Hans Morgenthau
THE DECLINE OF THE WEST
EDITORS ' NOTE:
Mr. Morgenthau 's piece is the first in a series ofcom–
ments on the political and economic crisis in America and Western
Europe. We 've asked a number ofpeople in various fields to partici–
pate in the series, and their contributions wtfl appear in subsequent
tSsues.
Present concern with the decline of the West is caused by the
obvious decline of American power. The defeat the United States has
suffered in Indochina has not only been total but ignominious. Even if
defeat had to be anticipated as inevitable, there was nothing inevitable
about our inability
to
manipulate the modalities of defeat for the
purpose of retreating from an untenable position with at least a modi–
cum of poise. American power and influence used to be dominant in
Turkey and Greece. The United States has succeeded in alienating both
to the point where their effective membership in NATO is in question ,
and has failed in inducing them to compose their differences over
Cyprus . We are reduced to watching passively the anarchy , threatening
Communization, of our ally Portugal. We are unable to dissuade the
Federal Republic of Germany, one of our closest allies, from selling a
whole nuclear production cycle
to
Brazil, a transaction that, making the
proliferation of nuclear weapons virtually inevitable , carries ominous
implications for the survival of mankind.
The natural current concern with this decline of American power
has obscured the relationship between that decline and the decline of
the West in general . More particularly, it has obscured the fact that the
United States owes its rise
to
predominance in the aftermath of the
Second World War to the selfsame decline of the West, ofwhich it now
appears as the prime example . In other words , the decline of the West,
