New America Foundation to US - The World's Changed: Get Over It

[richlevy]

A senior fellow in the New America Foundation just wrote a piece entitled Waving Goodbye to Hegemony.

To summarize, the NWO (new world order) will be the European Union, the US, and China. Just as countries had a choice between us and the Soviets during the Cold War they now have a 3 way choice. Non-militarily, the other two are leveraging their assets smarter than we are. Our State Department, Peace Corps, etc are too understaffed to work on hearts and minds. We can no longer get away with a 'with us or against us' attitude. While we focus our attention on a few players, the EU and China are sweeping the rest of the board.

We blew a trillion dollars on a gamble to 'democratize' just two countries. This money will be needed for the new warfare, which is political and economic.

First, channel your inner J.F.K. You are president, not emperor. You are commander in chief and also diplomat in chief. Your grand strategy is a global strategy, yet you must never use the phrase “American national interest.” (It is assumed.) Instead talk about “global interests” and how closely aligned American policies are with those interests. No more “us” versus “them,” only “we.” That means no more talk of advancing “American values” either. What is worth having is universal first and American second. This applies to “democracy” as well, where timing its implementation is as important as the principle itself. Right now, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, the hero of the second world — including its democracies — is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.

Third, deploy the marchmen. Europe is boosting its common diplomatic corps, while China is deploying retired civil servants, prison laborers and Chinese teachers — all are what the historian Arnold Toynbee called marchmen, the foot-soldiers of empire spreading values and winning loyalty. There are currently more musicians in U.S. military marching bands than there are Foreign Service officers, a fact not helped by Congress’s decision to effectively freeze growth in diplomatic postings. In this context, Condoleezza Rice’s “transformational diplomacy” is a myth: we don’t have enough diplomats for core assignments, let alone solo hardship missions. We need a Peace Corps 10 times its present size, plus student exchanges, English-teaching programs and hands-on job training overseas — with corporate sponsorship.

It's a great read.

[classicman]

He lost me when he thought that the three would work in concert with each other and that there would be no clear single leader in the world. Thats just counter to human nature. Even if it is not in the best interest of the globe, each individual will try to do what is best for their country.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by classicman

snip~ each individual will try to do what is best for their country.

Is that what the Robber Barons, that are offshore sourcing, are doing?

[classicman]

yup - thats them.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by classicman

He lost me when he thought that the three would work in concert with each other and that there would be no clear single leader in the world. Thats just counter to human nature. Even if it is not in the best interest of the globe, each individual will try to do what is best for their country.

I think the idea is that no one would be able to dominate the other two, and that while they would compete, noone would be dumb enough to destabilize the status quo to the point that everyone would suffer.

Of course, there have been cases in the past when the US and China have both backed dangerous leaders or insurgents that later came back to haunt them.

Still, think of it as a primary where the competing candidates will snipe at one another but only to a point since they realize that they do not want to jeopardize the eventual winner's position with the voter because any one of them might be the winner. In the case of 3 'first world' countries competing for second- and third- world countries, noone wants to have it get so ugly that they are all thrown out of the contest.

In this case the down and dirty US political system might be a good training ground for dealing with this type of situation if a president is smart enough to realize that the 'my way or the highway' approach will no longer work when these countries have a choice.

[Undertoad]

We are gonna save so much money when we drop NATO.

[classicman]

I got that Rich, I just disagree that any of these countries are gonna behave that way - nothing has ever shown them to do so in the past and I , for one, am skeptical it will happen in the future. This whole process is just beginning. I could be wrong, but there are a lot of back door deals that will go down and we all know how that can turn out.

His is but one interesting thesis, and I will look forward to seeing how it all plays out.

[TheMercenary]

NWO is pure fantasy. And if anyone wants us to believe it more it is the Chinese who are in it for the long haul. We have already forged economic ties with much of the world and are unable to ignore that. There will never be a new world order like the UN or some fantasy of a union between Europe, China, and the US. What about India, Japan, Korea, etc? What about our relations with other important trading partners? We discount them over our relations with China and Europe? This is pure fantasy.

[Radar]

Anytime someone blathering on with terms like "New World Order", CFR, Illuminatti, etc. I immediately stop listening to them and hear a buzzing noise. They are nothing more than moronic conspiracy theorists and retards who are likely in the John Birch Society.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I think the point here, Radar, was that this posits a newer new world order.

[ZenGum]

So that's, what, NWO 2.1, then?

[piercehawkeye45]

NWO is just another undefined term used by right winged conspiracy theorist to get attention. They will start out by stating NWO is real and when you call them out on it, they will define NWO as the neo-conservative NWO (George H W Bush's speech) where every country in the world is a free market democracy with the United States leading the way but then start inching towards conspiracy theories afterwards.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I've never found too much to complain of in the neocons; of course for me it's a selling point that they give the hard Left conniptions and the foamies.

[icileparadise]

Awkward time right now. The world is holding it's breath on who will be the next only superpower president. And why any sane person would want that travail. JFK is legendary and always will be. What Europe and the other subpowers do now will be to contain things until the new US Govnmt. /admin comes in to play. So many conflicts in so many continents. I doubt that diplomacy is stacking chips either ways more than holding it's breath. All eyes on the election of the single most powerful man or woman on Earth. We all just want a smooth life.

[warch]

Doesn't China own us now? Didn't the neocons mortgage the country? Perhaps I'm too alarmist.