I ran across a blog called “Journalism by Other Means” talking about The New Hegemony, a response via the New York Times article. I strongly suggest reading the full 8-page article (I know, that’s a lot of clicks and time) called Waving Good-bye to Hegemony. Part of the article definitely goes into my previous post on the Rise of Chinese Style Democracy, but I wanted to note some areas of disagreement on a wonderful article that makes me happy to see some journalists really caring about the US/international affairs contrary to this past 8 years (all after the jump…)

I have to note that I am a quite biased on the concept of multiculturalism and in my opinion the article talking about Europe’s ability to deal with Islamic radicalism is minimizing the problems:

It may comfort American conservatives to point out that Europe still lacks a common army; the only problem is that it doesn’t really need one. Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and begging to join?

Social policies in Europe have, in my opinion, only served to intensify the problems–riots, assassinations, and slums are all a partial result of policies that do not allow native-born people to automatically become citizens. They cannot grow up to take part in the government and the policy does not help to create a sense of national unity.

This stated, I think that maybe the Europeans took to heart, was the concept of states voluntarily joining into a larger union–something the United States did quite well at (minus the wars of course) to strengthen the nation and build a strong economic power. I always liked the concept of new states voluntarily joining together for a greater cause (that would be the Trekkie fan talking here) and felt that the United States lost a powerful tool in the effort towards a better place on Earth when we stopped caring about bringing in new states into the US.

As for Russia:

In the coming decades, far from restoring its Soviet-era might, Russia will have to decide whether it wishes to exist peacefully as an asset to Europe or the alternative — becoming a petro-vassal of China.

I do wonder where he got the idea that it wants to exist as an asset to Europe as Putin has definitely been pushing hard towards the Chinese-style democracy, but of course that path may change with a new leader.

Still, I always shudder whenever I see Huntington’s work being referenced in only a small amount without reading the whole thing (which is actually quite short):

Interestingly, it is precisely Muslim oil-producing states — Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, (mostly Muslim) Kazakhstan, Malaysia — that seem the best at spreading their alignments across some combination of the Big Three simultaneously: getting what they want while fending off encroachment from others. America may seek Muslim allies for its image and the “war on terror,” but these same countries seem also to be part of what Samuel Huntington called the “Confucian-Islamic connection.” What is more, China is pulling off the most difficult of superpower feats: simultaneously maintaining positive ties with the world’s crucial pairs of regional rivals: Venezuela and Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. At this stage, Western diplomats have only mustered the wherewithal to quietly denounce Chinese aid policies and value-neutral alliances, but they are far from being able to do much of anything about them.

The “Confucian-Islamic connection” is only a small part of his theory even separating out Brazil for its Roman Catholicism, so I would highly suggest avoiding all references to his inaccurate theories. Sure, you can reference bits and pieces of it to make him sound right, but you’d be hard-pressed to say that there’s a nice connection with China’s policies inside of Xinjiang province.

So the end point of his article is the end of a decade long American hegemony which really is such a short time span in history that it is silly to consider calling for the end of American hegemony. I rather consider it a transition from a bipolar world order into an brief unipolar world that is restructuring into a tri-polar world:

Would the world not be more stable if America could be reaccepted as its organizing principle and leader? It’s very much too late to be asking, because the answer is unfolding before our eyes. Neither China nor the E.U. will replace the U.S. as the world’s sole leader; rather all three will constantly struggle to gain influence on their own and balance one another. Europe will promote its supranational integration model as a path to resolving Mideast disputes and organizing Africa, while China will push a Beijing consensus based on respect for sovereignty and mutual economic benefit. America must make itself irresistible to stay in the game.

Personally, I don’t quite see Europe as a leader in any economic, military, or diplomatic situation. Europe is definitely not militarily strong, its economic strength is focused internally, and international diplomacy is still heavily contingent on America. Probably the only area as of recent that Europe got its act in gear without the US was with Global Warming (and not Sudan’s crisis). A one-time situation does not make Europe a leader in the world.

China on the other hand, has the potential to be another Japan–strong rise, but hits the ceiling when the country refuses to make deeper changes in its economic and political system to rise to the next level. I am not advocating the concept of Westernization, but rather modernization–that Japan can change its system through its own style, but change has to happen to economic growth more. China also has the potential to splinter through the income gap or through pollution problems, but if it can get through those issues in the near future, then with its government concentration on steady growth learning from past countries’s mistakes, I can definitely foresee China having a strong potential to rival the US.

That rivalry though, can only occur upon two factors:

1. China learns from Japan’s flaws and opens up to at least a Singaporean style of government;
2. The US continues down a path of Bush stupidity (global warming = fake, American government was founded on Christianity, America will never fail, America is the most advanced nation in everything, deficits do not harm the economy)

Of course, everything, and I mean every international prediction is predicated on oil not being replaced. Twenty, thirty, even fifty years is a long time to make predictions and who really knows what new technology (eg: solar, fuel cells, etc.) could structurally change the way the global political economy works.