Power, Money and American National Security.

AuthorSempa, Francis P.
PositionBrief article

At the annual dinner of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Niall Ferguson, the prolific British historian, delivered a sobering analysis of how America's fiscal crisis is affecting its national security. He warned that if the United States continues to accumulate public debt at ever increasing rates, it will be unable to meet the geopolitical challenge of a rising China.

Ferguson stated bluntly that the current U.S. fiscal crisis "casts a long shadow over American power," as evidenced by President Obama's inability to achieve anything of note at the recent G-20 meeting in Asia, and the frankness with which Chinese leaders discuss their own plans for replacing the U. S. as the predominant global power. Few Americans seem to realize, he noted, the scale and magnitude of the Chinese geopolitical challenge.

We are witnessing and presiding over, Ferguson explained, the end of Western global ascendancy that began some 500 years ago. The United States is merely the latest "empire" to decline by burdening itself with massive public debt. In fact, Ferguson noted that if the U.S. continues to borrow...

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