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In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power

Alfred W. McCoy

4.20 · Rating details · 548 ratings · 79 reviews

In a completely original analysis, McCoy explores America’s rise as a world power, from the 1890s through the Cold War and its bid to extend its hegemony deep into the twenty-first century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances. McCoy then analyzes the marquee instruments of American hegemony—covert intervention, client elites, psy ...more

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Paperback, 359 pages

Published August 15th 2017 by Haymarket Books

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Sep 27, 2017 Chris Chester rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american-empire, non-fiction

Since the financial crisis in 2008, I have read many, many books about the American Century and the widely-shared perception that American Empire is in the midst of a terminal decline. But never have I read nearly so cogent an explanation of both the rise of American global dominance and a blueprint for its end.

To be clear, McCoy touches on many familiar topics hit by books on my bookshelf. The rise of China, the rot of America’s heartland wrought by global capitalism, the looming specter of cli Since the financial crisis in 2008, I have read many, many books about the American Century and the widely-shared perception that American Empire is in the midst of a terminal decline. But never have I read nearly so cogent an explanation of both the rise of American global dominance and a blueprint for its end.

To be clear, McCoy touches on many familiar topics hit by books on my bookshelf. The rise of China, the rot of America’s heartland wrought by global capitalism, the looming specter of climate change — all those are present and accounted for.

But what really makes this book a success is the larger framework that McCoy assembles to tell the story, borrowing heavily from Halford Mackinder’s theory of the Geographical Pivot of History.

The gist of it is that there are two principle models of empires vying for global domination. There are land powers, anchored in the richly-appointed Eurasian landmass (or World-Island) around which the world turns. From its heavily-defended position, such a land power — whether Russia, the Soviet Union, a Russo-Germanic alliance or modern China —can control a plurality of the world’s resources, creating an empire of the world.

Traditionally, this land power has been checked by a maritime power whose greater mobility and control of the axial points of the World-Island both in the west (Europe) and in the east (Japan and the South China Sea) allows it to counter the land power. This role has been played by European naval powers — most especially Britain — as well as their successor hegemon in the United States.

The fight of the 21st century, then, will be waged between a declining United States — struggling to maintain it’s hold on the ring of fortifications it has around the World-Island — and China —which appears to finally be realizing the grand vision of using rail transport to unify the Eurasian continent under their leadership.

What I find so compelling about this vision is that it renders so much about 20th century and even contemporary history suddenly explicable. It explains Hitler’s seemingly suicidal bid to capture Eastern Europe. It explains the importance of the Cold War policy of containment.

And it even casts President Barack Obama's pivot to Asia and attempts to push through the TTIP and TTP trade agreements in a new light. Indeed, McCoy is effusive in his praise of Obama as a tactician — not something you often read, especially amid all the criticism about his inability to get the country out Afghanistan and the reliance on drone warfare.

There are pieces of it that didn’t register quite as useful for me. The long explanation of CIA torture tactics and the Pentagon’s feckless strategy of triple canopy domination is thorough, but I felt was covered in more depth and range elsewhere. It was only when McCoy pivoted back to his scenarios for the decline of American empire that the book felt like it was getting back on track.

As for those, I think they’re enough to give anybody pause. You can find a full spectrum of scenarios that will suit your specific level of anxiety. Personally, I’m hopeful though not expectant that the United States can stage some kind of climate change-induced tactical withdrawal, setting up a Westphalian global regime of regional powers controlling spheres of influence.

But as McCoy aptly criticizes our president for early in the book, there’s no reason to believe that the U.S. can continue to enjoy the benefits of a global empire without investing the resources in maintaining it. If we give up on NATO and try to foist defensive costs on allies while blithely ignoring the benefits that we derive from our global leadership — not least of which is the status of the dollar as the global reserve currency — we are going to pay for it.

But then, how do you maintain a global empire when the domestic economy that is supposed to underpin the enterprise has been gutted by global capitalism? So much to think about!

And that’s really the best thing recommending this book, in my opinion, is that it will make you think a LOT about both history, contemporary politics, and the road ahead to 2030. ...more

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Aug 19, 2018 Mehrsa rated it really liked it

This is a really interesting and unsettling book. I think its diagnoses are more interesting than its prognoses. Americans don't like to consider themselves as the global empire, but it clearly is. McCoy believes the reign is coming to an end. I am not so sure we can measure the future as we have the past, but he makes a convincing case.

