By: William Burke-White

My last post examined three possible scenarios for the shape of the UN Security Council in 2030, suggesting that, but for the possibility of a lucky crisis, Security Council reform remains unlikely and that there is a real possibility that the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Council will wither considerably by 2030. This post seeks to instill a bit more optimism by considering the possible sources of global political leadership for Council reform and ways that existing stalemates might be broken to allow the kind of reform that would lead to what I termed the “Reform and Reinvigoration” scenario in that earlier post.

Part of the challenge of Security Council reform is the lack of global political leadership to drive such a process forward. Existing efforts for Council reform have stagnated, weighted down by UN bureaucratic process, divides among states contending for permanent membership, and an unwillingness of any current permanent members to champion a reform process. While states such as Brazil and India that have a possible claim to permanent seats on the Council invest significant political capital on the issue, they lack the global political influence needed to drive the issue forward and each potential new member has a regional competitor—Mexico or Pakistan, for example—ready to invest equivalent capital. As a result, such states are unlikely to have ability to break existing stalemates or find workable formulas for reform.

Beyond these contender states, there are really only two meaningful sources of political leadership for Security Council reform: the United States and Europe. Both the US and existing European member states have reasons for preferring the current shape of the Council and sitting on the sidelines of reform, but there is also a compelling logic for the US and Europe to show leadership on the issue. Moreover, collectively the US and Europe could find potential break-through solutions to existing logjams in a way that might make the “Reform and Reinvigoration” scenario viable.

Start with the US. Of course, the US benefits form current Council dynamics. The US veto ensures US interests are ultimately protected on the Council. Similarly, the US can usually muster the minimum additional 8 votes needed for a resolution to pass, assuming no other permanent members veto. Yet, the US also has a deeply vested interest in ensuring the long-term effectiveness of the Security Council and, more generally, the post-World War II order, of which the Council sits at the heart. By acting sooner, rather than later, as a leader in Security Council reform, the US will be far better positioned to help define the shape and structure of the reformed Council that emerges. Moreover, by taking a clear leadership role, the US can shift the political costs of opposition to other Permanent Members of the Council who may, in fact, be more reluctant to support reform and who have been able to effectively hide behind the US on the issue. Ultimately, if and when the US is willing to the look at Council reform from a slightly longer time-horizon, the benefits of leadership on the issue are obvious.

Over the past few years, of course, the Obama Administration has shown some willingness to advance the issue. While maintaining redlines on questions such as the expansion of the veto and the total membership of any reformed Council, the US has explicitly backed India’s bid for a permanent seat and given support to Brazil’s claims. Yet, these statements – in the context of presidential trips to both countries—have not been backed by visible diplomatic efforts or by evident changes in approach either in New York or in national capitals. The time may well be ripe for more active US leadership. And while such leadership would certainly not lead to immediate reform, it would put the US in a far better political and diplomatic position to shape reform when and if it ultimately occurs.

The second possible source of global leadership on Security Council reform is Europe.  The logic for issue leadership from Europe is even more apparent than for the United States. Ultimately, Europe seeks three seats on a reformed Council – the existing French and British permanent seats and, presumably, one for Germany as well. In light of Europe’s economic woes, internal challenges, and reduced relative political influence, the longer Europe waits to lead on Council reform, the less likely it becomes that this three-seat goal can be achieved. In fact, the more time that passes before reform occurs, the less likely it is that both France and the UK can reasonably maintain their existing seats. For Europe, early Council reform is far better than Council reform in 2030.

The Europeans may also hold the key to breaking current logjams and finding a mutually acceptable formula for Council reform. Specifically, a key redline for the US is the maximum number of permanent members on any reformed Council. Too large a group and the US (among others), rightly fears that any consensus on the Council will become impossible. Yet, most formulas that would incorporate the new members necessary for the Council’s perceived long-term legitimacy quickly push against that numerical ceiling. What if the Europeans could reach an internal agreement on say two post-reform European seats? Such an agreement might involve, one seat for the EU itself and one that rotates among Germany, the UK, and France.

