EMAIL DETAILS

>
> For what its worth, I have always viewed 9/15 as of greater
> significance to US future than 9/11. No doubt 9/11 was more horrific
> and the loss of life unspeakably painful but the tragedies and
> destruction of families and their hopes and dreams and the
> destabilization of much of middle class as a result of 9/15 and the
> ensuing financial crisis has been profound. 9/15 has accelerated the
> pace of Asia economic gains on the US and Europe and portends real
> challenges to US in every aspect of our power. M
>
> Why 9/15 changed more than 9/11
> By Gideon Rachman
> Published: September 13 2010 22:26 | Last updated: September 13 2010
> 22:26
>
> America commemorates two grim anniversaries this month: 9/11 and
> 9/15. Almost a decade has passed since hijacked aircraft flew into
> the twin towers, killing nearly 3,000 people and transforming
> America’s relations with the world. Two years have elapsed since the
> collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a global financial crisis and
> provoked fears of a new Great Depression.
>
> The two events took place within a few miles of each other in
> Manhattan. Each of them changed the world profoundly. But when the
> history books are written, which will seem more important?
>
> My guess is that it will be the financial crisis that ends up
> looming larger. That might seem a strange judgment. To many
> Americans, 9/11 definitively marked the end of an era. A decade of
> Gatsbyesque good times between the collapse of the Soviet Union and
> the attack on the US had come to a horrific end. Two wars, in
> Afghanistan and Iraq, flowed directly from 9/11. The US launched
> into a struggle with militant Islamism and a “war on terror” that
> continue to this day.
>
> By contrast, the worst fears provoked by the collapse of Lehman
> Brothers were not realised. There was no Great Depression. Growth
> has returned to the economy. Globalisation – the mega-trend of the
> past 30 years – was not put into reverse. Nonetheless, I think it is
> the financial crisis that will turn out to be the bigger turning
> point – not just in economics, but in geopolitics. That is because
> it was 9/15, not 9/11, that truly marked the end of the “unipolar
> moment”.
>
> The attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, horrifying as they
> were, did not shake US dominance of the global political and
> economic system. On the contrary, they led to a dramatic reassertion
> of American power. Two governments on the other side of the world
> were toppled in short order. In the immediate aftermath of the Iraq
> and Afghan wars, the White House of George W. Bush and its
> supporters felt more confident of US power than ever before. Charles
> Krauthammer, the conservative columnist who coined the phrase “the
> unipolar moment”, greeted victory in Iraq by hailing a “world
> dominated by a single superpower unchecked by any rival”.
>
> By 2008 it was clear that initial military victories in Iraq and
> Afghanistan had given way to something much more inconclusive and
> frustrating. But America’s economic prowess still seemed to provide
> a reliable basis for the country’s global political position.
>
> The financial crisis has changed that assumption, almost certainly
> forever. In its aftermath, the US is much more conscious of the
> limits to its own power. Even as he announced that he was sending
> more troops to Afghanistan, Barack Obama, US president, fretted
> that: “We simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.”
> Defence cuts are on their way.
>
> America is not only more conscious of the limits to its own power.
> It is also much more aware of the strengths of potential rivals. In
> the early months of the economic crisis, the conventional view was
> that the world would slide into a synchronised downturn. In the
> event, China and emerging Asia bounced back much faster than the US
> and the wider western world.
>
> The financial crisis has made Americans realise that the “China
> challenge” is not something for the distant future – it is happening
> here and now. While the date at which the Chinese economy becomes
> larger than that of the US is probably still 15 years or more away,
> in some important respects China is already pre-eminent. It has the
> world’s largest currency reserves. It is the world’s largest
> exporter. It is the largest producer of steel and of greenhouse
> gases. It is the biggest market for motor vehicles. It is now the
> largest trading partner of other significant emerging economies,
> such as India and Brazil.
>
> For the moment, America remains the dominant power, even in China’s
> Pacific “backyard”. But a Chinese challenge to US hegemony over the
> Pacific is likely to emerge in the coming years. This new sense of
> rivalry is already increasing US-Chinese tensions – witness the
> current effort to push protectionist legislation through Congress.
>
> The upheavals of 9/11 and 9/15 revealed different sorts of
> challenges to American power. Violent Islamist militancy still has
> the potential to do enormous damage. But the idea that the big
> geopolitical trend of the next century will be the creation of a
> global Islamic caliphate – while a popular notion in Waziristan and
> on American talk radio – is a fantasy. It is hard to think of a
> philosophy that is worse adapted to dealing with modernity than the
> fundamentalism of Osama bin Laden. Indeed, one ironic consequence of
> 9/11 is that it may have persuaded the US to spend a vital decade
> pouring resources into combating the wrong threat.
>
> By contrast, it seems entirely plausible that, just as the 20th
> century was the American century, so the 21st century will be the
> Asian century. The economic transformation underpinning this shift
> in power was well under way before the global financial crisis. But
> the crisis is likely to go down as the moment that both revealed and
> accelerated the erosion of western dominance. That is why 9/15 may
> ultimately matter more than 9/11.
>
> gideon.rachman@ft.com
>