America's Weakening Gravitational Pull

The world is displaying less enthusiasm for following any single power, including the United States.
Ronald Brownstein
National Journal
Thursday, November 25, 2010

Two dynamics above all are dimming the prospects for an agreement in the international climate talks that resume on Monday in Cancun, Mexico.

One is that the United States' ability to forge a global consensus is eroding, partly because of intractable divisions at home. The other is that China (along with other developing countries) continues to resist being bound by international rules--at least as they have been defined by the industrialized nations. In that shifting balance of power, the chances of agreement are flickering.

That same destabilizing pattern was evident at the G-20 meeting of the world’s largest economies in Seoul earlier this month. There, opposition from China and other emerging economies helped sink U.S. proposals to accelerate global growth by limiting trade imbalances.

In the coming decades, this could become an increasingly common picture. Across a broad array of issues, the U.S. continues to uphold the ideal of common international rules that drive coordinated global action on climate, the economy, or security. But China, often joined by other emerging economies such as Brazil and India, is consistently resisting the U.S.-led order. Meanwhile, political polarization and economic weakness at home is sapping Washington's international leverage. The result is turbulence, as America's capacity to dictate world events diminishes and no new structure arises to fill the vacuum.

(More here.)