A few really fascinating tidbits:
--The tools of empire that are used abroad come eventually come home to diminish homegrown rights (like NSA surveillance)
--Oba ...more

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Sep 14, 2017 Murtaza rated it really liked it

Even before the election of Donald Trump, it seemed clear that the United States was experiencing a serious decline in its global influence relative to emerging powers on the Eurasian continent. The election of Trump has set this process into overdrive and seems to open the possibility of the U.S. devolving into a genuine second-rate power. With the Chinese economy set to surpass the size of the United States and its military spending not far behind, America is facing the possibility of an immin Even before the election of Donald Trump, it seemed clear that the United States was experiencing a serious decline in its global influence relative to emerging powers on the Eurasian continent. The election of Trump has set this process into overdrive and seems to open the possibility of the U.S. devolving into a genuine second-rate power. With the Chinese economy set to surpass the size of the United States and its military spending not far behind, America is facing the possibility of an imminent eclipse of its power, perhaps as soon as 2030. With Trump inexplicably taking a sledgehammer to a liberal international system that was already wobbling after the Iraq War and 2008 financial crisis, its no longer clear what the world is going to look like within even 5-10 years.

In this history of America's imperial rise and decline, Alfred McCoy charts the path American global hegemony from the era of the Spanish-American War, through to the Cold War and up to the present period of "small wars" in the Middle East. McCoy was a muckraking investigative writer during the Vietnam era but also shows himself to be a very able historian here. His analysis of American empire is not a polemical one and he acknowledges that empires are a fact of human history. He charts the emergency of the U.S. empire across different periods of the past century and notes how it was formed in the crucible of wars, developing almost accidentally at first following the war with Spain and with little direct consciousness among most Americans. The three "grandmasters" of American empire in his telling are Roosevelt's secretary of state Elihu Root, who helped laid the ground for the modern U.S. armed forces as well as a set of international governance organizations, Zbigniew Brezinski who helped engineer the defeat of the Soviet Union, and finally, somewhat idiosyncratically, Barack Obama, who initiated the last coherent effort to try and save the empire by repositioning it to try and contain a rising China.

McCoy identifies with the view held by Peter Francopan and others that the key to global imperium has historically lain in control of the vast "world island" of Eurasia. For the past two centuries, control of this landmass was held by naval-based civilizations which were able to move men and materiel at a speed far in excess of land-based empires such as Russia, China and the Ottoman Turks. British imperium was made possible by the strength of the British Navy, a force which allowed a small island nation to control Eurasia by dominating its oceans and coastlines. Today, the United States controls that same area through the retention of U.S. forces on sea, land and air. Where the British had gunships and caravels, the U.S. has carrier groups, aircraft, drones and marines capable of projecting power anywhere across the Eurasian landmass. In addition to network of hundreds of military bases, the "world island" is held in place by the United States through major political nodes on its far Western and far Eastern axes: namely the NATO alliance in Western Europe and the U.S.-led alliance system incorporating South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in east Asia. Free trade agreements like the TTP and TTIP also play a key role by orienting the economies of member states towards the United States, (however such agreements may be detrimental to the American working class).

But as McCoy points out, the American empire is not held up by weapons and money alone. In addition to soldiers, aircraft, drones and trade, U.S. empire also relies on cultural suasion and the promotion of liberal values to help bind other countries to its orbit. These values are generally popular, and help create force multipliers when emerging states attempt to attack the liberal order. As such the abandonment of "our values" over the past several years is something that McCoy sees as a genuine a step towards imperial decline, as it was with past empires.

As he argues, America's post-2003 use of torture and the abrogation of the rules-based order entailed in the invasion of Iraq both seriously impeded America's ability to employ soft power across the imperium. Although torture may seem like a personal practice without much importance to geopolitics on a macro scale, its use by ostensibly enlightened powers is often a sign of greater internal rot and lack of confidence. Torture came into widespread use during the decline of the French and British empires, which systematically brutalized detainees during their late-imperial wars in Algeria, Malaya and Kenya, episodes which torpedoed the legitimacy of the empire with local elites. The support of such elites is vital to maintaining any global imperium, as these local intermediaries are the ones who actually know how to navigate their own societies and orient them for or against the United States. When local elites started turning against the British the empire unraveled with remarkable speed, famously helping it become a "self-liquidating concern." Managing so many different constituencies is difficult even in the best of times, and the United States has done a poor job of that in recent years. In addition to undermining the attraction of U.S. values by rendering them hollow, American diplomats and politicians have shown limited effectiveness at managing relationships in countries like Turkey, Pakistan, South Korea and the Philippines, losing potential allies as local elites turn towards emerging power centers for support. McCoy predicts that the period of 2003-2030 will be known as the 27 years of America's imperial decline, as more and more local elites turn to China or Russia for economic and political support. While the situation seemed potentially salvageable for America under a competent administration, the bellicose and incompetent Trump administration seems like it will make McCoy's prediction a reality, perhaps even sooner than expected. Given the speed with which past empires declined, it could really be "all over but the finger-pointing" for the U.S. empire far sooner than we expect.

