Posted on 02/12/2005 12:25:40 AM PST by AnimalLover
In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited.
Consider Asean Plus Three (APT), which unites the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations with China, Japan and South Korea. This group has the potential to be the world's largest trade bloc, dwarfing the European Union and North American Free Trade Association. The deepening ties of the APT member states represent a major diplomatic defeat for the US, which hoped to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum to limit the growth of Asian economic regionalism at American expense. In the same way, recent moves by South American countries to bolster an economic community represent a clear rejection of US aims to dominate a western-hemisphere free trade zone.
Consider, as well, the EU's rapid progress toward military independence. American protests failed to prevent the EU establishing its own military planning agency, independent of the Nato alliance (and thus of Washington). Europe is building up its own rapid reaction force. And despite US resistance, the EU is developing Galileo, its own satellite network, which will break the monopoly of the US global positioning satellite system.
The participation of China in Europe's Galileo project has alarmed the US military. But China shares an interest with other aspiring space powers in preventing American control of space for military and commercial uses. Even while collaborating with Europe on Galileo, China is partnering Brazil to launch satellites. And in an unprecedented move, China recently agreed to host Russian forces for joint Russo-Chinese military exercises.
The US is being sidelined even in the area that Mr Bush identified in last week's address as America's mission: the promotion of democracy and human rights. The EU has devoted far more resources to consolidating democracy in post-communist Europe than has the US. By contrast, under Mr Bush, the US hypocritically uses the promotion of democracy as the rationale for campaigns against states it opposes for strategic reasons. Washington denounces tyranny in Iran but tolerates it in Pakistan. In Iraq, the goal of democratisation was invoked only after the invasion, which was justified earlier by claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was collaborating with al-Qaeda.
Nor is American democracy a shining example to mankind. The present one-party rule in the US has been produced in part by the artificial redrawing of political districts to favour Republicans, reinforcing the domination of money in American politics. America's judges -- many of whom will be appointed by Mr Bush -- increasingly behave as partisan political activists in black robes. America's antiquated winner-take-all electoral system has been abandoned by most other democracies for more inclusive versions of proportional representation.
In other areas of global moral and institutional reform, the US today is a follower rather than a leader. Human rights? Europe has banned the death penalty and torture, while the US is a leading practitioner of execution. Under Mr Bush, the US has constructed an international military gulag in which the torture of suspects has frequently occurred. The international rule of law? For generations, promoting international law in collaboration with other nations was a US goal. But the neoconservatives who dominate Washington today mock the very idea of international law. The next US attorney general will be the White House counsel who scorned the Geneva Conventions as obsolete.
A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who argued that the world was becoming multipolar, rather than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing against the US, they asked. Today the evidence of foreign co-operation to reduce American primacy is everywhere -- from the increasing importance of regional trade blocs that exclude the US to international space projects and military exercises in which the US is conspicuous by its absence.
It is true that the US remains the only country capable of projecting military power throughout the world. But unipolarity in the military sphere, narrowly defined, is not preventing the rapid development of multipolarity in the geopolitical and economic arenas -- far from it. And the other great powers are content to let the US waste blood and treasure on its doomed attempt to recreate the post-first world war British imperium in the Middle East.
That the rest of the world is building institutions and alliances that shut out the US should come as no surprise. The view that American leaders can be trusted to use a monopoly of military and economic power for the good of humanity has never been widely shared outside of the US. The trend toward multipolarity has probably been accelerated by the truculent unilateralism of the Bush administration, whose motto seems to be that of the Hollywood mogul: "Include me out."
In recent memory, nothing could be done without the US. Today, however, practically all new international institution-building of any long-term importance in global diplomacy and trade occurs without American participation.
In 1998 Madeleine Albright, then US secretary of state, said of the U.S.: "We are the indispensable nation." By backfiring, the unilateralism of Mr Bush has proven her wrong. The US, it turns out, is a dispensable nation.
Europe, China, Russia, Latin America and other regions and nations are quietly taking measures whose effect if not sole purpose will be to cut America down to size.