Admittedly, current political divides within Europe make such compromise seem far-fetched. But if Europe could reach such an agreement, the symbolic value of both internal European compromise on the issue and the slot that such an agreement would free-up might make real reform possible. In light of a European compromise, competitor states to those states with the strongest claims for new seats might have to relax their diplomatic postures. A promise of European magnanimity on the issue could well serve leverage to push for compromises among other contenders. And, of course, the third seat, to which Europe would, essentially, relinquish a claim could be used to enhance the broader legitimacy of the Council, while more easily staying within a fixed maximum number of members.

Perhaps this is a leap too far. Admittedly, the efforts to build a common European foreign policy through the new External Action Service have underperformed. And, while, Europe’s current financial woes seem to occupy all available diplomatic time and energy, a new European bargain (and perhaps identity) that might serve as the solution to the current economic crisis could well be the foundation for a broader political bargain within Europe that might include a new approach to the Council. Even if such an agreement is a stretch, it offers perhaps the best hope for protecting Europe’s long-term interests, finding the global leadership needed for Council reform, and identifying a workable formula for the inclusion of new permanent members. Should the Europeans reach such an agreement and the US be we willing to demonstrate real political commitment to reform, the “reform and reinvigoration” scenario discussed in my last post might not be unattainable.

My last post examined three possible scenarios for the shape of the UN Security Council in 2030, suggesting that, but for the possibility of a lucky crisis, Security Council reform remains unlikely and that there is a real possibility that the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Council will wither considerably by 2030. This post seeks to instill a bit more optimism by considering the possible sources of global political leadership for Council reform and ways that existing stalemates might be broken to allow the kind of reform that would lead to what I termed the “Reform and Reinvigoration” scenario in that earlier post.

Part of the challenge of Security Council reform is the lack of global political leadership to drive such a process forward. Existing efforts for Council reform have stagnated, weighted down by UN bureaucratic process, divides among states contending for permanent membership, and an unwillingness of any current permanent members to champion a reform process. While states such as Brazil and India that have a possible claim to permanent seats on the Council invest significant political capital on the issue, they lack the global political influence needed to drive the issue forward and each potential new member has a regional competitor—Mexico or Pakistan, for example—ready to invest equivalent capital. As a result, such states are unlikely to have ability to break existing stalemates or find workable formulas for reform.

Beyond these contender states, there are really only two meaningful sources of political leadership for Security Council reform: the United States and Europe. Both the US and existing European member states have reasons for preferring the current shape of the Council and sitting on the sidelines of reform, but there is also a compelling logic for the US and Europe to show leadership on the issue. Moreover, collectively the US and Europe could find potential break-through solutions to existing logjams in a way that might make the “Reform and Reinvigoration” scenario viable.

Start with the US. Of course, the US benefits form current Council dynamics. The US veto ensures US interests are ultimately protected on the Council. Similarly, the US can usually muster the minimum additional 8 votes needed for a resolution to pass, assuming no other permanent members veto. Yet, the US also has a deeply vested interest in ensuring the long-term effectiveness of the Security Council and, more generally, the post-World War II order, of which the Council sits at the heart. By acting sooner, rather than later, as a leader in Security Council reform, the US will be far better positioned to help define the shape and structure of casino online the reformed Council that emerges. Moreover, by taking pokies online a clear leadership role, the US can shift the political costs of opposition to other Permanent Members of the Council who may, in fact, be more reluctant to support reform and who have been able to effectively hide behind the US on the issue. Ultimately, if and when inflatable water obstacle course the US is willing to the look at Council reform from a slightly longer time-horizon, the casino benefits of leadership on the issue are obvious.

Over the past few years, of course, casino online the Obama Administration has shown some willingness to advance the issue. While maintaining redlines online casino on questions such as the expansion of the veto and the total membership of any reformed Council, the online casinos US has explicitly backed India’s bid for a permanent seat and given support to Brazil’s claims. Yet, these statements – in the context of presidential trips to both countries—have not been backed by visible diplomatic efforts or by evident changes in approach either in New York or in national capitals. The time may well be ripe for more active US leadership. casino online And while such leadership would certainly not lead to immediate reform, it would put the US in a far better political and diplomatic position to shape reform when and if it ultimately occurs.