There was a lot in this book that was familiar to me, particularly the analysis of U.S. drone warfare which drew on much contemporary reporting. But a few things that I found unique were his analysis of the important role that global satellite systems play in modern great power politics, as well as the importance of the growing educational gap between the United States and rising Asian powers. While the U.S. may maintain a significant edge in terms of battleships and F-15s, China is aiming for supremacy in the stratosphere and may achieve this as soon as 2020, when its own global satellite system becomes operational. China will also soon be the only country with an active space station, when it launches in 2019. Meanwhile a highly-educated generation of American scientists will die and retire by 2030 without an equally sizable or talented generation to replace them. Chinese scientists meanwhile are on average younger and more numerous than their U.S. counterparts today and achieve better results in key fields of study, as per international comparative testing. A growing disparity in educational standards and results, particularly in vital STEM research fields, means that the U.S. will likely face a major talent shortfall in the near future, while China enjoys an abundance of highly-motivated and talented young people able to provide research advantages relevant to modern warfare. Using cyber and space warfare, the People's Liberation Army could make the current U.S. supremacy of arms an irrelevance by wiping out critical military infrastructure during a conflict, a scenario in which McCoy says that the side with superior technology could win a war in the South China Sea without firing a shot. This part of the book is well-researched and captivating, and shines a light on the importance of China seeking supremacy in the next realm of interstate combat, rather than foolishly trying to train more Marines or build more battleships as a path to victory. While the U.S. is by no means taking these Chinese efforts lying down, its supremacy in this emerging realm of warfare is far from assured.

The overall history of America's global rise and decline that McCoy recounts is compelling, but can sometimes get bogged down while recapping details of specific episodes like Vietnam and the current drone war. But despite this his overall thesis is nuanced and well-argued. While McCoy makes clear his belief that America is in terminal decline, he caveats his argument to take into account the inherent uncertainties entailed in any such prediction, while articulating some steps that the U.S. could take to manage such a decline. Despite being a fervent critic of America's imperial crimes, he also generously acknowledges the benefits of American imperium, including the gains in global human rights over the past century and the genuine popularity of liberal international values around the world. Empires are a fact of life and not necessarily worse than their modern nemesis, the nation-state. While the 21st century may see an eclipse of U.S. hegemony, if its leaders play their cards right (which seems like a big "if" to be honest) the country could still have a soft enough landing to remain an important player globally, as well as an anchor state within the Americas.

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Sep 19, 2017 Pourya rated it really liked it

McCoy is not some chicken little. He is a serious academic. And he has guts.

During the Vietnam War, McCoy was ambushed by CIA-backed paramilitaries as he investigated the swelling heroin trade. The CIA tried to stop the publication of his now classic book, “The Politics of Heroin.” His phone was tapped, he was audited by the IRS, and he was investigated and spied on by the FBI. McCoy also wrote one of the earliest and most prescient books on the post-9/11 CIA torture program and he is one of the ...more

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Aug 10, 2020 Paquita Maria Sanchez added it

Shelves: x-files, actuals-n-factuals

Yeah. All that, except throw a pandemic on top of it to majorly accelerate your timeline.

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Nov 14, 2017 Athan Tolis rated it liked it

Shelves: politics, history

The clue is in the title: the author, professor Alfred W. McCoy, believes that what he calls the American “Empire” has lasted about a century and is drawing to an end. This is his account of why and how this will come about.

If it’s Elon Musk take-no-prisoners optimism about the future that you’re looking for, you’ve clearly come to the wrong place. The author dedicates a full chapter to explain why: he’s the baby boomer son of a WWII veteran who never demobilized, never allowed the scars of war ...more

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Mar 28, 2018 Martin rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-read-in-2018

What is said about bankruptcy might be said about the fall of empires: it happens gradually, then suddenly. For all their power, empires have a way of disintegrating rapidly, with the slide past the point-of-no-return underway before their leaders and citizens realize it. Moreover, disintegration can begin when an empire appears to be at its apex, unchallengeable economically, culturally, and militarily.

In his persuasive comparative study, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Dec ...more

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Jan 18, 2020 Karlo Mikhail rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

The author is critical of the worse excesses of US imperialism while remaining some sort of liberal apologist giving suggestions on how the empire in decline can retain some power amidst rising inter-imperialist competition and rise of a multi-polar world. The last chapter giving possible endgame scenarios for American global domination based on intelligence establishment reports is a fascinating read.

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Oct 22, 2017 Randy Urbano rated it liked it

Some good analysis of the reasons for the decline of the US and likely rise of China, but he gives Obama way too much credit for his foreign policy.

