During recent months, many have engaged in the pastime of looking back to the beginning of the twentieth century to find parallels with our present circumstances. Thus the position of Britain then--both with respect to its dominance and the first signs of its decline--has been compared to that of the United States today; the significance of the rise of Germany back then has been compared to the anticipated emergence of China as a genuine world power in the near future; and Norman Angell's belief--given expression on the eve of the outbreak of the Great War--that interdependence was rendering war obsolete has been seen as the equivalent of the current faith in the pacific effects of globalization and the spread of democracy.
There is one other parallel that deserves mention. Today, a few thoughtful and eloquent individuals--among them Robert Conquest, writing in the pages of this magazine, and John O'Sullivan in various journals--have been making the case for an English-speaking political union. The argument is that the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a few other smaller entities have so much in common in terms of political culture, values and institutions that they should draw together and enter into some sort of formal arrangement to act in concert--to create, that is, what some are now referring to as a political "Anglosphere."
