The reasons why America is overstreaching.
Column by Francesco Grillo for the Italian Newspaper, Il Messaggero.
New York is the city with the most personality. Even those who come for the first time cannot help but feel as if they have always been there. As if they had experienced it through the myopic eyes of Woody Allen while trying to find himself in one of his amusing identity crises. The terrified eyes of its inhabitants, who, after rallying around dozens of superheroes to save themselves from all kinds of monsters, found themselves alone, witnessing in astonishment the crumbling of the towers—the "center of world trade"—symbols of this city. Symbols of an entire century. No city, like New York or Los Angeles—where many of those films were imagined—contains so many symbols that make up the recent history of the world. Yet, these two cities also reveal how deep the wounds that the most important country in the world must heal, and how accurate were the words recently spoken by Joe Biden when he expressed the hope that the world no longer needs a lone cowboy because America alone can no longer bear the burden.
The world is big enough for two competing superpowers, as acknowledged by the President of the United States and the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party when they met in California. And it is certainly too big for a single superpower. This is demonstrated vividly by the numbers. According to SIPRI, the most prestigious think tank dedicated to the study of security policies, the United States spent 877 billion dollars on defense last year, and this sum must be added to at least another 200 billion spent on pensions and disability for army veterans. This amount is slightly less than the military spending of all other countries combined (1.2 trillion dollars) and exceeds what the U.S. can spend on its 51 million students. The cost of being the only superpower is paid because the resources needed to handle all crises are diverted from making other future investments.
But it is in the quality of public infrastructure that the signs of fatigue are most evident. At a party in Manhattan a few nights ago, bankers and art collectors complained of not being able to use the streets without an off-road vehicle. And yet, it is true that just a few meters from the sparkling lights of Times Square, there are streets swallowed by darkness. Amid constant short circuits between signs of power and poverty, in Los Angeles—next to the avenue that climbs among the villas of Hollywood—thousands of homeless people camp, a stark contrast. In New York, the world's most famous bridge divides the Tribeca neighborhood, where the average life expectancy is the highest in the world (higher than the Japanese average), from Bedford, where—according to NY Health Foundation data—a resident lives an average of ten years less (less than in Algeria). And the comparison between large American and Chinese cities becomes unavoidable for those who cross them a few months apart. Shanghai and Beijing have been transformed by subways that exceed 800 kilometers each. In the largest city in the state—California—which is investing more in sustainability, the metro measures 30 km, and few can survive without using a car to travel from a centerless metropolis to Santa Monica Beach.
It is undoubtedly an enormous challenge to govern such complex cities. This challenge is made even greater by hospitality—New York welcomes anyone seeking asylum regardless of their origin—that has made these places so creative. The city of New York, as noted in a book by economist Gianluca Galletto, who worked there alongside Mayor De Blasio, houses a third of the population in affordable housing and rent-controlled homes. However, the empire suffers precisely from the fatigue of being an empire.
Speaking of empires, there is now an abundant literature that tries to draw parallels between the American and Roman empires. Often, these comparisons demonstrate a lack of knowledge on the part of the authors of the empire that managed to survive for a thousand years after its decline. However, an important indication comes from that improbable comparison: the decline of an empire begins when the benefit of being at its center is surpassed by the cost of protecting its peripheries.
That moment was surpassed twenty years ago when the worst monster struck the most beautiful city at its heart, and Americans pursued it by sinking into two endless wars. The wise Biden knows that even superpowers have the right to stop and heal their own wounds, and that he has a duty to try to win the next elections.
SIPRI Fact Sheet, April 2023 - Trends in World Military Expenditure 2022.