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Apr 19, 2019 Murilo Silva rated it liked it · review of another edition

Alfred W. McCoy, which is a Southeast Asia History Professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, opens the book by telling his personal story and how that relates to why he
wrote the book. Decades ago he had the opportunity to write a short paperback talking about
Vietnam and why they were having an opioid epidemy there. So, after traveling to Vietnam, he
ended up finding that the CIA was deeply involved in the scheme of heroin trafficking in the
region, and after McCoy wrote about it, he was per ...more

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Aug 10, 2020 David Stephens rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics

In early 1941, Henry Luce proclaimed in Life Magazine that the next century was bound to be the American century, and if people didn't believe him then, they would soon after World War II with America's economy booming and its military, diplomatic, economic, and clandestine influence felt over most of the world outside the Soviet bloc. And while many geopolitical scholars and historians believe the U.S. will remain a global hegemon indefinitely, Alfred McCoy, professor at the University of Wisco In early 1941, Henry Luce proclaimed in Life Magazine that the next century was bound to be the American century, and if people didn't believe him then, they would soon after World War II with America's economy booming and its military, diplomatic, economic, and clandestine influence felt over most of the world outside the Soviet bloc. And while many geopolitical scholars and historians believe the U.S. will remain a global hegemon indefinitely, Alfred McCoy, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and teacher of the tenacious journalist Jeremy Scahill, believes otherwise. According to McCoy (with backing from the National Intelligence Council), the U.S. empire began its downhill journey in 2003 with the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq and will lose its power and status around the world by 2030.

The book is broken up into three essential parts: the U.S.'s ascension to power, its strategies used to maintain that power, and five possible scenarios for its decline. The first and third sections are by far the most engaging. The U.S. began its rise to power around the turn of the twentieth century by acquiring various islands in the Pacific, the Philippines being the most consequential in this account. Not only did this lead to an expanded federal government, it opened the path for the U.S. to control the first of two axial points surrounding Eurasia.

It would acquire power in western Europe (the second axial point) later after World War II, leading to the beginning of its global domination. To maintain this power, the country would utilize vast surveillance, torture, and accelerated spending on arms and technology among other strategies. This middle section, while helpful in showing that some of the U.S.'s techniques paralleled those of the flailing empires of the past, suffers the most because it focuses on the standard story of the U.S. in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Glenn Greenwald, James Risen, Jane Mayer, and many others have covered these topics extensively. If this section offered me anything new, it was the new understanding that all of the CIA operations and coup attempts that began in the 1950s were so necessary because outright colonization had become a liability.

The final section provides different scenarios for the U.S. decline, which not only includes the country being forced to turn its military spending inward to domestic issues at some point, but also that its military capabilities might be far weaker and more susceptible than anyone currently thinks because of rapidly increasing Chinese cyber warfare strategies, which could cripple U.S. weapons and forces before they can even be deployed.

I'm certainly not qualified to judge if and when the U.S. empire has officially eroded, but McCoy's gravitas and extensive research (there are over one hundred pages of notes) along with my cynical nature and the current horrid state of U.S. affairs makes me believe that even if he doesn't know the exact year, he's still probably right. ...more

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Jan 01, 2021 Thijs Niks rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Empires used to be simple: The Romans got grain from Africa, the Spanish took gold from the Americas, the Dutch acquired spices in Asia, the British gained cotton in India, etc. (Sort of)

The simple answer is that the American empire takes oil from the Middle East, but there is more to it. For one, it’s the first empire that doesn’t want to acknowledge being an empire.

My hope was that McCoy would demystify this riddle by breaking down how the American empire came to be, how it functions, and wha ...more

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Aug 18, 2019 Jeffrey rated it it was ok

Shelves: foreign-policy

I only read about half the book. It wasn't what I was looking for. The author was really political and his analysis of events from the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam to Iraq are too muddled in left/right wing talking points for me to take seriously. I read the end about possible ends to the US empire. These didn't make sense or seem well thought out. Take this with a grain of salt as I am no expert in foreign policy.

The author claims that Kissinger extended the cold war for 15 years. I wonder is this a ...more

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Nov 07, 2021 Nadine rated it it was amazing

Prof. McCoy researched in a scholarly way the imperialism of the U.S.A. He uncovered the Heroin trade in S.E. Asia as well as the connections around the globe. Imperialism has a history of its own from the Stone Age to the Modern Age. Our oceans connect us and we have a tendency to put down roots in new places. Exceptionalism is really imperialism. Whether it's rubber tree farming or coffee beans, we want the natives to do the work. The Roosevelts were in the opium trade; Queen Victoria was in t ...more

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Dec 22, 2017 acuriouslibrarian rated it really liked it

This book will definitely make you think. I liked how it gave me a different perspective on things from the media.

