Wednesday, August 20, 2008

History's Back

Robert Kagan looks at the world's new power blocs. An excerpt:

If American predominance is unlikely to fade any time soon, moreover, it is partly because much of the world does not really want it to. Despite the opinion polls, America's relations with both old and new allies have actually strengthened in recent years. Despite predictions that other powers would begin to join together in an effort to balance against the rogue superpower, especially after the Iraq war, the trend has gone in the opposite direction. The rise of the great power autocracies has been gradually pushing the great power democracies back in the direction of the United States. Russia's invasion of Georgia will accelerate this trend, but it was already underway, even if masked by the international uproar over the Iraq war.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no such thing as "American predominance". You watch too much CNN. There is a handful of very powerful countries or groups of countries. US cannot even win a war over a small country such as Vietnam or Iraq, how could it dominate the world? Get real. Visit Shanghai, visit Paris... More importantly (and seriously), read news from non US sources too to gain other perspectives. Right now, there is no superpower.

Michael Wade said...

Anonymous,

You might try another ouija board before assuming how much others have studied international affairs, how much they read of or have ties to international sources, and whether they spend any time watching CNN. It is possible for people to take opinions that differ from your own without being poorly read or poorly educated.