POINTS OF VIEW
8201 THE NEW TRIAD Continental Competitors
The massive power underpinning the US hegemony is now obvious for all to see. Regrettably, despite its own overwhelming belief that it is the fount of all things good and true, its abuse of this hegemony is becoming legendary, and will inevitably come to haunt it.
Very recently, in what just a couple of decades ago would have seemed impossible, China has replaced Japan as the major force in Asia and is emerging as a superpower; and, powered by its flexible version of Marxism, offers a very different model.
Other pretenders to the crown of global power might be India, though its weak political ideology and Hindu pacifism may well stifle any such ambitions, or the Islamic states might get together to form one unit, but even then their numbers would not add up to a superpower.
The joker in the pack is the European Union (EU). Already with a population greater than the US, and wealth almost as great, only its land mass is significantly less; and even that will be rectified as soon as Russia sorts out its internal problems sufficiently to join. Thus those, especially the Americans, who overlook this new kid on the block or perhaps a reincarnated former geriatric do so at their own peril; for its new-found, all-encompassing ideology is the most potent of all and may even allow it ultimately grow into a viable form of world government.
Looking at each member of the Triad in turn, almost the whole population of the US, not just its leaders, seem to believe that like the Third Reich its power will last a thousand years into the future. Indeed, there are many outside of the US who also think that the wealth of the US, backed up by its military might, would guarantee this. Unfortunately, for its inhabitants, the US suffers from a number of fatal flaws. For a start, the resources of the US are in comparison with what is progressively being demanded of them limited. For example, the size of its population, now a prime determinant of global power, puts it firmly into the second league; even if the seemingly insatiable demands of its individuals mean that its consumption power is second to none. Indeed, as it so happened, their excessive demands will make its downfall happen that much faster!
There may only be a gap of 6% in its external trade, but it is that gap which keeps the US economy buoyant. Once its creditor nations, especially China, withdraw their support for the dollar the value of this will plummet. The resulting shock to the US economy is likely to precipitate a major financial crisis, and the onset of a depression equalling that of the 1930s. With its financial power no longer to hand, the US will also experience a dangerous loss of confidence on all fronts.
The real danger to the Us, however, will come from the deepening fissions in its population. The gap between the haves and have-nots is bad enough, but that between the neo-cons and the liberals is potentially much worse since the two sides are evenly balanced in terms of power. This balance means that domination, the American way of settling disputes, will not be possible in even the medium term. Even worse, no mater how well accepted it might be across the world not just in the US, the ideology of the neo-cons is a dangerous sham. Their addiction to the power of the dollar will prove their undoing in the short term, but their abandonment of any meaningful social values in any case condemns them in the longer term. Whatever their internal weaknesses, there is no way that they can overcome the external weakness brought about by only accounting for 5% or so of the global population!
China has entered the game from the opposite direction. Less than half a century ago it was one of the poorest countries. Mao, though, led it to a prosperous future. By itself, hauling itself up by its bootstraps with almost no outside help whatsoever, it managed to create capital out of thin air; something which, by itself, should give economists pause for thought! Mao may now be blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, but that is to fail to understand his long-term planning. He believed in a constant state of revolution, something which in a rather different context IBM also deployed in its heyday. Mao himself initiated two major revolutions, the original communist takeover of the country and the later Cultural Revolution, as well as innumerable minor ones. I would even argue that in the second of these he put in place the groundwork for the third revolution; that which saw the much less painful introduction of elements of a market economy.
Though economists and politicians alike now belatedly recognize the importance of China, few have asked what its merger of free-market economics with planned Marxist politics means for the world. They simply turn a blind eye to it, look to the US as their only model, and hope the China question will go away! But, on current evidence, it is unlikely to go away. On the other hand, its ideology is strictly limited to one nation and, no matter how populous that nation, this may limit its long-term ambitions on earth; but, with its commitment to space, it may find its future elsewhere.
Despite its long history, the new kid on the block Europe in its reincarnation as the European Union (EU) seems to have most going for it. The various trials and tribulations, as it struggles to establish its identity, have largely hidden its potential power from the rest of the world. Yet it is already on a par with the US in economic terms, even if the latter has greater military clout; though even that may be a disadvantage when the US has to spend so much of its borrowings on this!
In fact the EUs trials and tribulations arise from the difficulty of bringing into being a totally new form of constitution; a feat which took the US more than a century and a civil war and China much the same. But the advantage that the EU posseses is that its version is a century younger than that of China and two centuries ahead of the US. The result is that its values, incorporated into its constitution, are based on collaboration not confrontation. Indeed, its only mode of expansion is not invasion even by economic means like the US but is cooperation; where nations are politely invited to join in its grand design on equal terms. Thus, by growing relatively painlessly as it adds state after state it potentially could take over the world. It is only when it indulges in folies de grandeur, and abandons this incrementalism as it did when it tried to put in place a complete constitution in one go, that it is rebuffed.
The looming clash between the members of the Triad is currently overshadowed by the United States unwise attempt to take on the religion of Islam; having lost its previous enemy of the USSR it desperately needs new enemies to define what it is against! But the most immediate confrontation waiting in the wings is that with the EU; albeit at the trade level rather than on the field of war. That, I believe, is why Tony Blair whose think-tanks I have worked with, was so desperate to support George Bush Jr. The fate of Iraq had little to do with it. It was an attempt to bridge the Atlantic, or at least to defer the coming battles, which was at the heart of Blairs strategy even if this lost him popular support, something I believe he was bravely willing to do for the greater cause.
So, the EU with its more modern philosophies may be the long-term winner. But even it has its Achilles heel. As the new frontier moves on, over the next century, to the exploitation of space the separation of the European Space Agency from the EU itself will pose major problems. Maybe by then China will be reaping the rewards of its own investment in space.
hits