Since 1987, when Paul Kennedy published The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, are innumerable the books which upheld the thesis of the decline of the...

Since 1987, when Paul Kennedy published The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, are innumerable the books which upheld the thesis of the decline of the American power in the world. Two events occurred last summer - the war in Georgia and the financial crisis - that made visible to the general public what a few months ago only scholars were able to see. The fact that those events occurred during the Presidential electoral campaign enables citizens to chastise a failed Presidency based on military adventurism, which lied about the Iraqi war, torture and the health of the US economy. At the same time, it makes it easier for the new President to make a fresh start and adapt himself to the new situation.

The conflict in Georgia, a country which benefits from military, economic and political support by the US, has shown that the latter is so powerless that it is unable to defend its ally. The outcome of the war represents a defeat of the strategy of encirclement of Russia through the enlargement of NATO and the construction of military bases around Russian borders. Therefore, the prospect of the entry of Georgia into NATO is growing now more and more distant. Moreover, as a consequence of the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, backed by the US with the support of the EU, Putin felt entitled to invade Georgia and foment South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's secessions. Another aspect of the retreat of the American power is its loss of influence in Latin America, as shown by Russia's joint naval manoeuvres with Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea.

On the other hand, it is to be noted that the US government decision to display the antimissile shield on Czech and Polish territory was taken in the very days of the invasion of Georgia by Russian troops. Moscow stated that it is equipped with missiles which can pierce that shield. It is a clash that takes us back to the Cold War. Evidently, the US and Russia are Westphalian states, which are not yet prepared to recognize a superior authority and are unable to conceive international relations other than in terms of strength. Instead, the EU is a post-Westphalian community, where, since the end of WWII, an experiment is being carried out to overcome national sovereignty through the creation of a single market, a single currency, a single supranational space regulated by law and justice, a supranational Parliament, and has the ambition to unify its foreign and security policy.

The arbitration role played by the EU in Georgia was a success of the French Presidency. Its timely intervention, according to Saakashvili, Georgia's President, prevented Russian troops from reaching Tbilisi. The most significant aspect of Sarkozy's success lies in its tightening the cohesion of the 27 EU member states, especially the former Soviet Union's satellite countries. They felt that the EU assured them a better protection than NATO.

If the outcome of the EU initiative in Georgia is to be appreciated, we should not forget the weakness of its foreign policy, that is still subject to the veto power. In 1970 Henry Kissinger asked: "Europe? What telephone number?". Unfortunately, the irony is still topical. Furthermore, the EU condemnation of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's separatism is contradicted by its support for Kosovo's secession. The truth is that the only alternative to ethnic nationalism is federalism, that enables peoples to compound their aspiration to autonomy with lasting peace, assured by supranational institutions. And the EU should back this principle without exceptions.

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The financial crisis represents an even more visible sign of the decline of the American power. Following the retreat of the US government control from the markets, begun with the Reagan administration, financial capitalism has become more and more greedy, obese and irresponsible. The illusion of a self-regulating world market without government control became popular all over the Western World. Wall Street has created a mountain of debts that are overwhelming the world economic system and have destroyed the prestige of the American economic model. The "toxic assets" are monsters that have inadvertently penetrated the portfolios of millions of savers and have infested the world economy. The globalized financial market has fostered the growth of banks and insurance companies which have become so huge that they cannot be declared bankrupt. Hence the need for the state to intervene to bail them out. Bush is now overwhelmed by his economic policy subordinate to business interests and speculation and is obliged to propose an emergency plan and to resort to the unpleasant measure of nationalization.

The EU is not equipped to face a similar emergency plan. Macro-economic policies are the competence of member states. The European Central Bank has no supervision powers, that remain in the hands of national Central Banks. However, the crisis can accelerate the unification process, slowed down by the result of the Irish referendum, through the strengthening, democratization and the enlargement of competencies of the EU institutions.

With the euro, the EU has become a monetary power, which has modified strength relations at world level and opened the way to monetary multipolarism. The same evolution is in progress in the military sphere, where the US superiority has been severely reduced in asymmetric wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what is drastically reducing the US military-spending capacity is the financial crisis. The amount of the fund proposed by Bush to purchase the junk bonds of the banks facing a financial crisis is equivalent to the cost of a second Iraqi war; therefore, it is legitimate to think that the US will not have sufficient resources for its antimissile shield. Moreover, the US is financing its colossal deficit abroad, and the devaluation of its debt by printing money is the way through which the world is paying the bill to the old declining superpower.

It is clear that this system is approaching the end. The US has lost the status of superpower. This represents a great opportunity for the evolution of the world toward a multipolar order without hegemonies, and for the reform of the UN system. The world needs public goods that the US at this point is unable to provide. The EU is called to take new responsibilities and a more active role: it can take initiatives for a "New Bretton Woods", for a world without nuclear weapons, for combating global warming, for regionalizing the UN Security Council. But it can only cope with those global challenges if it becomes able to speak with one voice.