Pax Americana and the age of Western dominance are fading. Washington can manage this decline, but first it must acknowledge its reality. History moves forward with a crushing force and does not wait for the unprepared.
If the United States cannot get its fiscal house in order, the dollar’s privileged position as the world’s reserve currency may be at risk—at a time when there seem to be few if any plausible alternatives.
The European debt debacle has made a mockery of the original hopes that inspired the European project. The EU may not survive the current crisis—and even if it does, it could be a severely diminished organization.
The era of U.S.-approved, iron-fisted Arab dictators is over. Washington must get used to a Middle East in which public opinion matters to a much greater extent, anti-Western sentiment abounds and political Islam emerges as a major force.
An intense security competition is under way in East Asia. Beijing and Washington must take care to ensure that this competition does not give way to entrenched bloody-mindedness or even outright violence.
Those nations falling between the developed West and the world’s poorest countries are jockeying for position in their own regions and playing powers against each other. They will make life increasingly difficult for the reigning great powers.
