From hyperpower to new world disorder

**~~gamercube~~** · 30 Dec 07, 04:52

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, America isn’t alone on top. What’s replacing the unipolar world of the 1990s? A gang of five superpowers: China, Russia, India, the Eurozone and the U.S.

TheStar.com | Ideas | From hyperpower to new world disorder

Dec 29, 2007 04:30 AM

David Olive
Feature Writer

"We seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of our way."

Kevin Conrad, delegate from Papua New Guinea, at the Bali summit on climate change earlier this month, to a U.S. delegation that tried to thwart reforms agreed to by the other 185 nations present.

It became more apparent than ever this year that the U.S. is no longer the world's lone superpower. Instead, there are five superpowers that will define the world for at least the next half-century: the U.S., China, India, Russia and a united Europe.

The news came home to Americans on Main St. from tainted Chinese products to the fact that practically every toy sold in America comes from Red China. Boston seniors on group tours of the great capitals of Europe were humbled to discover that their greenbacks had shrivelled in value to 60 per cent of the local currency. And New Yorkers were taken aback that the credit crisis arising from cascading defaults on U.S. subprime mortgages had so weakened the balance sheets of leading financial institutions in the Big Apple that the likes of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch had sought bailouts from state-owned investment funds in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

Canadians felt it, too, in a 15 per cent gain against the greenback.

That America was not in charge in Iraq was widely known for some time. That American global hegemony had severely dissipated was news. Nor was it of the passing variety, like the 1970s U.S. economic "stagflation" that inflated the German and Swiss currencies; or the Japanese boom a decade later in which Tokyo parking spots fetched $90,000.

This was different. Mandarins in Brussels now passed judgment on merger proposals between American companies, not hesitating to block them on antitrust grounds. Chinese oil interests in Sudan made Beijing intransigent about Western meddling in Darfur. Russia wouldn't abide Washington's sanctions on Iran. India insisted upon, and received, U.S. support of its nuclear arms program despite predictable outrage from Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the pursuit of Al Qaeda. It was either that or have New Dehli turn to the Russians. To an unprecedented degree, decisions affecting America were being made elsewhere. A mere 16 years after attaining its lone-superpower status, the crown had slipped, and America's destiny is now shaped by a new world disorder of five superpowers.

All five members of this new quintet are nuclear powers. All but one, India, have veto power at the United Nations. Collectively, the four non-U.S. superpowers have 10 times the population of the U.S. The European economy has eclipsed that of the U.S., and those of China and India will do so by mid-century. The imperial legacy of many EU members and of Russia provide them a lingering influence from Indonesia to Zaire to Brazil that the U.S., whose experiences with colonizing have been reluctant and short-lived, cannot match.

The resentment of what the French labelled "the U.S. hyper-power" in the 1960s subsided in the 1990s. The Europeans were preoccupied with their unification project. China and India were experimenting with a free-market model to replace sclerotic command economies. And by the early years of this decade, Russian recovery from the upheaval of the Soviet breakup was manifesting itself in a new national pride and respect for a decisive Vladimir Putin.

The aim of the four new superpowers has been the same: to unleash, under the banner of patriotism, the potential economic prowess of a nation or region, and in doing so to claim a role on the world stage equal to that of the U.S. Here's Tony Blair, who revered Britain's "special relationship" with the U.S. more than most of his predecessors. "A single-power world is inherently unstable," Blair said back in 2005. "That's the rationale for Europe to unite.

"We are building a new superpower. The European Union is about the projection of collective power, wealth and influence. When we work together, the European Union can stand on par as a superpower and a partner with the U.S."

The euro has been the world's strongest currency since 2005. But not until this year did everyone from OPEC to the People's Bank of China to rock stars flirt with abandoning the U.S dollar – the world's undisputed reserve currency since the end of World War II – in favour of a euro that has soared to a current $1.48 (U.S.)

It was a year of new boondoggles coming to light in the U.S. occupation of Iraq; and of U.S. diplomatic setbacks in Pakistan, China, Turkey, Burma, the Middle East – almost everywhere the U.S. has tried to exert influence. But then, America's deficient military and intelligence capabilities have removed the big stick behind diplomatic threats.

America now is the world's largest borrower, and China the biggest creditor nation.

As everyone but the White House acknowledges, it's difficult to have much impact in pressuring China on its under-valued currency, its military buildup and its human-rights record when that country is also your biggest banker.

