Episode 2 BBC News: The Editors

Welcome to Washington and to BBC News The Editors. Is America

finished as the world's superpower? Immigration, good or bad for

Britain? Is Russia now a rogue state? And has something gone

seriously wrong with English It's almost 50 years to the very

day since I first came to America, a gawky, innocent 18-year-old. I

was absolutely blown away by the place. It seemed like -- light

years away from class-driven Britain. I adore this country still,

but it doesn't feel like the future any more. The rest of the developed

world has caught up with it. According to the New York times

Britain is now socially mobile than America and has a fairer

distribution of income too. Nowadays this country can sometimes

seem distinctly backward looking itself. President George Bush

banned stem cell research because Christian fundamentalists didn't

like it. America still executes prisoners, just like Iran, Saudi

Arabia and China. It has practised torture and imprisonment without

trial and it assasinates its enemies, just like all those

country it's always criticised. 50 years on, then, America is still a

wonderful place, but it doesn't seem to me like the pinnacle of

civilisation any more and its position in the world isn't what it

was either. In fact, is it really a superpower any longer? Mark Mardell

Come on, let's get the horses in. It's a land of big skies and bigger

dreams. Welcome to the west. It was in part the drive to the west that

gave the sense that America was a land of endless possibilities with

a unique destiny. But in the four years I've been here, there's been

a stampede of politicians and pundits fretting that America is in

decline, about to become ordinary. Its influence on the wane, head

over he's in debt, its infrastructure crumbling and

economy faltering, about to be outstripped by more dynamic rivals.

Even my jeans and cowboy boots were made in China.

The idea that a rival nation could leave the USA in the dust owe fends

some Americans more than it scares them and it is true America will

never again bestride the world the way it once did. There's a

rebalancing after centuries when first Europe and then the USA

seemed to hold all the cards, have all the power and the wealth, the

rise of the rest - China, India and South America, means that's already

history. So I'm in search of the future of

American power. The USA's feeling of superiority and indispencibility

has a lot to do with the fact that they won two world wars and the

Cold War. American power grew in part from a barrel of a gun or a

minuteman missile. Minot air base is the home to the most devastating

weapons in their Arsenal, ballistic missiles and B-52s to deliver a

nuclear bomb. What's the job of the fifth bomb wing? In one word I'd

say deterrence... All the mission statements said if that fails, hunt

down and destroy America's enemies. Chris Duff and Chris Brown are

navigators. Their job would be to drop the bomb. You would be the one

that drops the nuclear bomb? As the offence team, we're the ones

responsible for weapons activities, making sure we're within parameters

and that we're dropping the right type of weapon on the right type of

target. That's quite a responsibility. It is. Is American

power as great as it ever was? jet has been around for 50 years.

It's still capable of reaching out and touching anyone in the world at

any time. The testament to the B-52 is that we'll never have to do that

because people know we can do it. Do you feel confident that America

acts for good in the world? Yes. I'm a Christian and it's found on

Christian morals. I have faith in the President and my leadership

that they will only make that decision if they need to. America

still spends a lot more on its military than the rest of the world.

In fact add together the military budgets of China, Russia, Britain,

France, Japan and the next four big spenders and you still don't get

anywhere near America's staggering $1 trillion in 2011. Because the

budget is being cut but the military might represented by these

planes won't disappear overnight. The gap is overwhelming, it would

take generations to erode, but that may be a burden not a blessing.

Other source of American might has been its economy and that has

suffered serious shocks playing second fiddle to China does seem

inevitable, but you wouldn't know it here. 200 years ago this was the

edge of the wild frontier, as America expanded to fill a

continent and well, to become itself and still has this frontier

feel here. Once again in north Dakota it's boom time. The state

has the lowest unemployment rate in the USA and it's all down to a huge

skpranction in fracking. It's a controversial technique shattering

rocks miles underGround Forceing them to yield their bounty of oil

and gas. They call this Kuwait on the prairie. Before long an

abundance of cheap fuel will mean America won't rely on the Middle

East or anyone else for its power. We're on what was the frontier,

America pushed to the Pacific, there's nowhere left to expand is

there? Sure there is exactly what we're doing here, we are expanding

underground. We have a new frontier. I would say that we would be very

short sighted if they think that's the best we can do. Isn't the truth

that you've had your day, the British had their day, the Greeks

their day. America's day is going. America's day is building. We are

still on the upswing. We are getting better every day and north

Dakota is a perfect example of just how American ingenuity is improving

and taking us on to the next frontierment -- Frontier. There are

few boundaries to the optimism of Americans, but fear of decline has

a political edge. This is a very young country, still growing up and

changing. Ran dal's family has ranched in southern Montana for

five generations. He's 87 and doesn't like the way things are

going. It don't look very good to me. This Government and politics is

all getting everything screwed up. I don't like the way it's going.