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Dec 03, 2018 Randall Wallace rated it really liked it

“A study published right after World War II by two army doctors reported that sixty days of continuous combat turned 98% of soldiers into psychiatric casualties, vulnerable to what would later be called post-traumatic stress disorder.” American Exceptionalism is as exceptional as the other sixty-nine previous empires. The never discussed National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency lives in a $2 billion-dollar building, the third biggest federal building in DC and has 16,000 employees working with in “A study published right after World War II by two army doctors reported that sixty days of continuous combat turned 98% of soldiers into psychiatric casualties, vulnerable to what would later be called post-traumatic stress disorder.” American Exceptionalism is as exceptional as the other sixty-nine previous empires. The never discussed National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency lives in a $2 billion-dollar building, the third biggest federal building in DC and has 16,000 employees working with intelligence “data from spy planes, drones and orbital satellites.” U.S. removal of Diem in South Vietnam was such a mistake it gave Saigon nine different governments in thirty-two months and none of them worked. The message to the world was that in sacrificing “democratic principles for determined leadership”, the U.S. achieved neither. Fast forward decades and Condoleezza Rice says in Cairo in 2003, “The United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy… in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.” Eisenhower authorized 170 covert CIA missions and Kennedy said yes please to 163 more in only three years. Let’s look at the counterproductive Drug War: 1,200 tons of opium world-wide in 1972 at the beginning of it and 8,870 tons annually by 2007. Afghanistan shows that given unlimited $ and time, our military still can’t even “pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations.” Afghanistan’s opium poppies have 500,000 acres just devoted to them; its most significant commodity is illegal. Because we counterproductively refuse to financially support the re-emergence of its agriculture, Afghanistan remains the world’s leading narco-state. All torture info gleaned from the 50’s and before was distilled into the 1963 KUBARK Counterintelligence manual which emphasized the “interrogator as father figure.” Vietnam was the biggest air war in world history. When we began relentlessly bombing Laos, it was already ranked the world’s poorest nation. Many mention 58,000 dead U.S. soldiers and fewer mention the millions of dead Vietnamese, but Alfred mentions the “$100 billion in wasted capital” and the business community wanting out of the war.

MQ-9 Reapers cost 30 million dollars each and annual operating costs are a whopping $5 million per plane. RQ-170 Sentinel drones are $200 million each, Global Hawk drones are $223 million dollars each, and the new RQ-180 drone is 300 million dollars each. The U.S. plan is by 2025 to “envelope the earth in a robotic matrix theoretically capable of blinding entire armies or atomizing an individual insurgent after tracking his eyeball, facial image, and heat signature for hundreds of miles through field and favela, with equal ease.” With our army of over 100 military satellites, “by the 2020s, the Pentagon hopes to patrol the entire planet ceaselessly via its triple canopy aerospace shield reaching from sky to space, secured by an armada of drones with lethal missiles of Argus-eyed sensors, linked by a resilient modular satellite system, monitored through an electronic matrix, and controlled by robotic systems.” I really liked this book, I strongly recommend it. ...more

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Oct 18, 2021 Chris Esposo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Alfred McCoy has written a stunningly prescient text that from 2017, has remained fairly on-the-mark with respect to outlining the decline of US global influence, and providing a conceptual framework to understand the determinants of that decline, which is the relative (and absolute) recession of US intelligence network, primarily the party-counterparty relationships cultivated by the CIA of various international business and political elites that were within the sphere of the “Western”/US alli Alfred McCoy has written a stunningly prescient text that from 2017, has remained fairly on-the-mark with respect to outlining the decline of US global influence, and providing a conceptual framework to understand the determinants of that decline, which is the relative (and absolute) recession of US intelligence network, primarily the party-counterparty relationships cultivated by the CIA of various international business and political elites that were within the sphere of the “Western”/US alliance structure during the US/USSR Cold War of 1945-to-1991.

McCoy also makes a compelling argument that “learnings” from subjugations of overseas communities and peoples, like those of the US on the pro-independence Philippines in the late 19th/early-20th century, were brought back to the core of the nation, informing the policing and domestic security apparatus, and how this has a deteriorating effect on the potency of our democracy. Further, we can see this effect play out not only in distant historical examples, but in our modern era, with the militarization of local policing, and with consulting/contracting services from former military/veterans that seek to port wartime-training and “best-practices” learned in the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, to local policing operations, and the pernicious effects this has had to domestic policing, especially on minority and poorer communities.

However, it is McCoy’s focus on the intelligence network that serves as the superstructure for his theory of the US imperial/security system of the last 70 years, and he makes a good case suggesting that the WikiLeaks debacle of the early teens struck a grievous blow to that network, from a prestige and transparency standpoint, which allowed near-peer competitors like Russia and China to supplant that network once it’s workings were understood. Further McCoy outlines that beyond US control was the simultaneous consolidation and expansion of China’s comprehensive national power throughout Eurasia primarily through economic development via the Belt-and-Road initiative (BRI) as well as the development of it’s indigenous scientific and technological development capacity. All of these things have since become common talking points in US think-tanks as well as the broader public media, which now endlessly speculates on how US policy may retard or diminish either dimensions of China’s burgeoning comprehensive national strength.