The second possible source of global leadership on Security Council reform is Europe.  The logic for issue leadership from Europe is even more apparent than for the United States. Ultimately, Europe seeks casino three seats Hive is a Hadoop-based hard drive repair warehousing like framework developed by Facebook. on a reformed Council – the existing French and British permanent seats and, presumably, one for Germany as well. In light of Europe’s economic woes, internal challenges, and reduced relative political influence, the longer Europe waits to lead on Council reform, the casino pa natet less likely it becomes it’s Goals Galore!Getting on our online casino superb enhanced Goals Galore coupons has never been so easy, with our mobile.the-best-casinos-online.info app available on iPhone and Android. that this three-seat goal can be achieved. In fact, the more time that passes before reform occurs, the less likely it is that both France and the UK can reasonably maintain their existing seats. For Europe, early Council reform is far better than Council reform in 2030.

The Europeans may also hold the key to breaking current logjams and finding a mutually acceptable formula for Council reform. Specifically, a key redline for the US is the maximum number of permanent members on any reformed Council. Too large a group and the US (among others), rightly fears that any consensus on the Council will become impossible. Yet, most formulas that would incorporate the new members necessary for the Council’s perceived long-term legitimacy quickly push against that numerical ceiling. What if the Europeans could reach an internal agreement on say two post-reform European seats? Such an agreement might involve, one seat for the EU itself and one that rotates among Germany, the UK, and France.

Admittedly, current political divides within Europe make such compromise seem far-fetched. But if Europe could reach such an agreement, the symbolic value of both internal European compromise on the issue and the slot that such an agreement would free-up might make real reform possible. In light of a European compromise, competitor states to those states with the strongest claims for new seats might have to relax their diplomatic postures. A promise of European magnanimity on the issue could well serve leverage to push for compromises among other contenders. And, of course, the third seat, to which Europe would, essentially, relinquish a claim could be used to enhance the broader legitimacy of the Council, while more easily staying within a fixed maximum number of membersWaterslides.

Perhaps this is a leap too far. Admittedly, the efforts to build a common European foreign policy through the new External Action Service have underperformed. And, while, Europe’s current financial woes seem to occupy all available diplomatic time and energy, a new European bargain (and perhaps identity) that might serve as the solution to the current economic crisis could well be the foundation for a broader political bargain within Europe that might include a new approach to the Council. Even if such an agreement is a stretch, it offers perhaps the best hope for protecting Europe’s long-term interests, finding the global leadership needed for Council reform, and identifying a workable formula for the inclusion of new permanent members. Should the Europeans reach such an agreement and the US be we willing to demonstrate real political commitment to reform, the “reform and reinvigoration” scenario discussed in my last post might not be unattainable.

By Mohan Malik

The Chinese challenge to U.S. primacy and the liberal democratic order is far more potent than that of the previous contenders, pretenders and challengers. Unlike the Soviet Union and Japan, China is not a uni-dimensional power but a multi-dimensional (economic, military, scientific and technological) superpower. Just as no great power goes quietly, no great power arrives quietly.

Rising powers are never status-quo powers. Whenever opportunity presents itself, rising powers flex their muscles and test influence. New players don’t play by the old rules. They seek to recast their region in their image. Their membership of the existing institutions changes the nature and role of the institutions themselves. In times of power transitions, rising powers seek to remake existing international systems.

China remains a non-status-quo power—in terms of territory, status and influence. Like other great powers in the past, China is also laying down new markers, drawing new lines in the land, water, sand and snow all around its periphery. Increased assertiveness signals transition from Deng Xiaoping’s strategic directive of “hiding capabilities to bide our time, and never taking the lead” to “seizing opportunities, taking the lead and showing off capabilities to shape others’ choices in China’s favor.”

