AMERICA IN DECLINE

From Foreign Policy:  "Have We Hit Peak America?"  Up to 60% of Americans believe U.S. power is waning.  And a CNN poll indicates that 63% of Americans believe their children will be worse off them they are.

In other words, a greater number of Americans are worried about diminishing U.S. influence today than in the face of feared Soviet technological superiority in the late 1950s, the Vietnam quagmire of the late 1960s, the 1973 oil embargo, the apparent resurgence of Soviet power around the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, and the economic concerns that plagued the late 1980s -- the five waves of so-called declinist anxiety that political scientist Samuel Huntington famously identified.

Global power & wealth are shifting and the American people feel and see it.  The U.S. is in decline economically, becoming increasingly less competitive.  National wealth influences military power.

Whereas in 1990 just 14 percent of cross-border flows of goods, services, and finances originated in emerging economies, today nearly 40 percent do. As recently as 2000, the GDP of China was one-tenth that of the United States; just 14 years later, the two economies are equal (at least in terms of purchasing power parity).

National wealth influences military power.  China's military budget is increasing while that of the U.S. is decreasing.  Regional powers like Iran are also growing in military sophistication.

The U.S. National Intelligence Council recently projected the future distribution of global power using two distinct methodologies that incorporated a range of "hard" and "soft" factors. By both estimates, the U.S. share of global power will fall dramatically, from around 25 percent in 2010 to around 15 percent in 2050.

The U.S. national debt is impacting the problem.  

Today, well over 60 percent of federal revenue is consumed by spending on Social Security, the major health-care programs (including Medicare, Medicaid, and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act), and interest payments on the federal debt. By 2043, spending on entitlements and net interest payments will consume all federal revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The authors argue that the U.S. has much potential strength, but America has to be realistic and face its problems.