World leaders have been putting distance between themselves and Washington ever since the U.S. occupation of Iraq, embarked upon with a theological righteousness that alienated the secular Europeans, and based on assumptions seemingly designed to salvage the reputations of Barbara Tuchman's cast of feckless leaders in The March of Folly.

But this year, world leaders lost their reticence and subjected Washington to a parade of embarrassments. Kevin Rudd, the new Australian PM, isolated the U.S. on global warming by embracing a Kyoto Protocol that incoming U.S. president George W. Bush trashed in 2001. Gordon Brown, the new British PM, used the occasion of his first state visit to Washington to state that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is the central front in the battle against Islamic extremists. Bush watched in stony silence as America's staunchest ally in the Iraq invasion bluntly repudiated an assertion the U.S. president has been making for five years.

As Russia has slipped into autocracy, and shipped uranium to Iran this fall over U.S. objections, Bush has been reduced to tacitly endorsing Russian actions the U.S. is powerless to control. After his first encounter with the Russian president, Bush famously said he had looked into Putin's heart and found a man he could work with. In an angry Munich speech earlier this year, Bush's soulmate excoriated the U.S. for "an almost uncontained hyper-use of force . . . that is plunging the world into an abyss of conflicts."

America's foreign policy impotence hit a nadir in Pakistan, where Washington's full-court-press diplomacy failed to prevent the leader of an unreliable but nonetheless vital ally in the struggle against Al Qaeda from imposing martial law and imprisoning his country's supreme court justices. In one go, with its continued support of Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf, America has turned its back on supposed goals of promoting democracy, punishing nuclear proliferators, and taking a hard line against nations harbouring large populations of Al Qaeda operatives.

"No [U.S.] president will ever have handed over a worse international situation than George W. Bush," says Richard Holbrooke, the former U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration and adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Which is to suggest that America can reclaim its lone superpower status by simply installing a new president in 2009 who will extricate the U.S. from Iraq and sign Kyoto 2.0, to be negotiated over the next two years.

America lost its chance at enduring supremacy in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, which coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then-U.S. president George H.W. Bush spoke at the time of creating a "New World Order" of universal peace and mutual prosperity.

Had it only chosen then to redeploy its massive defence and foreign aid budgets to humanitarian causes, rather than propping up its military allies, America could have secured its new found global supremacy by simply setting a good example.

Instead, the lone-superpower era began with a unilateral, botched invasion of Somalia and ended with the Project For The New American Century, a late-1990s doctrine of preserving U.S. hegemony by overthrowing unfriendly regimes – a moronic vision that nonetheless manifested itself in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with Iran as the regime-changers' next target.

In the Middle East, which has some of the youngest populations in the world, the past two generations have come of age with the belief that America is antagonistic to Muslims, a proposition reinforced by America`s invasion of two Muslin nations in the space of three years. And a new generation of Europeans – the "E generation," as author T.R. Reid labels it in his bestselling United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy (2005) – has grown up with the isolationism of the 1990s U.S. Republican Congress and the calamitous unilateralism of George W. Bush.

Plainly, the U.S. has failed to lead on climate change; genocide; nuclear proliferation; human rights; and the other most pressing global concerns for so long it has effectively ceded its claim to the "benign hegemony" that still shapes America's regard of its impact on the world.

And Americans know it, at least in Bill Clinton's view. In the 1990s, then-president Clinton declared that "America is the indispensable nation." In a Charlie Rose interview earlier this month, a Clinton who has grown more internationalist in retirement from the White House, said, "The American people now know something they've never known before. In their bones they know that there's almost no problem we can solve all by ourselves – terror, war and peace, nuclear proliferation, climate change, you name it. They know we have to do this in a co-operative way."

Gwynne Dyer, heralding the end of America's lone-superpower status, has warned that "Seeing the United States reduced to only one great power among others cannot be a prospect that appeals to American strategic thinkers of a traditional bent – so what is their grand strategy for averting it?

"They must have one," the London-based global military analyst wrote. "Paramount powers facing relegation always have one, although it rarely stays the same for long and it never, ever works. There is no way of stopping China and India from catching up with the current Lone Superpower without nuking their entire economies."

