inclined to be competitive, how helpful is adversarial language and the imagery of ‘the other’ in the context of 21st century realities? And how apt is Obama’s description of these challenges as another ‘sputnik moment’?

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America faces a global situation today which is utterly different from that of 1957, when the Soviet Union beat the United States into space. In 1957 the US had only one other rising power to compete with, a power which was competitive with the US in the fields of science and space exploration, but which was still recovering from the disastrous demographic consequences of World War Two and which lacked economic dynamism.

Further, the Soviet Union was more readily categorised as ‘the other’, as it espoused an ideology and global ambitions which were the antithesis of US ideals and policy.

Today, the challenges the US faces are multi-faceted. Economic competition is offered by US allies as well as adversaries, by South Korea as well as by China. Other countries are competing with the US on a whole variety of levels, in infrastructure, technological innovation, agriculture, diplomacy, raw materials exploration and education.

And while by measurements both economic and military US power is still overwhelmingly superior to any peer-competitor, it is reality that American power is in relative decline, a trajectory which will not be reversed any time soon.

Americans will have to adapt to a more complex multi-polar world, in which America’s role is changing and in which the US no longer enjoys supremacy in every field. This is not a moment where Americans will be able simply to ‘out-compete’ the rest of the globe. The diffusion of technology and the continuing enrichment of once poor populations means that in the future innovation will stem from all over the world. 

While the US might be home to the founders of Google, Microsoft and Facebook, in coming decades, valuable technologies and science will originate in other countries. These developments can either be seen as threatening or as opportunity for co-operation.

Yet the language of competition was laced throughout President Obama’s  State of the Union speech, and the language of co-operation with ‘outsiders’ was absent. This was startling, given that the years ahead will witness a need for closer global co-operation in many different spheres, from agriculture and medicine to security and space exploration.

To give one example, until 2014 the US will be forced to use Russian spacecraft to reach the International Space Station, since NASA’s next model of spacecraft is yet to become operational.

Immanuel Kant, in his famous work ‘Perpetual Peace’, set out a vision of the world in which commerce would come to dominate inter-state relations to the extent that armed conflict was no longer feasible. Perhaps the language of competition is used so freely in Obama’s speech because it is thought that Kant’s vision is becoming reality; that international economic relations are so foundational and globalised that driven and openly expressed competitiveness will no longer threaten, but enliven relationships with rivals.

But Kant’s vision of a global society of states, a ‘republic of republics,’ ignores the realities given rise to by shifts in power. Kant bases his philosophical conception of international order on the model of a republic – he compares the society of states to the citizens of a republic – with some different interests maybe, but with enough interests in common to settle differences peaceably.

In such a republic competing forces and interests are constrained by laws and the sole source of legitimate force is the government. However, in a global society of states, there is as yet no government, and competing interests, if pursued without a readiness to accommodate, can lead to escalating tension very quickly. Given this, using the language of competition is fraught with danger.

When great powers are faced with rising challengers, the most likely source of tension is a self-perception of decline. If the existing great power does not make room for the rising powers to share global influence, then distrust and corrosive competition will probably emerge. In the late 19th century, Great Britain successfully negotiated rapprochement and accommodation with the rising United States, partly by ceding naval power in the West Atlantic and allowing Washington the status of equal partner. Had Great Britain reacted to America’s rise by striving to out-compete it, to ‘beat’ it, it would have bred tension in the relationship.

President Obama did refer to a changing world, but he presented this world as one where competition, rather than co-operation, would be more intense. The State of the Union speech failed to communicate a renewed and less alienating sense of ‘the other’, a sense which might allow ordinary Americans to comprehend the current shift in global dynamics. Instead, the language of fierce competition, a struggle for the American future and the desire to ‘win' painted the coming decades as a battleground rather than a meeting place.

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About the Author

Ben Coleridge is an honours student at the University of Melbourne who writes regularly on social justice and international affairs. He can be followed on Twitter: @Ben_Coleridge.

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