The End of the 'American Century' Is Here

[marmar]

from FPIF, via AlterNet:




The End of the 'American Century' Is Here

By Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted January 30, 2008.

The neocons' project to create a "benign" global empire is dead, a victim of their own hubris.



Rather than the "American Century" the Bush administration neo-conservatives predicted, it is increasingly a world where regional alliances and trade associations in Europe and South America have risen to challenge Washington's once undisputed domination.

When Argentina thumbed its nose at the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund, it had the powerful Mercosur trade association to back it up. When the United States tried to muscle Europe into ending agricultural subsidies (while keeping its own) the European Union refused to back down.

And now India, China, and Russia are drifting toward a partnership -- alliance is too strong a word -- that could transform global relations and shift the power axis from Washington to New Delhi, Beijing, and Moscow. It is a consortium of convenience, as the interests of the three countries hardly coincide on all things.

Partners in Energy

In security matters, for instance, the Chinese look east toward Taiwan, the Indians north to Pakistan, and the Russians west at an encroaching North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). There are still tensions between China and India over their 1962 border war, and bad feelings between Russia and China go all the way back to the Vietnam War.

But growing trade, convergent security concerns, and an almost insatiable hunger for energy have brought the three together in what Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a "trilateral" relationship.

The initial glue was a common interest in the gas and oil supplies of Central Asia. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/audits/75223/

[Kurovski]

1. Kick. (nt)

[slipslidingaway]

2. Thanks K&R n/t