America is still the greatest and I hope it always will be. The sun is

setting on a certain sort of American power, but a new dawn can

be within reach if Americans themselves can embrace a world

where they no longer effortlessly outshine the rest but are still a

bright point of light amid the All together then we seem to be

move ago way from the era of the superpower to a more open

international system with no one country predominating. Every major

power, except China, is far less exclusively national than it used

to be. Mass immigration has changed us all. But has it now gone too

far? Nick Robinson has been to the English town of Peterborough, which

has been changed out of all recognition by immigration.

This is how much of the country used to look, a typical town and

market, so very British, so very white. Not any more. The face of

Britain is changing. And nowhere more so than here in Peterborough.

In the last decade in this city, 24,000 immigrants moved in. That's

more than one in eight of the population. Over the past decade

more than a million eastern Europeans came to Britain and

stayed. Now politicians are competing to say that the country

They're listening to the voices of those telling them that their towns,

their cities, their lives have changed. I'll be honest I want to

move out of Peterborough to give my son a fair chance in the schools.

Because obviously, you know, everyone's entitled to education,

but locally there is obviously so many that the classes will be

getting bigger and therefore, one or two schools English isn't the

first language. Is it just the scale? I think it is. It is just

such a massive, massive change and lots of people, my father very

rarely comes into town or his wife because they don't feel safe.

uncomfortable? Yes, don't feel safe because obviously, you don't know

what, when they talk in their native tongue, you don't know what

they're rabbiting. Have you got a customer? There is one hiding there.

How long have you been living here? I been yesterday. How long have you

lived in the city. One day. Ian is very, very far from being alone,

about three quarters of people tell pollsters they think immigration is

too high. More than half of us say that we think immigration should be

cut by a lot. Now that's been true for a long time, but something has

changed in the last few years - the number of people who say the impact

of immigration is very bad has almost doubled. Interestingly,

that's a view shared by first and second generation immigrants.

new arrivals are not integrating as well. There's ghetto situations.

Parim's father came from the Punjab to Peterborough to set up this

stall. How different would he think Peterborough was now to what it was

then? I think he would be shocked. Really? Yes. I think so. Because?

mean, he was a very proud man, who was British in a way, he came here

and embraced Britain as his country. Do you see the irony in this?

You're a Sikh. You say the problem with the immigrants is they don't

mix in. That is probably in a nutshell. Here in East Anglia,

thousands of eastern Europeans work on the land picking fruit and veg

and flowers. People Steve believes help keep locals like him in their

jobs. People say no, we haven't got space for them, there's no room

here. That's a load of rubbish. There's plenty of room. We will

always fit them in. What if your customers said my son, grandson,

couldn't get a job because a Polish is taking it or Lithuanian?

somewhere else, work harder. decades the question of immigration

was linked with race, which is why mainstream politicians were so

terrified of the subject. But now the new influx of immigrants are

white and from Europe, that link has been largely broken. The

pressure is still on the politicians because of questions of

integration and whether the country is simply too full.

