Global Power Shift from West to East in Making

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Long overview, reprint from Foreign Affairs.

The transfer of
power from
West to East is
gathering pace
and soon will
dramatically
change the
context for
dealing with
international
challenges - as
well as the challenges themselves. Many in the
West are already aware of Asia's growing strength.
This awareness, however, has not yet been
translated into preparedness. And therein lies a
danger: that Western countries will repeat their
past mistakes.

Major shifts of power between states, not to
mention regions, occur infrequently and are rarely
peaceful. In the early twentieth century, the
imperial order and the aspiring states of Germany
and Japan failed to adjust to each other. The
conflict that resulted devastated large parts of the
globe. Today, the transformation of the
international system will be even bigger and will
require the assimilation of markedly different
political and cultural traditions. This time, the
populous states of Asia are the aspirants seeking to
play a greater role.

---

China's economy is expected to be double the size of
Germany's by 2010 and to overtake Japan's,
currently the world's second largest, by 2020. If
India sustains a six percent growth rate for 50
years, as some financial analysts think possible, it
will equal or overtake China in that time.

---

The latest official figures
indicate that Japan's real
GDP rose at the annual
rate of 6.4 percent in the
last quarter of 2003, the
highest growth of any
quarter since 1990. Thanks
to China, Japan may
finally be emerging from a
decade of economic
malaise. But that trend
might not continue if
China crashes. India also
looms large on the radar
screen. Despite the halting
progress of its economic
reforms, India has
embarked on a sharp
upward trajectory,
propelled by its thriving software and
business-service industries, which support
corporations in the United States and other
advanced economies.

Seoul Times

[teryang]

1. The world's only superpower?

This forward looking perspective of a multi-polar world with a center of gravity moving toward Asia is marred by this reference:

<Going forward, the United States must provide the leadership to forge regional security arrangements, along the lines of the pending U.S.-Singapore accord to expand cooperation in the fight against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.>

One wonders why they put this perfunctory recognition of failed blow back scheming in the article.

The extension of US military bases into unstable central Asian-stans is unsustainable logistically in a land conflict. One wonders why we bother with the huge expense. Those who promote this "strategic vision" are just wasting valuable resources. The "silk road" is now irrelevant. The notion that these facilities would ever be adequate in a conflict in central asia is ludicrous. They are there for meddling purposes and have a role as cost ineffective financial boondoogles. They couldn't contain Russia or China if required.

The disproportionate expenditures on high tech strategic programs to the neglect of conventional forces doesn't really intimidate Asian powers who are capable of keeping us off the Asian mainland for practical purposes given enough time. Control of sea lanes and international air and sea borne commerce is our leverage, but only a positive one, yielding influence for the better. Our ability to militarily intimidate China over N.Korea or Taiwan is fairly well neutralized. We could probably defend Taiwan for a few years but then what? I don't think we could stay on the Korean penisula for even six months if the Chinese wanted to force us off. Their restraint is only aimed at not wanting to move Japan in the wrong direction. They are looking for concessions diplomatically and we are moving in the wrong directions. NMD is a non factor, it is a con game.

Ambiguity in US central Asian foreign policy works to our favor. Yet, this administration has abandoned ambiguity on several occasions leading to crises of brinkmanship and danger of even nuclear conflict.
The first was the EP3 incident in which some tried to intimidate China in their backyard. Wrong. The second was the abandonment and breach of the 1994 agreed framework with N.Korea. I attribute this to the arch rightist national security establishment which began its anticipatory breach before bush took power. This re-ignited N. Korean reactors, alienated S. Koreans and doesn't move China one bit. The third was the abandonment of the military embargo on Pakistan and the establishment of American military bases there. This emboldened Musharref's attempts to terrorize and intimidate a more powerful India and almost resulted in a major war. The commitment of the lion share of American power projection forces to Iraq is just a strategic blunder. I think Sun Tsu said that the one who goes to war has failed.

I liked the discussion of international institutions but it is obvious that the our currently deranged leadership sees these institutions only as vehicles for American dominance and rejects any dilutions of influence by accretion of new members. In fact, international institutions which are not controllable from the executive office are cavalierly insulted and ignored.

Good article. It is no wonder that Seoul Times picked up on this article.

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2. Well yeah.

At least they fessed up here to what is going on, which is
why I put it up. It's rather long.

But I guess they are not yet ready to point out to the
Emperor that he has no clothes and people are laughing at
his dick.