China will behave as other great powers have behaved in history: it will carve out spheres of influence, establish a network of friends and allies to establish a pro-Beijing balance-of-power; secure access to natural resources, markets and bases; reform old and form new institutions; and establish a regional order that would serve Chinese interests and undermine those of its rivals. Power shifts have already created pressure for the reform of global institutions in which China, India and other emerging economies are not fully represented: the World Bank and the IMF and the UN Security Council. The exclusive G-7 has given way to the G-20. There has been a proliferation of regional and global organizations in sync with the re-configuration of power: APEC, ARF, APT, BRICS, IBSA, EAS, and ADMM 8.

China’s size, historical grievances, level of development, and nationalist aspirations dictate that Beijing only plays by Western rules when those are to its advantage. Chinese strategic writings indicate a preference for a unipolar Asia with China at the center of regional order and a multipolar world. Naturally, this makes it hard for China to accept any externally imposed barriers to its growth.

On a normative level, China’s growing global influence will empower it to lay down new rules for the post-American international order. Despite being the largest beneficiary of the existing international order, Beijing perceives it as a “tool” of the “imperialist West” that would “constrain China’s future growth.” Evidently, China appears increasingly uncomfortable with many of the laws and norms that undergird the current international system.

Most post-World War II institutions were built upon liberal-democratic norms such as respect for human rights, transparency, openness and inclusiveness. However, with wealthy authoritarian regimes now taking online casino the lead in establishing multilateral institutions, a very different set of norms would underpin international organizations. The SCO is one example of this new type of regional multilateral institutions which lack any democratic and liberal values.

As China’s power grows, Beijing will push for a new regional and global institutional architecture. Beijing’s policies on climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, world trade and UN Security Council reform are a sign of times to come. In commenting on the failure of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, the Chinese Ambassador for Climate Change, Yu Qingtai, drew the ominous lesson that “the developed countries need to make up their minds whether they want to pursue confrontation or co-operation with China.”

The financial aid and bailouts that China can offer to recession-hit countries surpass those of existing international financial institutions. China has shown willingness to use its growing financial influence in international institutions such as the ADB and the IMF to wield veto power over rescue packages for countries that do not comply with its political demands — especially over issues such as Tibet and Taiwan.

China’s diplomatic energies will remain focused on creating an alternative pole to democratic-liberal order in international institutions, eroding U.S. power, and driving a wedge between the United States and its allies. Luo Yuan, chairperson of the Strategy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, believes that China will soon reach a stage where it will have the power to either mold or discard existing institutions and build a new political-economic international order that will ensure strategic balance and stability.

Critics suspect that this “new political-economic international order” would not be much different from the Sino-centric hierarchical order of pre-modern Asia. The Chinese certainly seem far more comfortable with multilateral forums they have constructed, like the SCO, in which China plays the leading role, than with existing global institutions that were created by the United States and its allies and reflect Western values. Given the central role that China plays in giving direction to the SCO, the manner in which the SCO has developed provides interesting clues to the direction other regional organizations, such as APT and EAS, might take should China assume a dominant position.

In many multilateral forums, Washington alone will not be able to set the agenda or shape desired outcomes on a range of traditional and transnational security issues. With growing global power, and an increasingly nationalistic public opinion at home, Beijing will seek to rewrite the rules on trade, currency, technology, intellectual property rights, navigation of the seas, water resources, and climate change to protect Chinese interests. China already operates both within and outside the international system, seeking to mold it to serve Chinese interests while at the same time, in effect, working to establish a new Sino-centric regional order. Beijing will use global norms and conventions and its growing clout in international organizations to promote China’s core interests or have its foreign policy agenda endorsed while defining limits to U.S. power and marginalizing Beijing’s Asian rivals (India and Japan).

Having said that, discord between “China and the rest” could still make the West prevail. China is a polarizing rising power. Among regional countries, China will continue to arouse unease because of its size, history, proximity, power, unresolved territorial/maritime disputes, and more importantly, because memories of the tributary state system have not dimmed. Despite its relative decline, the United States will remain the balancer of choice for most countries on China’s periphery and elsewhere.

