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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (44261)	12/23/2008 5:25:17 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 217563

i wet myself

To: Snowshoe who wrote (44261)	12/25/2008 12:46:32 PM
From: elmatador	1 Recommendation Respond to of 217563

'The world has moved on' from America Bush to blame? U.S. political, economic clout is on the wane. By Paul Richter \| Special to The Morning Call December 25, 2008 As President Bush's term comes to a close, the United States has the world's dominant economy and its most powerful military. Yet its global influence is in decline. The United States emerged from the Cold War a solitary superpower whose political and economic leverage often enabled it to impose its will on other nations. Now, America usually needs to build coalitions of nations to get its way -- and often finds other world powers aren't willing to go along. In the 1990s, America exerted leadership in all the remote corners of the globe, from the southern cone of South America to Central Asia. Now, the United States has largely left the field in many regions, leaving others to show the way. Bush has been widely blamed for the erosion of American prestige. And the decline in U.S. influence is partly the result of the reaction to his invasion of Iraq, his campaign against Islamic militants and his early disdain for treaties and international bodies. But the shift is also a result of forces that have been taking shape independently, although hastened by an aversion to Bush. These include the steady ascent of China, India and other developing countries that throughout the past decade have amassed wealth and have quietly extended their global reach. As smaller countries have built economic and political ties to these rising powers they have worked to free themselves from exclusive dependence on the United States. ''There is no return to the time when the United States was the 'indispensible power''' said Stewart Patrick, a former State Department official at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''The world has moved on.'' Now there are multiple power centers. The international institutions that buttressed Western power -- the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, for instance -- are under pressure to reorganize so that the rising nations have more influence. A vivid illustration of the power shift came Nov. 15, when Bush convened world leaders in Washington to lay plans for dealing with the global economic crisis. In the old days, experts said, he would have invited the so-called Group of 7 world powers. But Bush realized that the world economy now has a larger cast of influential players, and invited all members of the much larger G-20. A decade ago, the United States might have been able to bring enough economic pressure on its own to force an end to Iran's disputed nuclear program, said Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of national security studies at the U.S. Naval War College. But Iran by now has built economic ties to China and India, among others, so the United States has to assemble a much larger group if it hopes to force Tehran's hand. ''Ten years ago, the U.S. was generally the only game in town, and it had the power to close or crack open the door to Iran,'' said Gvosdev. ''Now other countries have more options. Â? This doesn't mean the United States is weak, but it can't unilaterally impose what it wants.'' A report this year by the U.S. National Intelligence Council cites a shift of economic power from the West to the East that is ''without precedent'' and that will mean that the United States by 2025 will ''remain the single most powerful country, but will be less dominant.'' By 2025, the ''international community'' of countries, dominated by the United States and its Western allies ''will no longer exist,'' the report says. The Bush administration has contributed to the decline in U.S. influence in several ways: The United States has led since World War II in part by its power of persuasion, as well as its economic might. But other countries' unhappiness with the Iraq war and American conduct of the ''war on terror,'' means that the ''American brand is less legitimate and its persuasive powers are compromised,'' said Charles Kupchan of Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations. There also has been a dwindling of U.S. influence as the administration has focused most of its energy and resources on the Middle East and Southwest Asia, leaving much less for regions like Central and Southeast Asia and Latin America. Other countries are now leading diplomatic initiatives that once would have been the province of the United States. Qatar, for example, has taken the lead in brokering a deal between Syria and Lebanon, while Turkey has been acting as an intermediary between Israel and Egypt. As U.S. political standing has eroded, the U.S. economy remains powerful, with a gross domestic product of $14 trillion a year that still dwarfs China's $3 trillion. Yet American influence on world economic policy is declining. One sign: The failure of the United States and its allies to sell a new world trade agreement to the World Trade Organization in the face of opposition from China, India, and others. ''The influence of the U.S. private sector is as strong as ever,'' said Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. ''But the United States is much less able to shape world policy these days.'' Many analysts expect that the current economic crisis, which much of the world blames on the United States, will persuade many countries that they shouldn't emulate the loosely-regulated American economic model, but should turn to a more authoritarian form of capitalism. Paul Richter is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a