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WHEN IS A SUPERPOWER NOT A SUPERPOWER? Mark Steyn offers up a classic example of the right's oddly metaphorical view of national strength:
This country has acquired the habit either of losing wars or of ending them inconclusively. A similar result in the Middle East would lead not just the Chinese, Russians, and Iranians but also the Norwegians, Singaporeans, and Australians to conclude that the nation's hyperpower status was some freak accident � like Jerry Lewis stumbling into a boardroom meeting and being mistaken for the new chairman. They would make their dispositions according, there being no reason why anyone should take Washington seriously ever again.Not to get too thick in the weeds of origins and so forth, but I think it should be pretty clear that the United States' hyperpower status is based on the fact that we're objectively very powerful. We have -- by far -- the world's largest GDP and we spend a relatively large share of it on our military. Hence, we have all these nuclear bombs, aircraft carriers, fighters and bombers, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, etc. The only militaries vaguely comparable in terms of quality are much smaller and are owned by countries closely allied with the United States. It's a very impressive situation and it means people need to take us seriously. It's just that there are limits to what impressive military power can accomplish. Semi-permanently occupying foreign territory is intrinsically difficult and we need to learn to deal with that.
--Matthew Yglesias