In particular, the Sino-Indian relationship will be marked by a “positional” rivalry in multilateral forums—a concern over their relative positions in the regional and global hierarchy. With the notable exception of environment and some trade issues, there are not many issues of collaboration and cooperation between China and India. In fact, far from mitigating their power competition, regional and international organizations will become the new arenas of Sino-Indian rivalry for maximizing relative power and for gaining advantage and influence.

Mohan Malik is Professor in Asian Security at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu. His most recent book is China and India: Great Power Rivals (London and Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011). These are his personal views.

By Shi Yinhong

To understand China profoundly and anticipate world politics in the coming decades is an increasingly necessary intellectual and practical task, though obviously far from easy. In recent years not a few people, though in different terms and discourses, have argued that a modernizing and modernized China will retain its essential and dynamic “Chineseness” in a new era of contested modernity — and that the rise of China as both a “civilization-state” and a nation-state is ending the dominance of the West over the modern world, ushering in a new era of global diversity in value validity and power distribution. No one can argue convincingly against this general prediction.

However, it goes too far to assert that China’s age-old Middle Kingdom mentality and sense of superiority will reassert themselves. Modern China has been full of dramatic changes because China’s fate and life since the mid-19^th century has occurred in the context of a globalizing world. In this sense, Chineseness is not something static, but rather dynamic and evolutionary.

A relatively newly component of Chineseness is the belief of contemporary China in something like particularism for every nation, along with some elements of universalism in a highly globalizing world. That is to say: what is most important and decisive is China’s own practice and experience. What is best for Washington or others is not necessarily best for China, just as what is best for China is not necessarily best for any of the others. The peoples of the world should and are fully entitled to move on their own roads according to their respective practices, experiences, and decisions.

This already deeply embedded idea, first launched by Mao Zedong in his finest hours in the 1930s and 1940s nbso online casino reviews and embraced by Deng Xiaoping as the most important  “philosophical” foundation for his reform and other statecraft, is definitely not like traditional (or Confucian) ideology — which treated Chinese cultural superiority or even power domination as an unquestionable and universally applicable value. Both the Chinese Confucian Empire and a China following the West (whether in the sense of a Woodrow Wilson or a Lenin) without self-confidence has passed into history, and probably will never return.

Having said all the above on China, one could remind the American Superpower of the fundamental assessment in The Histories by Herodotus, the founding father of Western historiography and the great narrator of the Persian War some 2,500 years ago. It is the philosophy articulated by the Athenian leader and great strategist Themistocles after Salamis:

It was not we who accomplished this, but the gods and heroes, who did not want to see a single man ruling both Asia and Europe.

In the words of a modern classicist,

If we go back through the earlier books of The Histories, we understand what Themistocles is talking about: there is an economy, a natural order to the world, that makes it necessary to check the Persian ambition….  [A]s Xerxes puts it, ‘to make Persian territory end only at the sky, the domain of Zeus, [so that] the sun will not shine on any land beyond our borders.‘  In Herodotus’ understanding, that is not the way the world works; something that goes too big will in its turn become the focus of tisis, “retribution”, and become small again.”

(Cited in “Explanatory Notes” to Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield, with an Introduction and Notes by Carolyn Dewald [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998], p. 693).

Shi Yinhong is Professor of International Relations at Renmin University.

By Walter Ladwig

Accounts of both American decline and the rise of peer competitors are substantially overstated in the popular media.  However, with the American public seemingly exhausted by a decade of war and financial crisis, the stability and continuation of the liberal international order forged in the wake of World War II faces a significant challenge from an increasing lack of global leadership necessary to make the system work.

Hegemonic Stability Theory suggests that the perpetuation of a particular international order—such as the present open and liberal world economic order—requires the leadership of the dominant state in the international system.  The absence of such leadership can have disastrous consequences.  For example, Charles Kindleberger has argued that the lack of global leadership by a dominant economy was a key cause of the economic chaos which occurred between the world wars and fostered the Great Depression.

This example illustrates the twin requirements of global leadership: capacity and will.  In the interwar years, Britain had the will but not the capacity to lead the world economy, while the United States may have had the capacity, but certainly lacked the will, to lead.

