Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria has labeled the world ahead a “post-American world.” I do get a very strong sense that conditions in the global economy are changing in very dramatic ways. The assumptions that undergirded either the Cold War world, or this extended period of American hegemony since, are not going to be sufficient to guide America in the world that is emerging. The first obvious change the United States faces has to do with the emergence of a multi-polar world. This is not a story about American decline. The US remains the dominant power in the world, but the rest of the world is catching up. The power shift in terms of economic earnings is very dramatic. Russia, China, India and the states of the Persian Gulf are all growing while America is sinking into a recession. This underlines how the rest of the world has become decoupled from the American economy.
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