America’s decline! Johan Galtung is a Norwegian socialist. He is also a professor credited with laying the foundation of ‘peace studies’ as a subject of science. He is also known as the person who had correctly predicted during the height of the cold war that the Soviet Union will eventually fall.
The professor had also envisaged the uprising in Tiananmen Square and the 9/11 attacks on American soil. In the year 2000, he had announced that America will cease to be a superpower by 2025.
America’s decline under Trump
Now, Johan Galtung has warned that America’s global hegemony is declining very fast, and under the leadership of the president elect Donald Trump, the superpower will disintegrate further and at a much faster rate.
When Donald Trump was elected as the new US president in November 2016, professor Galtung once again reiterated his previous predictions of the imminent American collapse.
The property mogul from New York won this election on the basis of an anti immigrant agenda. This coincides with the final chapter in the book written by Johan Galtung in 2009. The name of the book is ‘The Fall of the American Empire- and then What?’
In the same book, the author had stated that there will be a sharp rise in racism and fascism within the American society which will culminate in its eventual demise.
Incidentally, Donald Trump has also vowed that he will deport millions of illegal immigrants as soon as he takes charge of the US administration. He has also announced that he will oversee building of a wall between America and its neighbor Mexico.
During a recent interview with ‘Motherboard’, Professor Galtung said that Trump’s election had speeded up the declining process. However, he also said that it is still not known what the new present would do once he gets inside the White House.
Another factor that may contribute towards America’s waning global power is the UN reasonable and critical attitude of the new president towards the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The new president had hinted during his election campaign that America may not come to help its allies if they do not enhance their defense spending to a designated threshold.
One of the most vocal critics of professor Galtung is Xenia Wickett who is associated with the think tank Chatham House. She says that the predictions are unrealistic because America is global power for several reasons.
Apart from its most advanced and power military, America’s soft power and economic strength also render it the leader of the entire world. All of these things cannot change so swiftly.