The present international order, the institutions that underpin it (e.g. the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF), and even the process of globalization are largely the product of American initiative and American leadership.  What happens to this system if that leadership no longer exists?  Some scholars are sanguine that norms and institutions can take on a life of their own in the absence of a leading state that will enforce the international “rules of the road.”  However, if the “rise of the rest” means that these structures do not represent the existing distribution of power, there are reasons to doubt that such arrangements can continue to function effectively.

The optimistic and pessimistic cases are likely to be put to the test since the present international system clearly faces a leadership deficit.  The United States online slots still possesses the capacity to lead—particularly when working in conjunction with its allies—but increasingly lacks the will to do so.  The American public is overwhelmingly focused on the country’s skyrocketing debt and its disappearing jobs.  Support for foreign commitments is down and scepticism about the impact of globalization is up.  Neither political party is likely to win power by challenging these sentiments.

For the better part of the last decade-and-a-half, Europe has been focused on internal consolidation.  The present economic crisis suggests that all available political capital will be dedicated to keeping the EU and the euro intact for some time to come, with little time or attention available for matters further afield.

The so-called emerging powers, such as China, India, Brazil and Russia, all face significant constraints on their will and capacity to provide global leadership.  These stem from a lack of domestic stability, questions surrounding the sustainability of their economic growth, or unfavorable demographics.  Moreover, many of these countries possess incompatible interests and objectives that would prevent them from exercising leadership in concert.

The “rise of the rest” is likely to enhance this global leadership deficit as the increasing multipolarity of global politics means no single country will possess sufficient capacity to lead.  What kind of impact might this have?  A reduction in global initiatives and an increase in regionalism would seem likely as the institutions of global governance prove to be increasingly ineffective.  Gridlocked WTO negotiations, for example, may give way to regional free trade agreements undertaken by “coalitions of the willing.”

More worrying is the prospect that problems which truly require a global response, like climate change or nuclear proliferation, will get punted because they are too difficult to deal with.  If Kindleberger is right, we should expect that a global leadership deficit will presage increasing volatility in international politics for some time to come.

Dr. Walter C. Ladwig, III is a Visiting Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London.

By Kati Suominen

The global economic order – the post-war framework of global governance built on rules-based institutions and free and open markets – is largely America’s creation. It has been the midwife of growth and globalization that have produced prosperity around the world. Much debate in recent years has centered on the impact of such rising powers as China and India on the American order. The focus needs to turn to a different question: can the United States uphold the order it authored?

As the Great Crisis of 2008-09 unfolded from America around the world, a chorus of critics rose to declare the United States a declining nation and to call an end to the current global economic order. In countless depictions, America was passing the baton of global stewardship to emerging nations, and a new world order led by China was thought to be waiting in the shadows.

But the American order persists, and the aftermath of the crisis has in some ways only reinforced it. Its new institutions, the G-20 and Financial Stability Board, are but sequels to U.S.-created entities. Investors have deemed America the safe haven, and the dollar has persevered as the world’s reserve currency. The mission and capacities of the Bretton Woods twins, the IMF and the World Bank, have only been expanded. Protectionism has by and large been held at bay, and the WTO is alive. No country has resigned from these institutions; rather, outsiders are demanding a seat on the coveted IMF Executive Board or an invitation to the charmed club of the G-20. Nations have opted in, not out of, the American order.

The outcome to a good extent reflects a fact of global governance: there are no rival orders that would match the growth and globalization produced by the American order. But while the order is peerless, it is also periled. The deepening Eurozone troubles and the deadlocked Doha Round are among a few illustrations that the institutions of the American order are hard-pressed to deal with the challenges in the 21^st-century world economy, let alone manage the competing demands of the old and new powers.

This is hugely problematic for the world and America’s place in it: a defective order will cease to garner support from the adherent nations. Instead of effectively coordinating policies and rallying behind common institutions, major powers are trapped in a Prisoner’s Dilemma, clashing over policies to restore growth, elbowing for an edge in global commerce, and jockeying for power in global economic institutions. Some, perhaps China, appear to be philosophically at odds with the American order itself.