Without exception, the emerging superpowers have achieved that status by tending to the home front, where much work remains to be done. China is the world's second-largest CO2 emitter, trailing only the U.S. India has the world's largest population of poor people. Europe has national licence plates, birth certificates and a lottery played from Krakow to Liverpool, but lacks a foreign policy and has a nascent army of just 60,000 troops. Russia's regard for investors, whose property it expropriates on a whim, will have to change for the country's entrepreneurial forces to be fully unleashed.

The same focus on domestic shortcomings would serve America well. The factors undermining its prosperity and global influence are almost all self-inflicted. There is more at stake here than even the current crop of presidential candidates seem to realize. They all talk of restoring America's respect in the world, with no apparent sense that a big part of the problem is that the world is increasingly less inclined to regard America as "the shining city on the hill" that Ronald Reagan invoked.

With strikingly little notice, David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, spoke in August about disturbing parallels between today's America and the decline of the Roman Empire. Among the similarities Walker cited were "declining values and political civility at home, an overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands, and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government."

Even in a world without budding rivals, the American superpower would still be jeopardized by its "unsustainable" disregard for tackling rundown schools and inner-city neighbourhoods, a yawning gap between rich and poor, and a route to citizenship for the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Even superpowers are fragile once the rot of complacency sets in. "It's time to learn from history," Walker said, "and take steps to ensure that the American republic is the first to stand the test of time."

**zraver** · 30 Dec 07, 05:58

With strikingly little notice, David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, spoke in August about disturbing parallels between today's America and the decline of the Roman Empire. Among the similarities Walker cited were "declining values and political civility at home, an overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands, and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government."

Even in a world without budding rivals, the American superpower would still be jeopardized by its "unsustainable" disregard for tackling rundown schools and inner-city neighbourhoods, a yawning gap between rich and poor, and a route to citizenship for the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Even superpowers are fragile once the rot of complacency sets in. "It's time to learn from history," Walker said, "and take steps to ensure that the American republic is the first to stand the test of time."

I think this is part of the reason Huckabee is doing so well. he isn't a gung-ho lets kick some foreign ass IR wonk, he is focused domestically and is a moral man without being overbearing about his faith being the only faith. Many on the right see him as the type of domestically focused without being a rich uncle handing out candy type-the personality this article in fact says we need.

I know that as Governor of Arkansas he over saw the almost total rebuilding and expansion of the states freeways which went from 49th worst to some of the best,Louisiana is the worst. He undertook massive education reform and school consolidation that finally equalized funding and access for all Arkansans children, the state also saw improving ACT scores. Finally he left office with the state running 3/4 of a billion dollar surplus.

**~~Feanor~~** · 30 Dec 07, 07:16

Interesting, but some of the assertions are a bit premature, and some are wishful thinking. This will be the situation in the next decade, if America doesn't change it's course.

**FibrillatorD** · 30 Dec 07, 08:35

Originally Posted by gamercube

[B]
It became more apparent than ever this year that the U.S. is no longer the world's lone superpower. Instead, there are five superpowers that will define the world for at least the next half-century: the U.S., China, India, Russia and a united Europe.

The news came home to Americans on Main St. from tainted Chinese products to the fact that practically every toy sold in America comes from Red China. Boston seniors on group tours of the great capitals of Europe were humbled to discover that their greenbacks had shrivelled in value to 60 per cent of the local currency. And New Yorkers were taken aback that the credit crisis arising from cascading defaults on U.S. subprime mortgages had so weakened the balance sheets of leading financial institutions in the Big Apple that the likes of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch had sought bailouts from state-owned investment funds in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

Canadians felt it, too, in a 15 per cent gain against the greenback.

That America was not in charge in Iraq was widely known for some time. That American global hegemony had severely dissipated was news. Nor was it of the passing variety, like the 1970s U.S. economic "stagflation" that inflated the German and Swiss currencies; or the Japanese boom a decade later in which Tokyo parking spots fetched $90,000.

This was different. Mandarins in Brussels now passed judgment on merger proposals between American companies, not hesitating to block them on antitrust grounds. Chinese oil interests in Sudan made Beijing intransigent about Western meddling in Darfur. Russia wouldn't abide Washington's sanctions on Iran. India insisted upon, and received, U.S. support of its nuclear arms program despite predictable outrage from Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the pursuit of Al Qaeda. It was either that or have New Dehli turn to the Russians. To an unprecedented degree, decisions affecting America were being made elsewhere. A mere 16 years after attaining its lone-superpower status, the crown had slipped, and America's destiny is now shaped by a new world disorder of five superpowers.

