It is tempting to view the US-China rivalry as just another superpower transition in a long line going back to the classical shift of power from Athens to Sparta. But this case is different.

Traditionally, a strong rising power has challenged a weakening incumbent, making the outcome preordained. The only question was whether the transition would be peaceful or violent.

This question also applies to the US-China struggle. But the outcome is far from inevitable, because the powers of both the aspirant and the incumbent are eroding — albeit in different ways.

Previous predictions of US decline were based on unfavorable domestic economic and social trends such as slowing productivity growth, declining social mobility, and worsening income inequality.

In recent years, however, America has faced the additional problem of a precipitous decline in its soft power, which Joseph Nye defined as a country’s ability to get others to want what it wants. Today, that soft-power currency, more valuable than the dollar itself as a source of US hegemony, has been debased beyond recognition. US global leadership is now associated with disastrous wars, repudiation of the collective commitment to address climate change, sabotage of the global trading system, and unraveling international security arrangements.

America has further damaged its own political institutions. It has an erratic, unbalanced president, a gerrymandered Congress, a politicized Supreme Court, and a system of rulemaking rigged by the elite. Over the past century, US institutions often inspired awe and invited emulation in much of the world. Now, they have become an object of mockery, while the 2008 global financial crisis similarly tarnished the US model of finance-driven, winner-take-all capitalism.

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