America Still Leads the World in All the Ways That Matter
January 07, 2025
The coming year won’t be easy for US foreign policy. President Donald Trump will face a maelstrom of crises, from a deteriorating situation in Ukraine to an advancing Iranian nuclear program. Washington confronts an axis of Eurasian autocracies that are determined to lay the American world order low. Prophecies of doom are legion; even Trump has sometimes argued that America’s best days are in the past.
In fact, in many respects America remains a rising power — which should be a source of confidence in addressing the dangers ahead.
Consider economic power, the wellspring of every other form of influence. Less than a generation ago, the US economy was about the size of Europe’s. Today, it outstrips the European Union economy by roughly a third.
More recently, nearly everyone thought China would soon overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. But that crossover point is receding ever further into the future, thanks to robust American growth and deepening Chinese stagnation. Sure, China claims 5% growth this year — but you’d be a fool to believe it, given that some government employees are going without pay and many cities are sinking ever deeper into debt. Over the past half-decade, the overall gap between the US and Chinese economies — as measured by gross domestic product — has been getting larger.
Look beyond GDP, and the picture is even brighter. In recent decades, US labor productivity has risen faster than that of any other advanced economy. US firms account for more than half of global profits in high-tech sectors, compared to 5% for Chinese firms. America’s research and development investments, the lifeblood of future innovation, lead the world. China is a stronger economic rival than the Soviet Union ever was. But the US is well-positioned to remain the world’s richest, most dynamic economy for a long time to come.
In part, that’s because the US also has a better demographic future than any other major power. Russia’s already dicey demography has been made even worse by the death or flight of so many young men during the war in Ukraine. China, meanwhile, is headed for demographic catastrophe, due to the long tail of its one-child policy: By 2100, its population will likely be less than half of what it is today. Well before then, China’s workforce will dramatically contract, and its elderly population will explode — a phenomenon that will only undermine its economic prosperity, social stability and global power.
Admittedly, the democratic world has its own demographic troubles: The outlook for Japan, South Korea and much of Western Europe is bleak. But in a world of shrinking populations, the US is a healthy outlier: Thanks to a decent fertility rate and high immigration, its population isn’t projected to peak for another half-century.
Then there are US alliances. For decades, America’s security pacts — especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its suite of mostly bilateral alliances in the Pacific — have been its most potent geopolitical weapons. They give the US global reach and presence. They augment America’s power by making it the leader of a peerless free-world community. America’s rivals are thus determined to weaken these alliances — but these partnerships are getting larger and stronger instead.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine pushed Sweden and Finland into NATO. In both Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s, the US has been encouraging tighter ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors — incrementally building a sturdier regional coalition against Iran. In Asia, burgeoning trilateral and quadrilateral arrangements are turning America’s alliance system into a better-integrated security network. Meanwhile, America is building relationships across regional boundaries: AUKUS ties Australia, the UK and the US together in an ambitious defense-technological pact.
Finally, don’t discount the advantages of a democratic political system. Yes, America is beset by dysfunction and polarization. It just elected a president whose commitment to democratic procedures is questionable. But that system is still a source of legitimacy and resilience; its checks and balances obstruct bad ideas as well as good ones. If anything, the geopolitical benefits it provides loom larger than they might have a few years ago.
China’s economic stagnation is being exacerbated by President Xi Jinping’s determination to tighten his iron grip on the political system. Putin’s war in Ukraine shows how personalized autocracies are prone to ghastly strategic mistakes. The stunning collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is more evidence that brutal dictatorships are often brittle at their core. American democracy has problems, but it’s still better suited to long-term success than any other model.
This isn’t to be Pollyannish. A long-term edge won’t save the US if it fails to get ready for a potential near-term military conflict with China. America could sabotage itself by imposing draconian curbs on immigration, throwing away its alliances or abandoning its democratic traditions. But for now, the US retains — and is in many ways increasing — the global strengths it will need for the dangerous times ahead.
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