German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently declared that the “Pax Americana” in which the United States guaranteed European security is over. He’s right, but he’s wrong to declare that it’s possible for Europe to defend its own interests because there is no European political entity capable of doing so.
The “Pax Americana” that Merz rightly says will not return arose for two reasons: America’s economic dominance and a combination of shared interests and values between it and the rest of the world. Neither fact still applies.
America once stood alone at the top of global GDP table. In 1960, for example, its GDP was as large as the next seven nations combined. This supremacy lasted throughout the Cold War. Even as late as 1980, the US -produced more than or roughly as much as the next two nations combined even on a PPP basis.
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