It is however, the final piece of McCoy’s thesis, which is integration of the old Halford Mackinder theory of the Eurasian World Island which nicely solidifies his broader argument for apparent decline, and makes it robustly convincing (much more so than more standard theories of “empire” or hegemony espoused in political science or international relations literature). Here he states that the construction of infrastructure throughout Eurasia to move commodity across the landmass from Asia to Europe, and vice versa, and later from Asia to Arabia, then Africa, will enable the construction of a integrated market that is less dependent on maritime trade, and that such a system will be robustly resistant to peripheral intrusion from traditional maritime powers, like the United States or Great Britain.

It is here that the geography does seem convincing, not because of merits of the conceptual framework, but for what we have witnessed just a few weeks ago (it is now late fall of 2021), with the founding of the AUKUS axis, which is a compact of maritime powers. Ex post facto, it now seems obvious why it it was the case that these nations found comity (besides the common Anglo-Saxon elite/cultural connection) in resisting China’s (and to a lesser extent Russia’s) construction of this system, as it makes the channel of maritime trade less relevant, at least a little (even if the cost-speed factor is not as favorable as seafaring trade). This can also partially explain Japan’s resistance (as well as South Korea and the EU’s nominal support of the project despite being US-aligned nation-states).

Yet for large continental powers like Russia, China, or the EU (and some future conglomeration of African nations), this internal market will be almost inherently propitious for their mutual development. Thus, explaining the generally positive response of almost all regions on the “world island” to the large capital infusion the PRC has invested in the initial few phases of the program.

Beside these, McCoy also outlines the lopsided progress of US domestic talent in the technical fields as possibly another major factor in US’ precipitous decline vis-a-vis China. Indeed, the US cannot operate it’s innovation economy without this talent, many of whom are actually Asian emigres, with a large percentage of those Chinese in origin or ethnicity. Further, this is not a new development, it has always been the case for all of the 20th century. Although America has had a fair number of bright minds in the sciences and engineering, some large percentage of those have always been from immigrants, it’s just the source of those immigrants that have changed throughout the decades. First from eastern Europe in the early 20th century, then Asia from mid-century to now. Yet, it’s unclear how profoundly the Trump years of 2016-2020 have damaged the attractiveness of the US system in this regard, but it’s clear that America’s institutions of higher education will experience a “great contraction” if international student enrollment does exhibit a slowdown or outright drop because of both poor domestic politics as well as the new geo-political Cold War making studying in the US less attractive to both Chinese and the broader east and southeast Asian communities who now experience more direct and frequent racist interactions from the majority (and a much smaller subset of the minority) domestic population.

McCoy has inserted all of these threads together in this book to paint a fairly bleak picture for those who support continued US hegemony, or otherwise known as the US alliance and security system, though now being conflated with the notion of the “rules based order” (though to be clear, the two notions are distinct). Any of these trends would be a profound challenge to the US, but all of them simultaneously point towards an almost deterministic assurance that some level of decline will be felt, and that is being borne out with the actions of the US in the past year (2021) via the Biden administration. The fact is that US policy makers have acknowledged that the US cannot challenge China alone, this acknowledgment itself was not only presaged by McCoy (and others much earlier), but is a tacit admittance of the decline experience by the US vis-a-vis it’s comprehensive national power relative to any other nations, including China and Russia.

Whether it is China that emerges triumphant, or it’s a concert of global powers, which McCoy outlines in possible futures, neither trend contradicts the fundamental premise of his namesake thesis from his title, that US global power is in decline, it is a real phenomena, and despite the boosterism we see in domestic media, there are real indicators in many different dimensions which point to this being a long-term trend (though McCoy believes that most empires decline fairly quickly). There are certainly critiques that can be made about the argument, but I’ve yet to read many convincing ones. Recommended.
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May 08, 2020 Shuaib Choudhry rated it really liked it

An excellent and copiously referenced analysis of the rise of American power into a global empire/hegemon, it's tactics to maintain that position and it's most likely downfall from the position as the planets sole superpower. He then goes on to project a handful of scenarios that potentially face America in the upcoming decades as its waning economic power reduces it's influence on global politics and it’s military advantage is fast eroded. He weaves the military, societal and the economical sph ...more

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Nov 02, 2017 Keith Grace rated it it was amazing

No matter how informed you believe yourself to be, no matter how much you already dedicate yourself and education/awareness to true investigative journalism like The Intercept or ProPublica, or The Center for Investigative Journalism, etc., McCoy’s works are must-reads to understand where we are headed, why, and for how long we’ve been digging our own metaphorical grave.

