Bush not the only problem

The UN? Even if one ignores its many grievous faults, that institution is a forum, not a principal actor. A concert of powers? But the creation and functioning of such a concert requires authority and leadership on someone's part, so the problem remains. There is no other immediate plausible candidate for leadership if the US can no longer fill the role.

But there is going to be an urgent need for leadership in a world that is changing rapidly and is already experiencing serious tensions.

Globalisation requires new economic and political ground rules, and providing them is going to be more complicated than merely extending or tinkering with existing Western ones. There is the specific and urgent issue of global warming. The problems associated with mass, uncontrolled human migration are mounting. Many experts believe that nuclear proliferation is now a more urgent matter than it has ever been, and that the prospect of weapons in the hands of an increasing number of states with weak governments and poor security and control systems is imminent. And, of course, there is the continuing problem of global terrorism, which is real enough even if it is sometimes grossly exaggerated.

If leadership is urgently needed, and if there is really no plausible alternative to the US for the role, the questions arise: How badly damaged is the US? Will it recover reasonably quickly, or does the damage go deep, perhaps too deep for recovery?

Opinions, even serious informed opinions, vary widely. At one extreme there are those who blame everything on the ineptitude of the Bush administration and believe that all will be well once it goes. At the other are those - for example the much-respected analyst Pierre Hassner - who believe that what is happening represents the end of a brief, and partly illusory, period of American dominance, and may indeed mark the beginning of the de-Westernisation of the international system. The former view is superficial, while the second is at best premature.

There is more wrong with the US than the Bush administration. As we witness a presidential election process that now extends over two years and involves the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, and as we reflect on the mediocre result that such a process can produce, it is evident that there is something seriously dysfunctional about the American political system. (The Democratic Party starts as favourite in the next election; the two leading candidates for its nomination at this stage have no significant experience in international affairs.)

Again, it is not any cheese-eating Frenchman but Irving Kristol, the distinguished father of William and the founder of neo-conservatism, who observed not so long ago that there are "clear signs of rot and decadence" in American culture, and that the most urgent priority for Americans should be to put their own house in order.

And it is a respectable American enterprise - the Pew Global Attitudes Survey - that has recently reported findings that depict today's US as increasingly hostile to international trade, foreign companies and immigration. That is a strange state of affairs in a country that virtually created today's global economy and that is made up of the children of immigrants.

All that having been said, however, one of the most striking features of American history is the country's ability to recover quickly from adversity and its own errors: witness the rapidity of its recovery from the Civil War, the Depression and, more recently, the Vietnam War.

Whether it can do so again, after the debacle of the Bush administration, has a claim to be the key question of our time, bearing in mind that recovery in this context must mean a return not only of confidence but of judgment, prudence and an understanding of the world.

It is a question of particular importance for Australia, which has invested so heavily in its alliance with the US.