This is a Polish paper for here? Poles are known for being hard

workers, doing the jobs many others won't do. They're also known,

though, for keeping themselves to themselves. We are Polish shop, you

know, so that's why people are coming here, especially Polish

people which are not speaking English. Stkpwhri guess 40, 50

years ago, Maybe new arrivals in Britain thought "We have to learn

English." Now we don't have to really because if you got some

problems you can even come to the shop. This city has already

successfully absorbed many waves of immigrants, including thousands of

Italians. One of whom is now Peterborough's political leader. My

sense is you're kind of a big optimist about immigration, whereas

I might have expected you not to be. My view is the glass is half empty

or half full. Now, we can't stop immigration coming to the city, as

a council, I cannot stop people coming here. What do you do? You

either say there are huge -- they're a huge problem and we want

them to go away or you say they're coming any way, so letsz' make the

best of it. -- let's. Italians, Poles, Africans, Asians, a fifth of

the population of this city were born afraud. -- abroad. A tenth of

households speak no English. The opinion polls are clearly

telling politicians that people want that flow to stop or at least

to slow down. Perhaps, though, people are as concerned about

integration as they are about immigration. Because in truth, most

people know that Britain is not simply going to go back to the way

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, this country,

America, seems rather to have missed the simple certainties of

having one, single, major enemy. Russia now much diminished is

trying to find a new role too. Under Vladimir Putin, the former

KGB man, it's been behaving pretty questionably. Bridget Kendal asks

if Russia is now actually a rogue The ultimate hangout in Moscow on a

Friday night. Most of them weren't even born when the Soviet Union

collapsed in 1991. They probably can't imagine what it was like and

just how dramatically this country has changed. I can travel a lot. I

can be where I want, so I like my life. Nowadays, you can choose your

job, travel abroad and own a flat, all simple rights, unthinkable for

most people when this country was For over 30 years I've been coming

here. First as a student, then as a journalist. I can't help feeling

optimistic when I walk around Moscow these days. But beneath the

new veneer of prosperity there's a darker side. It's all to do with

how power at the top in Russia is wielded, as though laws and public

accountability matter less than security. When I was here in the

1980s that building, the old KGB headquarters, used to give me the

shivers, the seek rote state within a state that spied on its citizens

and controlled the country from within. It's still here and still

hugely poufrpl and probably bigger than ever, because it's directly

connected to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, himself a former

KGB officer. So, is Russia a dangerous force in the world? A

I've come to see one journalist who has dared to take on the secret

world of the FSB, as the KGB is now called. He says the Russian

Security Services are out of control and their tentacles stretch

everywhere. The Soviet Secret police was built,

formed to produce mass oppressions in every Russian town and cities.

This system was not changed with regards the new regime. It's a

battle between the good and the evil. It's not easy to penetrate

the black hole at heart of Russia and to know how high up the

corruption and violence go, even for those of us who have

interviewed Vladimir Putin, it's hard to know what makes him tick

and how rich he really is. Those who try to dig beneath the surface

tend to come to a sticky end like this journalist, gunned down in her

own apartment building or Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in

London. The whistle-blowing lawyer who ended up dying in Russian

police custody and now he's being In this park, they dance in the

open air, just like they used to 30 years ago. Most of these pensioners

were reluctant to be interviewed, nervous about giving their views.

But Vladimir Putin has his supporters who voted him in as

President three times. What do you think about your President? "He's

wonderful. He's made sure we get a decent pension."

At the Parliament, politicians loyal to Mr Putin say it's not

Russia which poses a threat, it's the west. We do not organise

Guantanamo prisons to torture people. We do not invade other

nations. We do not use drones to kill thousands in anti-terrorist

operations. Russia being evil, imperial is just part of the

Western psyche or the Western mentality. It's just a way the West

per receives -- perseives itself as different from Russia which is evil

May 6 last year, the police block an anti-Putin rally in Moscow.

We have the constitutional right to protest peacefully this woman tells

them. Now the young mother is awaiting trial for provoking unrest.

Her flat was raided. She can't find work and she's banned from leaving

Moscow. That's the worst thing. I can't find no work inside Moscow

and I can't go outside of Moscow. Do you feel scared now? You have a

small son? I'm scared. I have a small son. They told me that they

are going to kill me. Of course, I realised that these are just phone

calls. You are scared when something tells you that you are

going to die. But strong-arm tactics don't

necessarily mean the Russian state is in control. The posturing is

more a sign of weakness than strength of a system that's

politically dysfunctional and corrupt. I don't think you can call

Russia a rogue state. Yes, its behaviour can seem thuggish and

macho at times, but it's more of a spoiler than a threat. This is no

North Korea. If it is a danger, then it's to some of its own

citizens not to the outside world. The question is - how long might

this last? Don't expect an Arab- style uprising. Few here want

another revolution. The real danger is that Russia could stumble on

America is the one country where football, our kind of football that

is, has never made a final breakthrough. Now, though, the

English Premier League has done a huge rights deal with NBC and as a

result, football will air regularly on one of the big TV networks for

the first time here. Yet, for all its wealth and high profile abroad,

there always seems to be some crisis back home for English

football. David Bond, our sports editor, asks whether something has

gone seriously wrong with it. The pre-match pint, for as long as

people have been watching football, they've been gathering in pubs like

this to get ready for the match. The difference here - it's just

gone 6am in the morning. I've come to the Crown Inn to meet up with

250 City fans travelling south for their FA Cup semi-final against

Chelsea. This is a way of life. No matter how much money flows into

football, you sense reassuringly that some things may never change.

