The Global Realignment: The end of a US-centric world?

from Post Global

The media has recently caught on to the fact that US influence is in steep decline but still under the mainstream radar is the extent to which other players such as Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela are stepping into the vacuum. The US is still the military superpower but it's already sharing the global influence stage with emerging powers who can move global events as well or better.

The media has recently caught on to the fact that US influence is in steep decline but still under the mainstream radar is the extent to which other players such as Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela are stepping into the vacuum. The US is still the military superpower but it's already sharing the global influence stage with emerging powers who can move global events as well or better.

A dramatic global realignment appears to be in progress (and quickening) as the result of several factors:

• The loss of US influence as a result of the Iraq war
• A view across the globe resulting from Abu Ghraib and range of missteps that the US has lost the moral high ground it had enjoyed for decades
• A feeling among global leaders that the US is without a coherent foreign policy strategy...a belief that has started feeding on itself and has emboldened US adversaries
• China's rise, its smooth diplomatic technique, its re-alignment with Russia and its aggressive, clever drive to form new alliances with nations extending from Asia and Africa to South America
• Russia's recent rise combined with Russian President Putin's domestic popularity and his reputation for effectively standing up to the West
• The rise of non-aligned nations emboldened by the inability of the US to effectively use the extraordinary power it possesses
• A view among key global leaders that the US will be bogged down in Iraq for many years (a view heightened by significantly by President Bush's September 13 Iraq speech), thus distracted and unable to respond effectively to key political moves by the range of international players
• A recognition by the international community that the Bush Administration not only hasn't been able to deal effectively with non-state actors (e.g. terror groups like Al Qaeda) but they are holding their own or starting to win.

(Continued here.)