The coming world realignment

Washington and other power centers around the world should prepare themselves not just for the more obvious geopolitical challenges stemming from rapidly emerging new powers, but also for the upcoming difficulties and uncertainties in dealing with a dozen new regional players.

Since the US intervention in Iraq revealed the limits of Washington’s ability to implement its security strategy of becoming the unquestioned political and military arbiter of the globalizing world economy, the underlying tendencies towards a multipolar configuration of world politics have crystallized into hard and obvious fact. The scenario of US power dominating in every region of the world for generations to come was always an ideological construction that was bound to be contradicted by the rise of regional power centers with interests at variance with Washington’s aims; the difficulties encountered in the occupation of Iraq simply hastened the awareness of competing power centers that Washington could be opposed effectively without incurring unacceptable costs.

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