All five members of this new quintet are nuclear powers. All but one, India, have veto power at the United Nations. Collectively, the four non-U.S. superpowers have 10 times the population of the U.S. The European economy has eclipsed that of the U.S., and those of China and India will do so by mid-century. The imperial legacy of many EU members and of Russia provide them a lingering influence from Indonesia to Zaire to Brazil that the U.S., whose experiences with colonizing have been reluctant and short-lived, cannot match.

The global economic consequences of Iraq appear negligible. Interdependence is so pervasive that it is in no one's interest to make conventional inter-state war at the superpower level. Am I wrong?

Military strength grows at the pace of states. But the wars aren't so much foreseen by the militaries to occur at the state level.

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-07-22.pdf

BACKGROUND
The American way of war includes mass, power, and the use of sophisticated smart weapons. However, large main force engagements that characterized conflict in World War II, Korea, and Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom in the Middle East have become the exceptions in American warfare. Since the American Revolution, the Army has conducted stability operations,
which have included counterinsurgency operations. Over the past half-century alone, the Army gained considerable experience in fighting insurgents in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Philippines),
Latin America (Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua), Africa (Somalia), Southwest Asia (Afghanistan), and now the Middle East (Iraq). Dealing with counterinsurgency since the Vietnam War has fallen largely on SOF; however, conventional forces have frequently come into contact with insurgent forces that seek to neutralize the inherent advantages of size,
weaponry, and conventional force TTP. Insurgents use a combination of actions that include terror, assassination, kidnapping, murder, guerrilla tactics such as ambushes, booby traps, and improvised
explosive devices aimed at US and multinational forces, the host country’s leaders, and ordinary citizens.

The stunning victory over Saddam Hussein’s army in 2003 validated US conventional force TTP, but the ensuing aftermath of instability has caused review of lessons from the Army’s historical experience and those of the other services and multinational partners. One of the key recurring lessons is that the United States cannot win other countries’ wars for them, but can certainly help legitimate foreign governments overcome attempts to overthrow them. US forces can assist a country confronted by an insurgency by providing a safe and secure environment at the local level and continuously building on the incremental success.

The impetus for this FMI came from the Iraq insurgency and the realization that engagements in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) would likely use counterinsurgency TTPs. Consequently this FMI reviews what we know about counterinsurgency and explains the fundamentals of military operations in a counterinsurgency environment.

**dalem** · 30 Dec 07, 21:52

Basing the status of superpower on who went to Bali and cried?

Don't make me laugh.

-dale

**gunnut** · 30 Dec 07, 21:56

Sorry to burst your bubble. India and China still have some work to do before being in the "superpowerdom." EU's problem is too many skeletons in the closet. Russia has to professonalize its military and modernize conventional equipment.

**~~Feanor~~** · 30 Dec 07, 22:07

Originally Posted by gunnut

Sorry to burst your bubble. India and China still have some work to do before being in the "superpowerdom." EU's problem is too many skeletons in the closet. Russia has to professonalize its military and modernize conventional equipment.

What are the advantages of a professional military.

**zraver** · 30 Dec 07, 22:16

Originally Posted by Feanor

What are the advantages of a professional military.

It can do more with less meaning it is less of a drain on a nations human capitol.

It insulates the government to an extent from battlefield losses becuase professionals are not draftees yanked out of school and sent to die.

It preserves traditions and capabilities much better with the lower turnover.

History says a professional military is far more loyal to the civilian government because they are generally better paid and treated and less likely to support ambitious generals.

It is more capable of fully using high technology.

**~~Feanor~~** · 30 Dec 07, 22:35

Originally Posted by zraver

It can do more with less meaning it is less of a drain on a nations human capitol.

It insulates the government to an extent from battlefield losses becuase professionals are not draftees yanked out of school and sent to die.

It preserves traditions and capabilities much better with the lower turnover.

History says a professional military is far more loyal to the civilian government because they are generally better paid and treated and less likely to support ambitious generals.

It is more capable of fully using high technology.

