Lockesdonkey
Liberal Jihadist
The next ten years are crucial to the development of the 21st century, as many nations will be under governments which were elected or otherwise formed in a distinctly 21st-century milieu, relatively uninfluenced by the concerns of the 1990s.
If things keep going the way they're going, military power will become increasingly irrelevant. Already we see that total war between great powers is simply not an option, because in any total war situation, everybody loses (i.e. nuclear war). Sub-total conventional war is simply too costly, and the opportunity cost is far too high; why should China spend billions attacking the US and then spending even more billions trying to rebuild whatever it is was destroyed when they could make still more billions by not going to war and just selling the Yankees gewgaws and laptops?
The fact is, the more the Great Powers trade with one another, the more they limit their options to just economic and "soft" power (political influence, clout in international institutions, etc.)--which favors Europe, with its well-developed economy, good international reputation, and large bloc of nations (read: UN and WTO votes) which will probably continue to act as individual nations for as long as humanly possible. In addition, it is the only power that is physically expanding (though this may or may not mean anything).
The US is also well-positioned for such a world. Among other things, it is the chief catalyst of the globalization which drives this integration. For another, it can usually count on European support thanks to the commonality of US and EU interests and the resurgence of Atlanticism with the political trifecta of Merkel, Sarkozy, and Blair/Brown (they're both very pro-American, though the latter doesn't care for the Iraq War); given the relative popularity of Merkel, the fact that Sarkozy must stay for the next five years (barring anything weird), and the sympathy of the only realistic PM in the next ten years (David Cameron) to Atlanticism, I think that Atlanticism is here to stay.
India could also do well in this system. Nations generally listen to India because they want to, not because they're afraid (USA, China) or have nothing better to do (Europe, at the moment), on account of the image India projects as a Third World success story. It has positioned itself as a heart of trade and commerce, shunning dirty industrialization for God-knows-what. It has strong trade links to all major players, as well as to Africa.
China, which would traditionally be considered the most likely to succeed, has to tread carefully in order to avoid becoming the next Japan--touted and then floundering. It has military capacity, but, as explained above, it cannot pursue its current strategy of economic integration without limiting its military options. As the Chinese economy expands, it relies increasingly on foreign investment, much of which comes from the areas where China would seek to use its military--the West, Japan, and Taiwan. Taiwan in particular has built itself what is essentially a mile-high wall by providing such insanely large quantities of cash to Chinese businesses, and by making itself such a ready and willing supplier of starting funds to the mainland. The one country that China would like to invade is ironically the one country China cannot invade; it's too lucrative. Thus China must seek to expand its sphere through economic means. However, they will find it difficult to do so in their region: South Korea, Japan, and Thailand are already firmly under American influence; North Korea nobody wants to deal with; Laos is poor; Vietnam is generally pissed off at China. Thus they must expand to Africa--not a bad choice, really, it's the only territory that could go either way--but they must contend with the West, which doesn't want China to get anything, and India, which has established trade links with Africa from the sixties and seventies, established as part of Nehru's grand strategy for the Non-Aligned Movement. In short, China has the obvious advantages, but may find itself unable to take advantage of them.
If things keep going the way they're going, military power will become increasingly irrelevant. Already we see that total war between great powers is simply not an option, because in any total war situation, everybody loses (i.e. nuclear war). Sub-total conventional war is simply too costly, and the opportunity cost is far too high; why should China spend billions attacking the US and then spending even more billions trying to rebuild whatever it is was destroyed when they could make still more billions by not going to war and just selling the Yankees gewgaws and laptops?
The fact is, the more the Great Powers trade with one another, the more they limit their options to just economic and "soft" power (political influence, clout in international institutions, etc.)--which favors Europe, with its well-developed economy, good international reputation, and large bloc of nations (read: UN and WTO votes) which will probably continue to act as individual nations for as long as humanly possible. In addition, it is the only power that is physically expanding (though this may or may not mean anything).
The US is also well-positioned for such a world. Among other things, it is the chief catalyst of the globalization which drives this integration. For another, it can usually count on European support thanks to the commonality of US and EU interests and the resurgence of Atlanticism with the political trifecta of Merkel, Sarkozy, and Blair/Brown (they're both very pro-American, though the latter doesn't care for the Iraq War); given the relative popularity of Merkel, the fact that Sarkozy must stay for the next five years (barring anything weird), and the sympathy of the only realistic PM in the next ten years (David Cameron) to Atlanticism, I think that Atlanticism is here to stay.
India could also do well in this system. Nations generally listen to India because they want to, not because they're afraid (USA, China) or have nothing better to do (Europe, at the moment), on account of the image India projects as a Third World success story. It has positioned itself as a heart of trade and commerce, shunning dirty industrialization for God-knows-what. It has strong trade links to all major players, as well as to Africa.
China, which would traditionally be considered the most likely to succeed, has to tread carefully in order to avoid becoming the next Japan--touted and then floundering. It has military capacity, but, as explained above, it cannot pursue its current strategy of economic integration without limiting its military options. As the Chinese economy expands, it relies increasingly on foreign investment, much of which comes from the areas where China would seek to use its military--the West, Japan, and Taiwan. Taiwan in particular has built itself what is essentially a mile-high wall by providing such insanely large quantities of cash to Chinese businesses, and by making itself such a ready and willing supplier of starting funds to the mainland. The one country that China would like to invade is ironically the one country China cannot invade; it's too lucrative. Thus China must seek to expand its sphere through economic means. However, they will find it difficult to do so in their region: South Korea, Japan, and Thailand are already firmly under American influence; North Korea nobody wants to deal with; Laos is poor; Vietnam is generally pissed off at China. Thus they must expand to Africa--not a bad choice, really, it's the only territory that could go either way--but they must contend with the West, which doesn't want China to get anything, and India, which has established trade links with Africa from the sixties and seventies, established as part of Nehru's grand strategy for the Non-Aligned Movement. In short, China has the obvious advantages, but may find itself unable to take advantage of them.
