Not even a superpower can hold onto its economic sovereignty if it fails to get its fiscal house in order, and no one needs a well-regulated international economic order more than the United States.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
U.S. power flows from our unmatched military might, yes. But in a deeper way, it's a product of the dominance of the U.S. economy.
No doubt that the U.S. is a super-power capable of conquering a relatively small country, but is it able to control it?
The problem is that the U.S. government is the biggest debtor in the world, and those depending on it to take care of them will only become poorer.
Our country, the United States of America, may be the world's largest economy and the world's only superpower, but we stretch ourselves dangerously thin by taking on commitments like Iraq with only a motley band of allies to share the burden.
And you can't have a prosperous economy when the government is way overspending, raising tax rates, printing too much money, over regulating and restricting free trade. It just can't be done.
Policymakers, elected and unelected, need to be ever-mindful that the U.S. economy does not exist in isolation.
What point is there to all the wealth and power that America may have if they can't look after its own?
We have the most flexible and adaptive economy. Making sure we sustain the ability of the American economy to perform well is really the priority of economic policy.
I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong.
Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.