Those are generalizations that I have heard before. Could you possibly be more specific? Keep in mind that a contract-based army doesn't necessarily have better training, as with a 3-year conscription your average contract would last as long as a conscripts service time, or better morale. In fact, if indeed we have a society where serving in the military is considered honorary, a conscription based army might be more capable of preserving traditions because every soldier goes in to serve his country, rather then for the benefits you get afterwards which is the case in the U.S.

**gunnut** · 31 Dec 07, 04:53

Conscription means there are a bunch of people who don't want to be there.

Professional means most of the people signed up because they want to be there.

The desire to be in the force is a huge difference in motivation. Rather than looking at it as a duty or serving time, the volunteers take their jobs very seriously. There is no excuse if they screw up. They can't just say "oh I was here against my will and that's my excuse."

**Mobbme** · 31 Dec 07, 06:34

So called "Future Superpowers" who rely HEAVILY on imported weapons

I really see that happening

.

What if Russia/US puts a stop to weapons/gas sales to those "Future Superpowers?" Which they can, through peaceful persuasion

I have the utmost respect for China and India, but in my eyes there is only USA and Russia. China should take care of its Taiwan issue, and India should take a real stand against Pakistan. Having the 2 world's largest armies is not beneficial if you cannot afford to supply each soldier with proper necessities during combat :(

EDIT: I forgot why China and India cannot deal with those problems, because the REAL superpowers won't let them :P

**Tronic** · 31 Dec 07, 06:44

Originally Posted by Mobbme

So called "Future Superpowers" who rely HEAVILY on imported weapons

I really see that happening

.

What if Russia/US puts a stop to weapons/gas sales to those "Future Superpowers?" Which they can, through peaceful persuasion

I have the utmost respect for China and India, but in my eyes there is only USA and Russia. China should take care of its Taiwan issue, and India should take a real stand against Pakistan. Having the 2 world's largest armies is not beneficial if you cannot afford to supply each soldier with proper necessities during combat :(

EDIT: I forgot why China and India cannot deal with those problems, because the REAL superpowers won't let them :P

Don't know about China, but India has other very serious issues to take care of rather then just Pakistan before it can even start dreaming of itself as a superpower. The biggest hurdles India faces are for one, a huge slow bureacratic choked system, second, lack of proper infrastucture to support growth, third, ranting political system which only has a bark but no bite.

**Mobbme** · 31 Dec 07, 06:50

Originally Posted by Tronic

Don't know about China, but India has other very serious issues to take care of rather then just Pakistan before it can even start dreaming of itself as a superpower. The biggest hurdles India faces are for one, a huge slow bureacratic choked system, second, lack of proper infrastucture to support growth, third, ranting political system which only has a bark but no bite.

Hmmm, very precise sir.

I would just like to add, my cheapshots were just jokes! And intended as just that!

In a de-stabilizing scenario, having Taiwan and Pakistan around will keep China and India on high alert. But reality is truth, if it was open season China would gleefully take out Taiwan, and same can be said of Pakistan. Those 2 stand no chance.

**~~Feanor~~** · 31 Dec 07, 06:52

Originally Posted by gunnut

Conscription means there are a bunch of people who don't want to be there.

Professional means most of the people signed up because they want to be there.

The desire to be in the force is a huge difference in motivation. Rather than looking at it as a duty or serving time, the volunteers take their jobs very seriously. There is no excuse if they screw up. They can't just say "oh I was here against my will and that's my excuse."

So it's mainly a morale issue?

Originally Posted by Mobbme

So called "Future Superpowers" who rely HEAVILY on imported weapons

I really see that happening

.

What if Russia/US puts a stop to weapons/gas sales to those "Future Superpowers?" Which they can, through peaceful persuasion

Why would Russia stop selling weapons or gas to them? Lets take a look; U.S.>Russia. No contest there. So to offset American interest you need a multipolar world, where the actions of a powerful U.S. can be offset by the actions of other powers.

**Mobbme** · 31 Dec 07, 07:22

Originally Posted by Feanor

Why would Russia stop selling weapons or gas to them? Lets take a look; U.S.>Russia. No contest there. So to offset American interest you need a multipolar world, where the actions of a powerful U.S. can be offset by the actions of other powers.

My point was that those countries rely on other countries. And their developments can be halted immediately. China and India rely HEAVILY on gas, do they not? If they don't get gas, then their quest to become Superpowers will halt, no? Agree Mr. Feanor?

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