The challenge is that the core of the global order, the United States, is ailing at home and failing to lead abroad. A central tenet of global economic governance is that someone has to coordinate the play; somebody has to keep it all together. During the critical 1945-1948 construction of the global economic order, the world came together — and was kept together — due to American strength, vision, and leadership, not because multilateralism was in vogue and everyone had a say. The leading nations were able to launch institutions that would shape the course of the 20^th century because there was a towering actor aware of its national interest online casino in an integrated world economy.

It was American power and leadership that created and sustained the world economic order. A global power with global interests, the United States kept it all together: paid a disproportionate share of the workings of global institutions, brokered differences among nations, and provided critical public goods – a global reserve currency, deep and predictable financial markets, an open trade regime, and vigorous economic growth. Coordination with other nations was seldom easy.

Today, leadership is again required. Again it must be American. Emerging economies prefer to free-ride rather than take responsibility in global governance, while Europe and Japan are neither able nor willing to lead. There are no substitutes for U.S. leadership: while the cast of characters on the global stage is larger and more disparate than before, leadership runs thin.

The quintessential question is not whether America can lead; it is whether Washington is willing. Solutions to the gaping deficits have lost out to political posturing, even though they undermine the dollar, exacerbate global imbalances, arrest America’s economic dynamism – and hurt U.S. credibility in world affairs. Europe’s crisis threatens America’s fragile economic recovery, but Congress is balking at an IMF response, and the administration, entering a re-election bid, is more interested in fiscal stimulus than solvency across the Atlantic. U.S. trade policy has been adrift far too long, and Doha’s travails jeopardize the very global trading system America has championed in the post-war era.

The United States must reform at home to lead abroad. Needed are uncompromising fiscal discipline, cuts in taxes and red tape on American businesses, and a lock on long-term policies that harness the productivity of America’s next generations and newcomers. Abroad, multilateral, regional and bilateral policies and instruments need to be upgraded and aligned to pre-empt instability and renew the drive to integrate the world economy.

America needs a thriving world economy as much as the world needs America. Promising unprecedented wealth in the United States and around the world, a stable, integrated, and growing 21^st century world serves our national interests. But such a world is America’s to make.

Kati Suominen is a resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. This essay draws on her new book, Peerless and Periled: The Future of America’s Leadership in the World Economic Order (Stanford University Press, 2012).

By Michael Green

I accept the broad argument behind Fareed Zakaria’s “rise of the rest” thesis, but also see some flawed assumptions in his worldview.  It is probably true that the narrative of the 21^st century will be about the relative decline in American and Western power because of the rise of China, India, Brazil and the rest — rather than a decline of American aggregate power resulting from imperial overstretch or some internal contradictions.

Indeed, the rise of the rest signifies the success of post-war American strategy more than its failure.  In that sense, we are not Rome or even Britain.  Zakaria has that right.  But the “rise of the rest” thesis still has several flaws:

1.         The rise of the rest is not inevitable:  China, India, Brazil and South Africa face fundamental internal contradictions and a looming middle-income trap in their development.  This is particularly true of China, given demographics, endemic corruption, environmental challenges and problems of regime legitimacy.  A dramatic reversal of Chinese economic growth could be one of the most threatening developments to international security since rejection of convergence by Beijing would lead in the direction of mercantilism and hypernationalism (a la Japan and Germany in the 1920s-30s).

2.         Balance of power still matters:  The “rest” are competing with each other more than they are aligning together.  For those closest to China (India, Indonesia, etc.) there is a premium on maintaining a stable equilibrium vis-à-vis Beijing.  India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and Korea are all more likely to align with each other and the United States for the foreseeable future than to bandwagon with China because of trade.  Zakaria rejects balance-of-power logic in the 21^st century in favor of a concert of power with China and “the rest.”  The United States should pursue cooperative security everywhere possible, but Asia will be a zone of balance of power as well.  The key will be not to nbso online casino reviews retreat and not to ask countries to choose between Washington and Beijing.  They all want us there.

