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Txangoddess
gatherer
Username: Txangoddess
Post Number: 110
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 07, 2007 - 9:24 pm: |     |
Hey everyone! I brought this here because it seemed like the most thoughtful board for it.
Beyond my admiration for and massive crush on Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, I found this article--"Preview of a Post US World"--very provocative and intriguing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16843382/site/newsweek/
Some questions that come to mind: Who or what will "manage" the global system as the US becomes irrelevent? Is that even happening at all (irrelevance in the global scheme)? Is US dominance ultimatley desirable, or more desirable, to anyone after reading the article? And what can we do to temper the Bush factor and maintain our place if it is deemed an ultimate good?
Placed in the general section because this is framed as a global issue rounding on US politics, not vice versa.
From the article:
"We are certainly in a trough for America—with Bush in his last years, with the United States mired in Iraq, with hostility toward Washington still high almost everywhere. But if so, we might also be getting a glimpse of what a world without America would look like. It will be free of American domination, but perhaps also free of leadership—a world in which problems fester and the buck is endlessly passed, until problems explode.
Listen to the new powers. China, which in three years will likely become the world's biggest emitter of CO2, is determined not to be a leader in dealing with global environmental issues. "The ball is not in China's court," said Zhu Min, the executive vice president of the Bank of China and a former senior official in the government. "The ball is in everybody's court." India's brilliant planning czar, Montek Singh Alluwalliah, said that "every country should have the same per capita rights to pollution." In the abstract that's logical enough, but in the real world, if 2.3 billion people (the population of China plus India) pollute at average Western levels, you will have a global meltdown.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a new round of trade talks and asked that everyone be "flexible." In fact, the United States has exhibited considerable flexibility, relaxing its position on many contentious issues, including agricultural subsidies. On the other hand, France, that eloquent critic of U.S. unilateralism, has refused to budge on its lavish subsidies for farmers. As a result, the European Union is fractured and paralyzed. For their part Brazil, China and India speak of flexibility in the abstract but have made no new proposals. The ball for every problem is in everybody's court, which means that it is in nobody's court.
The problem is that this free ride probably can't last forever. The global system—economic, political, social—is not self-managing. Global economic growth has been a fantastic boon, but it produces stresses and strains that have to be handled. Without some coordination, or first mover—or, dare one say it, leader—such management is more difficult."
Eager to read responses!
No doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. I understand how hard it is. Everybody knows it's hard work. And there's a lot of good people working hard.
George W Bush |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1820
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 6:15 am: | |
Hey Txan, long time no see!  Great topic, but where to begin?
My flippant answer to what can you do to mitigate the Bush factor is to elect Hillary in 2008. 
Seriously, the world is entering a phase of realpolitik and real balance of power, as opposed to having one super-power. All nations will have to be pragmatic in the future to ensure their and our survival. It is ok for China or India to disregard their CO2 emissions, but that will come at a cost - their potential survival and they would do well to learn that. The EU needs to get off its collective ass and take a look - the world has changed in the last 60 years people. We cannot cling to old ideas. France can't have its cake and agricultural subsidies too. And it is rich to hear Merkel call for flexibility. Would that she could do that with her own forces under the NATO banner....
The US won't ever become irrelevant and right now as we start to see the beginning of its denouement as a world power (make no mistake it is still number one culturally, politically, militarily and economically) those that feel they have had a rough deal from the US are eager to dance on its grave. Not so fast.
The US needs to take on the role of "grand old statesman" as others rise to take their rotating places on the world stage. I am not sure if America is ready or able to do this, but the world would be served by it.
No, we don't need a global cop. And it is unfair to expect the US to be the world's policeman. But, it is also unfair to expect the US to be flexible when others are not. I am quite critical of recent US foreign policy, but so am I cognizant of the rest of the world's failings. If we are so noble, so powerful, so wonderful, why the hell aren't we in Darfur, saving lives?
At the same time, Americans (and Canadians, Brits etc) cannot expect to continue to have the standard of living and spew out the per capita amount of pollution and use the per capita amount of resources that they do and refuse to allow the rest of the world to also do so. Either we are going to have to look to technology to save us, or we are going to have to re-order our priorities. If not, we will die - the carrying capacity of the earth is only so big and technology not the be all and end all solution.
More later, fascinating topic Txan!
Scott
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Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Txangoddess
gatherer
Username: Txangoddess
Post Number: 112
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 5:16 pm: | |
Thanks Scott, and nice to see you too!
Zakaria really is brilliant, I just devour his latest columns every week; so all the credit for the interest level has to go to him. I couldn't think up this shit in a millyun on my own lol.
I like the idea of elder statesman for my country, I really do. But I cringe at the idea of the PRC --or even India-- taking a dominant position. We may well be moving to a stage where there should be a balance of power rather than one leading superpower; but do other nations vying for lead realize that too? I have my suspicions not.
The dancing on the grave of the USA would seem to contraindicate respect for the USA [i]as an elder statesman[/i] too.
