The 20th Century was often referred to as the “American Century”. America’s global dominance was so overwhelming that a new term, “superpower”, was coined to describe its global role. While the Soviet Union briefly matched the US in nuclear arms, it was otherwise a third-rate empire that crumbled when it lost the will to use force on its own citizens. By 1900, the United States was already the largest economy in the world, far surpassing even Germany. Its intervention proved decisive in the two world wars, and it won the Cold War against the communist system. It also played a leading role in dismantling the European colonial empires after World War II, which fell apart with surprising speed. By the end of the century, American culture is exported through movies and music to every corner of the world. It stands now as the indispensable power, with every major international crisis demanding US attention and involvement.
Will this hold true for the next 100 years? Is the US likely to remain the dominant nation for another century? History is full of zigzags and unexpected impacts of small groups or individuals, but when it comes to national importance and power, there are three decisive factors that determine the weight a nation can carry in the international arena. Simply put, these are economic size, demographics (population), and a unifying ideology. If we compare these factors between America and its three likely rivals for global dominance, the European Union, China, and India, we can see what the future is likely to bring.
The total economic output of the globe is about 30 trillion dollars. America accounts for 10 trillion, while Europe produces about 8 trillion. China, despite its rapid progress in the last 20 years, has just reached the 1 trillion dollar mark, and poverty stricken India produces less than half a trillion dollars in output. Let us assume that America continues its historical growth rate of about 3.5% per year, while Europe continues at its pace of 2.5% per year, China at 7% and India at 6% for the next 50 years. In 2050, the US economy will be 55 trillion dollars, China 29 trillion, Europe 27 trillion, and India 8 trillion. America will still be far ahead of even China, and at 6% growth, India will remain a second rate economy.
What is even more instructive is to look at the per person economic output. As China has a billion people, its production must be divided up into smaller pieces than in America. The average American will see his income go up from 30,000 dollars today to 100,000 dollars in 2050, while the average Chinese will rise from 1000 dollars today to 18,000 dollars in 2050. Americans will still be over 5 times as productive as Chinese, and that will support a much more powerful and influential nation.
Population trends also look bad for both Europe and China. America has maintained a decent fertility rate at about 2 births per woman. This allows America to maintain its current population, but because of its open door to immigration, the total American population is rising at about 30 million people per decade. With these trends, the United States population should reach 450 million people by 2050, and this large population means that about 5% of the world will be American, a figure not much different than that of today. In contrast, all the European nations have very low fertility rates, and most have static or declining populations. In Russia these trends are exacerbated by rising mortality due to breakdowns in health care and increase in alcoholism. Without massive immigration, Europe’s population will shrink in the next 50 years, in some countries by as much as 20-30%.
India will probably reach 1.5 billion in total population, as will China, but China has some serious problems brewing. By adopting the “one-child” policy twenty years ago to clamp down on population growth, China will be faced with a unique dilemma. Because the current generation is relatively small, while their parents are large in number, China will be faced with a huge crisis involving the care of the elderly in about 25 years. China will have an age distribution more like a developed country while still being much poorer. The share of the elderly in China will exceed that in the United States, without anything like America’s resources to care for them. It is unlikely that China will allow immigration of young workers, and its working age population will be stressed to provide for itself and its parents.
Finally, we have to look at ideology. This is America’s greatest strength. Out of a patchwork quilt of immigrants, America is able to fashion an American identity that allows the entire nation to work together and integrate newcomers with relative ease. China has an ideology, namely communism, but it is a bankrupt concept. What will replace it is anyone’s guess. India has no unifying idea. The Congress Party believed in the idea of India but what that is no one can say, and the current government is trying to fashion unity out of Hinduism, another impossible task. Europe wants to be more unified in some ways, but no major European power is ever going to submit itself to some supranational entity to make major decisions such as the EU. This basic lack of unity has always kept Europe on the sidelines in the last 50 years, and will certainly continue to do so.
The basic building blocks of national power remain dominated by America. This reality will not change for the next 50 years, but America will change. Immigration is turning America into a miniature version of the world. The rising number of Muslims may mean that in 50 years from now there will be 20 million American Muslims. As such, we will have an opportunity to influence the actions of the most powerful country on the planet, and we should not waste that chance.