How a World War III will be fought and then lost by the western world is one of the more eye-opening and unexpected discussion ...more

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Nov 16, 2017 Anthony Friscia rated it liked it

Shelves: history, politics, economics

This book was a little disappointing. I had heard the author talk on a podcast, and then heard about the book somewhere else, and thought it would be a good overview of current American military and foreign policy and into the future, but it didn’t really deliver. Most of the book is a history of American military transgressions, focusing on some of the worst aspects, like our recent developments in torture and cyberwarfare. This part of the book was interesting, but not really what I wanted. Wh ...more

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Sep 16, 2018 Alexander rated it liked it

Shelves: wishlist

The quality of the book's analysis declines as it approaches the present. Its discussion of possible future paths the US may follow is especially bad (e.g., Russia is somehow supposed to go from an economic basket case to a having superior naval power to the US in about 15 years).

Knock off a star if repetition is something you find especially annoying, add a star if you know nothing about the history of US foreign policy.

If you want a more detailed (and mainstream) introduction to the rise and ...more

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Nov 08, 2017 Horst Walther rated it it was amazing

If you're interested in meeting understanding the US shifting role in the world, this offers some valuable insight. While fascinating the countless revelations of a present empires overt and covert actions to rule the world alongside with the grim outlook doesn't necessarily make it a pleasant reading. ...more

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Jan 11, 2018 Kb rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

The American Empire is ending and we're not making plans to make the landing soft when it ends, so my middle age to old age is going to suck.

I must also say that the endless details about drones and satellites and other military hardware became tedious at times and I got lost in the minutiae and lost the thread of the argument. ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Matthew rated it liked it

3.5 stars - intriguing read, if familiar in many ways, with unique insights around how repressive tools deployed abroad can come home. His ending note about wasting time in the Middle East instead of confronting everything happening in Asia was sobering and right on the money.

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Apr 07, 2019 Charles Thorpe rated it it was amazing

Wake up and see beyond the propaganda to the real reasons for America's wars in the Middle East. This book will give you the knowledge and understanding to see the truth underneath all the rhetoric of the war on terror. ...more

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Sep 06, 2017 Cole rated it it was amazing

An important dissection of how global power works, what methods are implemented, and how the balance of power is already shifting away from America.

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Mar 27, 2018 Gary Bowman added it

McCoy is a history professor at the University of Wisconsin. He has written this book in the tradition of the Wisconsin school, best exemplified by William Appleman Williams' The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, which assigned part of the guilt for the Cold War to American concern for access to Eastern Europe and its markets. McCoy attempts to develop a model of American empire, which he generally describes as a global network of alliances with strong countries and obeisant strong men in small cou McCoy is a history professor at the University of Wisconsin. He has written this book in the tradition of the Wisconsin school, best exemplified by William Appleman Williams' The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, which assigned part of the guilt for the Cold War to American concern for access to Eastern Europe and its markets. McCoy attempts to develop a model of American empire, which he generally describes as a global network of alliances with strong countries and obeisant strong men in small countries.

McCoy's perspective is important and is more patriotic than unquestioning jingoism. But his perspective is tainted with loathing for at least the government and the American Dream. Perhaps with good reason: he describes in the introduction how his father, a West Point graduate and Korean War veteran, "died in an alcohol-fueled accident at the age of forty-five." His best friend's father, Ed Katzenbach (brother of Nicholas Katzenbach), was a figure in the military-industrial-space establishment of the 1960s, but killed himself at the age of fifty-five. During the Vietnam War, McCoy traveled to Laos to research the American government's support for heroin production in the Golden Triangle and was targeted as an enemy of the state from an early age. He and several classmates were even shot--one blinded, one killed--by a policeman on the Berkeley campus as they left class.

McCoy's big idea is that the United States government has created a "covert netherworld" to support its empire, and that the purpose of the system has not changed much since the Philippine War, but its methods have changed with advancing technology. For example, the United States' counter-insurgency approach in the Philippine war depended heavily on the discovery and penetration of insurgent networks, just as it did in Iraq, and does in Afghanistan, but face recognition and electronic surveillance has replaced index cards. However, it has not replaced "enhanced interrogation." Today, in the name of security, the United States government has developed a system of argus-eyed surveillance, continuous secret war against unidentified enemies, and remote-control killing with drones that belies American "exceptionalism."

And, according to McCoy, the United States is waging a losing effort to maintain an empire. He argues that China will replace the United States as the world's dominant power because of the principles of Halford MacKinder's Eurasian "heartland" theory. The United States has maintained its empire on the periphery of the Eurasion heartland, containing the rise of the Soviet Union and China as competitors. But China's rise within the heartland, and the transportation and other connections that it is forming within the heartland and Africa will not be contained by American power on the periphery. And American conduct that undermines its claim to exceptionalism, such as torture, military intervention, and economic decline has squandered soft power that it has been able to supplement its grand strategy.