Moreover, international institutions such as the UN, G-20 and WTO are going to be harder to manage with the assertiveness of  “the rest.”  These institutions will still matter despite the governance nightmares, but action will increasingly require ad hoc coalitions among like-minded states on trade, security, humanitarian crises and the like.  It follows that alliances will remain critical as the operational base for such coalitions and that action will follow in concentric circles outwards from those alliances to like-minded states and then to regional and global organizations.

3.         Ideational power matters.  Hegemonic stability rests on a set of norms and institutions that are empowering for member states in the system.  Numerous polls in Asia demonstrate that the so-called “Beijing consensus” of authoritarian development does not have any traction compared with universal norms of good governance, rule of law, and democracy.  Even though American material power is declining in relative terms, American ideational power is increasing.   That does not always translate into direct American influence – particularly with post-colonial states like India or South Africa — but it is a great deal more important than “soft power” in terms of creating trust and gradually closer alignment between the United States and many of the “rest” – particularly in Asia.  Beijing does not have that ideational advantage with countries that matter.

4.         The United States has sources for rejuvenated strength.  Our demographics, energy profile and innovation put us well ahead of “the rest” in terms of economic competition in the future….as long as the politicians do not muck it all up.

Michael J. Green is Senior Advisor and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an Associate Professor at Georgetown University.

By Su Chi

I think the demise of the post-WWII, U.S.-led liberal world order is much exaggerated. The impact of the Rest on the West is limited and transient.

The United States indeed suffers from huge financial difficulties, its worst-ever political gridlock, severe budgetary deficits, high unemployment and, not least, dismally low national morale. But compared with other industrialized countries, even the Rest, the fundamentals of U.S. society are still very strong.

First, demographically, the United States is one of the few countries still enjoying net growth. While others are losing their “demographic bonus,” the United States is still gaining. Second, technologically, the United States continues – in fact, for decades now – to be by far the leading country in the entire world. China and India, in particular, lag far behind. If the so-called “third industrial revolution” is to emerge in the near future, the West, particularly the United States, would stand to gain most. Third, despite its financial troubles, the United States continues to be the destination for large amounts of foreign capital – governmental or private, clean or dirty.

It is difficult to imagine a country with these fundamental advantages going into irreversible decline in the long term. Hence the current pessimism in the West is justified mostly on the psychological level and for the short term.

Problems in China are more systemic. And the Beijing leadership is acutely aware of them. Therefore, while the young, the middle- and lower-level cadres, and even the military oftentimes exhibit signs of complacency, the elders, the higher officials and the civilian leaders are much more cool-headed and even modest – in my view, genuinely so.

China’s economic growth has indeed been nothing short of spectacular in the three decades since 1979. But its costs are also all too plain, even to untrained eyes. The best online casino huge income gap between the new rich and the poor, the sharp divisions between the coast and inland and between the urban and rural areas, the prevalent corruption in the party and government, the drained resources as well as thoroughly polluted environment and, last but not least, the rising expectations and participation of the increasingly restless middle class — all call for structural reforms in the new China.

Yet, the nature of oligarchy renders any solution slow and ineffective in the long run, unless a strong consensus can be reached within a unified leadership. Because China is at the stage of leadership transition in 2012 and 2013, it is difficult, if not impossible, to envision a radical reform program. Most likely, the Party and government would continue to manage these internal problems on ad hoc basis.

So far they have been successful. In the near term they may also be successful in sustaining high economic growth. But in the longer term they have to struggle to attain a dynamic balance between economic development and political/societal stability. And this has to be managed by a relatively consensual leadership as well as a relatively incorrupt (thus more credible in the public eye) party/government machine. Both are gigantic challenges.

The neighbors of the Rest share some of the worries of the West about the rise of the Rest. But at the same time they are concerned that they inevitably will bear the brunt of the external costs if somehow the Rest stumbles on structural reform.

It may be in the interest of all if China is to slow down its growth and start tackling its long-term problems in a systematic way. The West and the Rest – and their smaller neighbors, particularly Taiwan – may just as well learn to cooperate and help one another. Doing that, they are also helping themselves.

Dr. Su Chi is Chairman of the Taipei Forum and formerly served as National Security Advisor (Secretary General of the NSC) to the President of Taiwan.