Are We Entering the Post-European Era?

That we are in a ‘post-American era’ is a well-worn idea (particularly among the class of commentator that hopes it’s true). This article explores Europe’s many, many problems (my list would start with immigration/failure to assimilate, demographics, economic stagnation, a dysfunctional currency, excess regulation, an out-of-touch bureaucracy, and go on from there) and how they may be signaling Europe’s fade from a major role on the world stage.

In the years after the Cold War, much was written about Europe’s emergence as the third great force in the global political economy, alongside Asia and the United States. Some, such as former French President Francois Mitterand’s eminence grise Jacques Attali, went even further: in his 1991 book Millenium Attali predicted that in the 21st century, “Japan and Europe may supplant the United States as the chief superpowers.” 

This notion of a fading America has been embraced among some here as well, by authors such as Jeremy Rifkin who has written extensively about a “European dream” supplanting the American one on a global scale. In 2008, CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria predicted the rise of what he called “the post-American world,” with the U.S. still preeminent but losing ground, particularly to emerging countries in Asia. This view is widely held in American elite circles, including many people in or close to the Obama administration. 

Yet something funny happened on the road to a post-American era: it didn’t happen. Even under two of the most incompetent administrations in our country’s long history, we are headed not to a “post-American” world, but more likely a “post-European” one.