McCoy's viewpoint is necessary, but is too pessimistic. He wishes for the Chinese eclipse of American hegemony. But even though America may not need to be a hegemon, has displayed a "shadow" to its triumphalism throughout its imperial era, and is now displaying the worst of its nature in this Trump era (we hope that it will not get worse), America still offers important values to the world and is an indispensable proponent of human rights and values. Those values are an essential part of the American identity, even when Americans do not display them. Rather than hoping for American decline, we should try to realize the best of our aspirations for human dignity and equality. But McCoy's book--and critiques like it--are necessary reminders of how short of our ideals we have fallen, and how much better we should do. ...more

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Apr 01, 2018 Peter Geyer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: society, culture, owned, politics, united-states, psychology, general-or-global-history

One of the best books I read as a young adult was Alfred W. McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in South-East Asia. So when I wandered into a favourite bookshop recently and saw copies of this book on a table, it was an easy decision to buy it.

McCoy's American Century starts in 1945, but its modus operandi starts in the Philippines in 1898. The overall context is that of "empire" – a term avoided by Americans in general (even historians) when thinking about their country, notwithstanding a statue in One of the best books I read as a young adult was Alfred W. McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in South-East Asia. So when I wandered into a favourite bookshop recently and saw copies of this book on a table, it was an easy decision to buy it.

McCoy's American Century starts in 1945, but its modus operandi starts in the Philippines in 1898. The overall context is that of "empire" – a term avoided by Americans in general (even historians) when thinking about their country, notwithstanding a statue in the middle of San Francisco that uses the word, and some compelling evidence over the years. Perhaps "class" is the only other term treated with such avoidance. Both have been pretty obvious to this outsider for decades.

To this is added Halford Mackinder's "World Island" hypothesis from 1904, which McCoy explains, giving examples from various past empires, including the British, and then applying it to the last century or so of American activity in the world.

One of the interesting insights here is how isolated the United States was up until the Spanish-American War, and how limited its armed services. The currently much-debated Second Amendment would have made sense around then, with private militias and so on. All this changed , according to McCoy (a specialist in this area) with the somewhat brutal conquest of the Philippines, against some groups that are probably still around.

The main point of this part of the book is to demonstrate that surveillance and other tactics, including torture, have their US origins in the Philippines from whence they were exported. Details as to how this came about and the ultimate establishment of the CIA and other security and surveillance bodies. How this evolved, in the context of various coups and takeovers that have been on the historical record for decades, is clearly articulated, particularly in stories about Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam, across a range of armed service and clandestine bodies.

A feature is also a description of the development and utilisation of drones and the problems associated with their use, including psychological ones on those guiding them. The behaviour of certain psychologists in methods of torture is also described, something I'd read elsewhere and a reminder of two things: psychology and personality aren't the same kind of study, and professional ethics can be easily discarded.

McCoy describes and evaluates the actions of several US Presidents, finding them wanting according to various standards. Interestingly, he rates Barack Obama (who he also criticises heavily) as one of the few (3) people who actually understood the global nature of what I would call "world island strategies."

A reality in this story is that much of the efforts undertaken haven't really been effective and perhaps counterproductive, particularly if democracy and freedom are slogans that appear alongside satellites, drones and other weapons. McCoy also describes the up-and-coming powers that might take over the US role, sooner rather than later – China in particular –and presents a few scenarios as to how that might occur. Personally, I'm not a fan of future scenarios: an honest futurist will tell you that they also have little idea, so I found this less useful.

There are other things in this book of interest and relevance. It's well-written and objective, as you might expect from someone who's studied this area for as long as McCoy.

...more

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Feb 24, 2020 Cgallozzi rated it really liked it

A very interesting way to think about both Empire - and America as an Empire.

McCoy details America's:
* Rise of its empire - Phase 1 America's 1899 war with Spain
Phase 2 After 1945 - establishing World Governing Bodies
Phase 3 - 21st Centure.

* Tools used in projecting America's empire abroad:
$ made from the Heroin trade in S.E. Asia.
Use of torture - Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Creation and enhancement of a Surveillance State - and 'manufacturing
consent' of a pliable U.S. population to support t ...more

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Sep 09, 2019 issa rated it it was amazing

No matter how bad you know it is, you read more and you learn that it's worse.

In the Shadows of the American Century has a particular flavor of worse, however: it does a lot of work to carefully and comprehensively weave together our disparate sins into a single picture of American imperial power: drugs, criminals, information and surveillance, information and technology, democracy, the covert and the clandestine, torture, and of course military action.

McCoy also does work here to tie in narrati ...more

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About Alfred W. McCoy

Alfred W. McCoy

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Dr Alfred W. McCoy is professor of SE Asian History at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison where he also serves as director of the Center for SE Asian Studies, a federally-funded National Resource Center. He's spent the past quarter-century writing about the politics & history of the opium trade. In addition to publications, he serves as a correspondent for the Observatoire Geopolitique des Drogues in ...more