Multilateralism should be brought back or brought for the first time
I think it's safe to say that the world's love affair with lazily allowing one country (and its five best friends) to lord it over the place should come to an end soon and a true multilateralism should replace the system of superpowers and empires and hyperpowers. Obviously the US doesn't have the capacity to run the world, as much as some Americans would like it to. I believe that even more Americans would like the US to relinquish its vast, self-acquired, overseas responsibilities. The Europeans would like this too, though most don't seem to understand that the current level of wealth in Europe makes Europe like a huge pot of gold stuck in the middle of a bazaar full of poor people, and thus that if the US stops protecting Europe, then they will need to be able to protect themselves.
There is no heir apparent to the US in terms of world supremacy, and that should be viewed as an opportunity. Why do this planet's countries need one from amongst them to be the leader? They shouldn't. Strangely enough the only countries that understand this seem to be the most dysfunctional and least free ones. That should not be the case. It should be that the countries that do allow tolerance and freedom, and there are about a 30 of them (including most of the G-8), should be taking the lead in promoting a true multilateral ethos for the world with trade and security rationales to go with it. We aren't getting that from the WTO or the UN or NATO, those organizations only provide the semblance of multilateralism. The EU has created multilateralism within its borders, but then that is also what the US did when it formed itself, so that doesn't really address the question of the world outside of the US and the EU, i.e. most of the world.
I don't know the way forward on this, because it needs to be a peaceful one and one that respects individual freedoms. But I do know that both the US and Europe will tire of our burdens, and we should protect our futures through more true cooperation with everybody outside of the US/EU/Australia/NZ continuum. What currently masquerades as multilateral cooperation is simply us using our economic might (and the guns that back it up) to make the others do what they're told. A simple look at world demographic trends shows that we cannot sustain that. Let's think it over a bit....
There is no heir apparent to the US in terms of world supremacy, and that should be viewed as an opportunity. Why do this planet's countries need one from amongst them to be the leader? They shouldn't. Strangely enough the only countries that understand this seem to be the most dysfunctional and least free ones. That should not be the case. It should be that the countries that do allow tolerance and freedom, and there are about a 30 of them (including most of the G-8), should be taking the lead in promoting a true multilateral ethos for the world with trade and security rationales to go with it. We aren't getting that from the WTO or the UN or NATO, those organizations only provide the semblance of multilateralism. The EU has created multilateralism within its borders, but then that is also what the US did when it formed itself, so that doesn't really address the question of the world outside of the US and the EU, i.e. most of the world.
I don't know the way forward on this, because it needs to be a peaceful one and one that respects individual freedoms. But I do know that both the US and Europe will tire of our burdens, and we should protect our futures through more true cooperation with everybody outside of the US/EU/Australia/NZ continuum. What currently masquerades as multilateral cooperation is simply us using our economic might (and the guns that back it up) to make the others do what they're told. A simple look at world demographic trends shows that we cannot sustain that. Let's think it over a bit....
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