Quote:
Originally Posted by sutekidane
I give you credit for at least considering that both US and China will become regional powers, which will be true initially, but then the dynamics of change will not stop there in my opinion. Things will change as China and India will not be happy with having less per capita GNP than other smaller countries, once they reach overwhelming military predominance over these much smaller countries. Leveraging their military predominance they will start using coercion and playing imperial games, as all imperial powers or powerful nations have played in the past. Why is that, in my view it is because of a fundamental characteristic of human nature as well as all life forms- will to power, as described by Nietzsche, it is to get power and hold it at any cost. This will not change in just a few decades or centuries, if ever.
Non state actors will have their role, but currently ideologues like OBL have won because of mistakes by the states:
Ten years after the mouse roared - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
and I would say that corporations (MNC's) have won also because of failure of the states. So there is a learning curve to learn how to deal with them by the states, but states have way too much power to retreat and be side lined. Democracies and people in them will reassert and take back power in their hand, so there is no longer a rule By corporation, Of Corporation and For corporation like the US, that makes mistakes and engages the ideologue non-state actors. If the US cannot get out this phase quickly it will only help other powerful states like China and India to take over the global scene.
US corporations have committed treasonous acts by weakening the economic power and hence total power of the US, but corporations in other states will not be allowed this liberty I believe. The public in the US need to wake up, people in these other rising powers are already wide awake and alert, I believe they will not allow their corporations to travel a path that will take down their country. |
Well your "prediction" is one possible outcome of many. I don't think you can really predict with any confidence that this is what will happen.
I mean there are so many things to consider...
How will a growing middle class and an increasingly marginalized working class react in the face of authoritarian rule?
How will the dwindling of fossil fuels effect that willingness of governments to maintain energy guzzling military machines required to project their influence globally in the next hundred or so years?
How will the "middle powers" react to Chinese and American competition for strategic influence? And what will the effect be? (I mean it's not going to be like the cold war where middle powers will align themselves with one or the other... Middle powers in the current International political climate are actually in a position to play the USA and China off against each other for their OWN political gain which is what is happening already in South East Asia).
Bottom line is that I think you're getting way ahead of yourself...