Hello? Manchester City... No club typifies English football's

revolution better than this one. Top flight football and money have

always gone hand in hand, but back in the 1970s, it was more of a

cottage industry. TV companies paid less to nothing for live rights.

Clubs were more closely tied to their communities.

These days they are global brands to be bought and sold by the super

Last year, City became English champions for the first time since

1968 with a team paid for by a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal

Family, who rescued the club from the brink of bankruptcy five years

ago. With all that oil-fuelled success you'd think City's fans

would be unquestionably happy. Football has changed so much from

when you started going. Do you find now that it's lost touch with the

common fan? Yeah, it has, without a doubt. It's down to expense more

than anything. You are governed by expense. Basically, if you want to

go and do every single game, unless you're worth a lot of money, it

can't be done. They know they have a captive audience. You are a fan,

you follow your team. Whatever you can afford you will try to do it.

At the moment you're right on the edge. Sometimes, I mean, I probably

don't go to half the amount of away games and that's because of cost.

This place knows a thing or two about costs. Wem blip's �800

million redevelopment transformed a relic into a state-of-the-art

cathedral for the game, a fitting symbol of English football's

modernisation. But someone has to pay for these improvements. Meet

the prawn sandwich brigade. This is the biggest corporate hospitality

operation in world sport, squeezing the rich helps keep prices lower

for the less well off. But all this has changed the sport's dynamics.

personally am not overly in favour of the prawn sandwich brigade.

Unfortunately, the finances in football dictate that the club

tries to make as much money as it can. That's unfortunately where

it's ended. It's fantastic facilities. You're having a

fantastic meal, champagne, it's a good day out. It's only half a

bottle of champagne. But you're having a great day out. Why not?

Why couldn't it change? Yeah, sure, as long as the true supporters of

the club, of the two clubs have been able to get tigts and be able

to come with their families, then that's absolutely fine. Although

some of this new money is filtered down to grass-roots, many at the

bottom of the game say the top is out of touch.. Take the recent

racism controversies. This Surrey junior team became so disillusioned

by football's response that they took action into their own hands.

It's a simple message - one black sock, one white to symbolise racial

harmony on and off the pitch. And yet the coach said their initiative

got no backing from those in charge. Clearly this is a point you're

making about values, is there a sense that football at the very top

level is has -- has lost its sense of values and morality? The value

is to do with money now. I think money has just taken over football

rather than being passionate and the majority of players now all

they want is the money. That passion has come out of it. When

you come down to see grass-roots football, you can see everyone is

fighting for one another. There is passion. I think that is the part

of the game is we've lost. Unpalatable as it might be, the

answer to some of England's problems could lie with old rivals

Germany. For these fans supporting Borussia Dortmund is about more

than just buying a ticket or wearing a shirt. They have a big

say in how this place is owned and run. Dortmund are one of Germany's

biggest clubs. That doesn't stop them offering cheaper tickets and

free travel. What's more, rules prevent any one businessman from

controlling clubs. While more than half of English teams have gone

bust in the last 20 years, there's not been a single insolvency in

Germany. According to the club's chief executive, the model creates

greater stability for everyone. fans, in normal case, is member of

Borussia Dortmund. He comes to the meeting every year. He can elect

people. He has a feeling - I'm a part of it. I think in England,

more and more, the fans of the clubs have not the feeling that

they are part of the whole. They have a client feeling I think.

There's no question the great football boom of the last two

decades has improved the English game. But all that money has

created different problems. With TV revenue set to increase again next

year, this feels like a defining moment. Carry on and leave the

market to decide or find another, fairer way.

All round us are the classic monuments to America's self-

confidence, yet every since 9/11 and reinforced recently by the

Boston bombings, the old sense of impreingnablt seems to have faded.