[Until we have proven ourselves worthy to lead, we cannot expect
others to march to our drum.]
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HOW THE US COULD LOSE THE NEW COLD WAR  
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Joseph Stiglitz
June 17, 2022
Project Syndicate
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_ Until we have proven ourselves worthy to lead, we cannot expect
others to march to our drum. _

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THE UNITED STATES APPEARS to have entered a new cold war with both
China and Russia. And U.S. leaders' portrayal of the confrontation as
one between democracy and authoritarianism fails the smell test,
especially at a time when the same leaders are actively courting a
systematic human-rights abuser like Saudi Arabia. Such hypocrisy
suggests that it is at least partly global hegemony, not values, that
is really at stake.

In seeking the world's favor, the U.S. will have to make up a lot of
lost ground.

For two decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the U.S. was
clearly number one. But then came disastrously misguided wars in the
Middle East, the 2008 financial crash, rising inequality, the opioid
epidemic, and other crises that seemed to cast doubt on the
superiority of America's economic model. Moreover, between Donald
Trump's election, the attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol, numerous
mass shootings, a Republican Party bent on voter suppression, and the
rise of conspiracy cults like QAnon, there is more than enough
evidence to suggest that some aspects of American political and social
life have become deeply pathological.

Of course, America does not want to be dethroned. But it is simply
inevitable that China will outstrip the U.S. economically, regardless
of what official indicator one uses. Not only is its population four
times larger than America's; its economy also has been growing three
times
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for many years (indeed, it already surpassed
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U.S. in purchasing-power-parity terms back in 2015).

While China has not done anything to declare itself as a strategic
threat to America, the writing is on the wall. In Washington, there is
a bipartisan consensus
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China _could_ pose a strategic threat, and that the least the U.S.
should do to mitigate the risk is to stop helping the Chinese economy
grow. According to this view, preemptive action is warranted, even if
it means violating the World Trade Organization rules that the U.S.
itself did so much to write and promote.

This front in the new cold war opened well before Russia invaded
Ukraine. And senior U.S. officials have since warned
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the war must not divert attention from the real long-term threat:
China. Given that Russia's economy is around the same size as Spain's,
its "no limits" partnership with China hardly seems to matter
economically (though its willingness to engage in disruptive
activities around the world could prove useful to its larger southern
neighbor).

But a country at "war" needs a strategy, and the U.S. cannot win a new
great-power contest by itself; it needs friends. Its natural allies
are Europe and the other developed democracies around the world. But
Trump did everything he could to alienate those countries, and the
Republicans—still wholly beholden to him—have provided ample
reason to question whether the U.S. is a reliable partner. Moreover,
the U.S. also must win the hearts and minds of billions of people in
the world's developing countries and emerging markets—not just to
have numbers on its side, but also to secure access to critical
resources.

In seeking the world's favor, the U.S. will have to make up a lot of
lost ground. Its long history of exploiting other countries does not
help, and nor does its deeply embedded racism—a force that Trump
expertly and cynically channels. Most recently, U.S. policymakers
contributed to global "vaccine apartheid
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whereby rich countries got all the shots they needed while people in
poorer countries were left to their fates. Meanwhile, America's new
cold war opponents have made their vaccines readily available
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below cost, while also helping countries develop their own
vaccine-production facilities.

The credibility gap is even wider when it comes to climate change,
which disproportionately affects those in the Global South
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have the least ability to cope. While major emerging markets have
become the leading sources of greenhouse-gas emissions today, U.S.
cumulative emissions are still the largest by far
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Developed countries continue to add to them, and, worse, have not even
delivered on their meager promises to help poor countries manage the
effects of the climate crisis that the rich world caused. Instead,
U.S. banks contribute to looming debt crises
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many countries, often revealing a depraved indifference to the
suffering that results.

Europe and America excel at lecturing others on what is morally right
and economically sensible. But the message that usually comes
through—as the persistence of U.S. and European agricultural
subsidies makes clear—is "do what I say, not what I do." Especially
after the Trump years, America no longer holds any claim to the moral
high ground, nor does it have the credibility to dispense advice.
Neoliberalism and trickle-down economics were never widely embraced in
the Global South, and now they are going out of fashion everywhere.

The U.S. might know how to make the world’s best bombers and missile
systems, but they will not help us here.

At the same time, China has excelled not at delivering lectures but at
furnishing poor countries with hard infrastructure
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these countries are often left deeply in debt; but, given Western
banks' own behavior as creditors in the developing world, the U.S. and
others are hardly in a position to point the finger.

I could go on, but the point should be clear: If the U.S. is going to
embark on a new cold war, it had better understand what it will take
to win. Cold wars ultimately are won with the soft power of attraction
and persuasion. To come out on top, we must convince the rest of the
world to buy not just our products, but also the social, political,
and economic system we're selling.

The U.S. might know how to make the world’s best bombers and missile
systems, but they will not help us here. Instead, we must offer
concrete help to developing and emerging-market countries, starting
with a waiver on all Covid-related intellectual property so that they
can produce vaccines and treatments for themselves.

Equally important, the West must once again make our economic, social,
and political systems the envy of the world. In the U.S., that starts
with reducing gun violence, improving environmental regulations,
combating inequality and racism, and protecting women's reproductive
rights. Until we have proven ourselves worthy to lead, we cannot
expect others to march to our drum.

JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
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laureate economist at Columbia University. His most recent book is
"_Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being_
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other books, he is the author of "_The Price of Inequality: How
Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
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and Its Discontents [[link removed]]_"
(2003), "_Free Fall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the
World Economy [[link removed]]_" (2010),
and (with co-author Linda Bilmes) "_The Three Trillion Dollar War: The
True Costs of the Iraq Conflict
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Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for research on the economics of
information.

* Joseph Stiglitz
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* Cold War
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* new cold war
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* Russia
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* China
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