Posted by Rhisiart Gwilym
on October 29, 2009, 8:05 pm, in reply to "Tomgram: " The Great Superpower Meltdown"..."
--Previous Message--
: posted October 26, 2009 11:35 am
: Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Great
: Superpower Meltdown
:
: Think of us as just having passed through
: the failed era of "must" in
: Washington. For almost eight years, George
: W. Bush made speeches and appearances in
: which he hectored this or that country, or
: enemy, or people about what they
: "must" do. Never, I suspect, has
: an American president lectured more people
: out there on their responsibilities to us.
: Looking back, what's surprising is how few
: paid much attention. The Iraqis didn't
: listen, nor did the Afghans, nor the
: Iranians, nor, it seems, the Pakistanis, nor
: the Russians, nor the Chinese... and so on.
: It's been a remarkably ignominious lesson in
: bluster and bust -- and a reasonable measure
: of the actual power of a country that, not
: so many years ago, Washington pundits were
: happily (and favorably) comparing to the
: Roman and British empires in its reach and
: ambition.
:
: In Washington, recently, those
: "musts" have been on the wane,
: which is hardly surprising. In the wake of a
: series of failed wars and a near economic
: collapse, a lot of "musts" now
: seem increasingly aimed in Washington's
: direction. Michael Klare, author of Rising
: Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New
: Geopolitics of Energy, has turned to another
: unusual but striking measure of waning
: American power in the world, an official
: report on the relatively distant future
: issued by the U.S. Intelligence Community
: late last year. The distant future was once,
: of course, the province of utopian or
: dystopian thinkers, pulp fiction writers,
: oddballs, visionaries, even outright nuts,
: not government intelligence services.
: Regularly analyzing that future has,
: however, become almost as much a duty of the
: 18 agencies of the U.S. Intelligence
: Community as doing National Intelligence
: Estimates on Iran. Consider that a measure
: of national security sprawl. Maybe, given
: Klare's analysis below, the IC should leave
: the future to the screenwriters for Star
: Trek and stick to our present world... Tom
:
: """""""""""~~~~~*****~~~~""""""""
: Welcome to 2025
: American Preeminence Is Disappearing
: Fifteen Years Early
: By Michael T. Klare
:
: Memo to the CIA: You may not be prepared
: for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway!
: Your rooms may be a little small, your
: ability to demand better accommodations may
: have gone out the window, and the amenities
: may not be to your taste, but get used to
: it. It's going to be your reality from now
: on.
:
: Okay, now for the serious version of the
: above: In November 2008, the National
: Intelligence Council (NIC), an affiliate of
: the Central Intelligence Agency, issued the
: latest in a series of futuristic
: publications intended to guide the incoming
: Obama administration. Peering into its
: analytic crystal ball in a report entitled
: Global Trends 2025, it predicted that
: America's global preeminence would gradually
: disappear over the next 15 years -- in
: conjunction with the rise of new global
: powerhouses, especially China and India. The
: report examined many facets of the future
: strategic environment, but its most
: startling, and news-making, finding
: concerned the projected long-term erosion of
: American dominance and the emergence of new
: global competitors. "Although the
: United States is likely to remain the single
: most powerful actor [in 2025]," it
: stated definitively, the country's
: "relative strength -- even in the
: military realm -- will decline and U.S.
: leverage will become more constrained."
:
: That, of course, was then; this -- some
: 11 months into the future -- is now and how
: things have changed. Futuristic predictions
: will just have to catch up to the
: fast-shifting realities of the present
: moment. Although published after the onset
: of the global economic meltdown was
: underway, the report was written before the
: crisis reached its full proportions and so
: emphasized that the decline of American
: power would be gradual, extending over the
: assessment's 15-year time horizon. But the
: economic crisis and attendant events have
: radically upset that timetable. As a result
: of the mammoth economic losses suffered by
: the United States over the past year and
: China's stunning economic recovery, the
: global power shift the report predicted has
: accelerated. For all practical purposes,
: 2025 is here already.
:
: Many of the broad, down-the-road
: predictions made in Global Trends 2025 have,
: in fact, already come to pass. Brazil,
: Russia, India, and China -- collectively
: known as the BRIC countries -- are already
: playing far more assertive roles in global
: economic affairs, as the report predicted
: would happen in perhaps a decade or so. At
: the same time, the dominant global role once
: monopolized by the United States with a
: helping hand from the major Western
: industrial powers -- collectively known as
: the Group of 7 (G-7) -- has already faded
: away at a remarkable pace. Countries that
: once looked to the United States for
: guidance on major international issues are
: ignoring Washington's counsel and instead
: creating their own autonomous policy
: networks. The United States is becoming less
: inclined to deploy its military forces
: abroad as rival powers increase their own
: capabilities and non-state actors rely on
: "asymmetrical" means of attack to
: overcome the U.S. advantage in conventional
: firepower.
:
: No one seems to be saying this out loud
: -- yet -- but let's put it bluntly: less
: than a year into the 15-year span of Global
: Trends 2025, the days of America's
: unquestioned global dominance have come to
: an end. It may take a decade or two (or
: three) before historians will be able to
: look back and say with assurance, "That
: was the moment when the United States ceased
: to be the planet's preeminent power and was
: forced to behave like another major player
: in a world of many competing great
: powers." The indications of this great
: transition, however, are there for those who
: care to look.
:
: Full article:
:
: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175131/michael_klare_the_great_superpower_meltdown
:
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