Still not quite sure about Hillary, Scott. I've known of and respected Joe Biden a helluva lot longer in the government arena; and Obama is looking pretty righteous himself, but then, so did pig caller extraordinaire Dean back early on for 2004.
Hell, Nader is coming up with some awesome stuff too! Check out his book on the 17 Traditions if you haven't already.
Oops, did I just turn this into a "US Internal" topic?
No doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. I understand how hard it is. Everybody knows it's hard work. And there's a lot of good people working hard.
George W Bush |
Jerrers
bear cub
Username: Jerrers
Post Number: 25
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, February 10, 2007 - 1:31 pm: | |
This column seems to me to be typical of the weekly newsmagazine format of "find a minor issue and blow it up big." Because this time the US was not as front-and-centre in the World Economic Forum, all of a sudden it's the end of the world as we know it, the US nothing more than the Spanish Empire, and all hell is breaking loose without proper (translation: American) leadership. Full of words like "might" and "perhaps" which get lost in the hype over his dramatic conclusions. Quotes pulled from anywhere that will boost his argument. Unbalanced comparisons: the US has relaxed "on many contentious issues", but only one is referred to for France: the one where they haven't relaxed at all. So where has France relaxed, and the US not, I wonder? Too many unsupported statements like the global economy not being self-managing. What does that mean in actuality, who manages it, how much do they manage it, and how do they do it?
Then we get the time-jump to the twenties and highly dubious history: the twenties gave way to the thirties, the decade of rising fascism. True, but to say (or imply) that the economic and cultural factors we currently have in common with the twenties caused the rise of fascism is misleading. In Germany and Japan fascism was a nationalistic reaction to the growth of the nation-state; the rhetoric and discourses used in creating a strong central state out of a disparate whole was corrupted and taken to excess, in a not-too-dissimilar way to the French Revolution getting out of hand. Now it is possible that Chinese nationalism will get out of hand, but given that China has been a coherent whole for quite some time, the concept of creating Chinese loyal to China is not an issue so much as keeping them loyal to the party and government. That is one reason for some of the more nationalistic and xenophobic outbursts: direct their anger towards an external enemy. Could the government lose control of that anger? Unless control of the army is also lost, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. The PRC is not Nazi Germany, after all. And the Chinese would rather get rich than fight, I suspect. India still has a long way to go before they get seriously organised as well.
Environmentally, to some extent China is learning from the mistakes of others, with such things as extensive reforestation projects, especially along the Yellow River, if memory serves: the fine dust of the region is a bit of a nuisance when picked up and blown over half of East Asia.... I personally wouldn't ever say something like "China [...] is determined not to be a leader in dealing with global environmental issues" just because some former senior official says it isn't going to take responsibility for the global environment. But then I'm not a columnist and don't like excess hype. A more careful discussion here would work wonders.
Zakaria's work is often interesting, and I generally respect what he does, but he's a columnist for a weekly magazine, with tight deadlines and sales figures to worry about. He's not a policy analyst who writes a ten-thousand word report with carefully-nuanced sentences and full documentation, presenting all possible sides of an issue. Yes, US power will decline proportionately - it must, in order to allow others to rise. This does not mean a "new Dark Age" as he quotes. Okay, he admits it's a little far-fetched: he obviously just likes the dramatic impact of Ferguson's words. And come to think of it, they may not be too far off at all: "an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism, of economic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions, of economic stagnation, and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves." Hmmm. Sounds like the future all right - like around about next week.
And talking of increasing global strength, one thing that does concern me is environmental issues - not natural (plenty of people already going on about that) but cultural. As it is now, many of our most important historical and cultural sites are unable to cope with visitor pressures. What will happen when China and India are first-world rich and we have an extra two billion people wanting to visit Venice? Forget rising sea levels - it'd sink under the sheer weight of tourists.... |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1849
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 - 4:35 am: | |
So Jerrers, not only is the US uncomfortable with not being the centre of the universe, but the media is too? I don't disagree.
I find it dangerous to compare "periods" in history to come to the conclusion that we are going to repeat it all over again - heaven forbid. This cliche has lost its punch and is quite over-simplified. There are lessons to be learned for sure but just because we repeat A, doesn't mean that B will happen. And these seemingly similarities are hardly predictive of what will happen in my opinion.
Look at Darfur. We have militias running around killing citizens the place is on the verge of civil war. In that, the world screams that we (read US) must intervene and they/we don't. In Iraq, on the other hand, we have a similar situation - militias running around killing citizens and everyone says get out, except the guy who got us there in the first place. What is the US to do? The world wants them to intervene and then again on the other hand the world doesn't want them to intervene. While I am no Niall Ferguson, even I can see the incongruity of the situation that the US finds itself in here and might complain to politicians that advocate sitting on both sides of the fence at once.
I should think that the US would be glad to relinquish its role as number one in most everything - it is a damned if you are, damned if you aren't position to be in. I expect that it will cling to #1 for a while longer and the Chinese will strive to replace it (be careful what you wish for) and while I am convinced that both the US and the Chinese people prefer to be rich, I am not so sure that the actions of their politicians support this.
Scott
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Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
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