Ironically, the US, having won the cold war, is adopting the strategy that led the Soviet Union to lose it: hoping that raw military power will be sufficient to intimidate other great powers alienated by its belligerence. To compound the irony, these other great powers are drafting the blueprints for new international institutions and alliances. That is what the US did during and after the second world war.
But that was a different America, led by wise and constructive statesmen like Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who wrote of being "present at the creation." The bullying approach of the Bush administration has ensured that the US will not be invited to take part in designing the international architecture of Europe and Asia in the 21st century. This time, the US is absent at the creation.
The above content represents the view of the author only.
Is it any wonder though with the help of the media and some of our politicians - Kennedy - Kerry - Pelosi - Boxer - to name a few, their praise of our Country and her efforts have surely taken it's toll.
IIRC, Michael Lind is a left wing apologist who started out on the right.
This guy hasn't cared much for the America and Americans for some time. Especially southerners. And he cares even less about Republicans. Plus, he absolutely detests George W. Bush.
Now, why is it that we should give a damn what he might think?
Michael Lind is a self styled "populist" in the same intellectual tradition as Kevin Phillips.
America's antiquated winner-take-all electoral system has been abandoned by most other democracies for more inclusive versions of proportional representation.
Many other democracies do employ a different system to elect heads of state. Britain, for instance, allows their Parliament to perform the election of the Prime Minister. This further removes the head of state from the people. We, on the other hand, elect the President directly by a vote of the people. The fact that individual states happen to employ a "winner-take-all" over the electors, themselves, minimizes the important point that the President has to pass muster with the people.
Consider, as well, the EU's rapid progress toward military independence.
That is, if your definition of "independence" is the same as "irrelevance."
I believe you're thinking of William S. Lind, a "defense analyst" who got very annoyed with the USMC for not adopting his idea of using the Light Armorder Vehicle battalions as a Soviet-style "Operational Maneuver Group" to exploit breakthroughs. In a world where the RPG-7 is the 2nd most common threat weapon, that idea is a pretty bad one.
They don't even understand how gerrymandering was done by the Democrats for decades before President Bush came to power.
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i don't think that can be used as an excuse for alleged republican gerrymandering. two wrongs don't make a right ;)
Agreed. However, a major justification for criticism of the Bush statements was based upon the gerrymandering implied to have first started with the current Republican Congress.
Consequently, the credibility of the rest of his argument is made much weaker.
The above content represents the view of the author only
You can say that again.
The very fact that this is a successful stragety, and that we Americans neither desired to control or enslave the planet, it would be be logical that emerging and developing economies would come together with common interests.
The author fails to note that America is less poised to trade with Europe and her developed high priced society but rather as Europe to trade with less developed nations that can provide competitive products. The fact that free trade is a misnomer is touched upon by the author but he fails to recognize self interest is always a reason for collusion and ultimately friction that, again, leads to war, e.g., self interest.
Europe's military... a force of 60,000 to replace the withdraw of American forces - self interest, but does this force have the warrior spirit to fight as or will it turn tail as in the UN Balkins? Can Europe under the EU banner muster the common interest to field combat units, sustain a common economic interest and maintain nationalistic populations under duress?
As with all leftist academica, this author is neither a historian, an economist, or even slightly acquainted with anything other than a few "facts" pulled together to write this article for if he/she/it were they would have written more about the US interaction with these very groups.
"I believe you're thinking of William S. Lind, a "defense analyst" who got very annoyed with the USMC for not adopting his idea of using the Light Armorder Vehicle battalions as a Soviet-style "Operational Maneuver Group" to exploit breakthroughs."
You could be right. I'm not in the mood for searching right now. Folks can ping me in the morning.
I didn't know Howard Dean wrote under a pen name!
ping
Can you say "we'll steal American technology 'cuz we don't have the horses to come up with the ideas ourselves" ?
Agreed. However, a major justification for criticism of the Bush statements was based upon the gerrymandering implied to have first started with the current Republican Congress.
Consequently, the credibility of the rest of his argument is made much weaker.
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yea, that's true. either side is going to lie and cheat, if only a little. thats just politics and implying that one side doesn't and the other does (as the article suggests) is stupid. it would have been better if they just didn't name a party and suggested that both parties have benefited from more sinister tactics.
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