American politics

China providing arms to Pakistan

Abu Gharib
Ww2 us intervention
EU-
UN and US

The United States should not forswear all use of force in the Third World. On some
occasions the use of force may serve legitimate goals. For instance, if intervention
would end massive human rights violations, like those in Cambodia during 1975-79
or in Kurdish Iraq after the Gulf War, ethical considerations may recommend
intervention. If U.S. forces are used to deter aggression (as in Korea since 1953) this
serves human rights by preventing war. Action to reverse aggression (as in Korea in
1950 and Kuwait in 1990-1991) also bolsters peace by deterring future aggression by
others. If the United States owes moral debts, as to Israel, it may be compelled to
repay in the currency of military commitment. If Third World states sponsor wanton
terrorism, a forceful response may be appropriate, like the 1986 American bombing of
Libya. Action against Third World states who would build and use weapons of mass
destruction also may be appropriate, if other means to control proliferation fail.

However, such considerations recommend forceful intervention only when the

problem faced is severe, other solutions are unavailable, and intervention can achieve
American goals with high confidence and small cost. (Using these criteria the case for
the 1990 Persian Gulf deployment seems strong, but the resort to war in 1991 seems
unjustified.)

Moreover, the U.S. should cease intervening to 'protect national security' or to 'bolster
Third World democracy,' since the results of intervention seldom serve either purpose.
And force should be used on a large scale only very rarely, because the U.S. has few
Third World interests that can justify paying large costs or taking large numbers of
lives. For these reasons another Vietnam-sized intervention should be categorically
excluded.

Such a policy would allow deep cuts in America's intervention forces and a quick end
to the Bush administration's proxy wars. Some 34 percent of the current defense
budget is allocated to forces optimized for intervention in the Third World. This
expenditure supports a vast array of interventionary forces, of which only half were
engaged in the Persian Gulf war. If the Gulf war is taken as the standard for
measuring American intervention force requirements, roughly half America's current
intervention forces could therefore be cut. This would allow a $34 billion cut in the
Bush administration's projected defense budget for fiscal year 1995.

The wars in Cambodia, Afghanistan, and El Salvador should be ended for reasons that
are less financial than moral. These wars cost very little: the administration's aid to all
three proxies totals only some $550 million per year. Indeed, this is part of the
problem: even morally dubious wars rouse little congressional attention or opposition
if they are cost-free. But if moral considerations governed policy these wars would
end in a jiffy. Each constitutes a large taking of human life for little or no purpose; as
such, each violates the injunction that the use of force must serve an important or
necessary purpose, or it becomes illegitimate. This gives the administration a
responsibility to bring all three wars to a prompt conclusion, and others a duty to press
the administration to accept this responsibility.

the financial press, are all agog over the rise of China and India in the
international economy. After a long period of relative stagnation, these two
countries, nearly two-fifths of the world population, have seen their incomes
grow at remarkably high rates over the last two decades

Columnists have sent breathless reports from Beijing and Bangalore about the inexorable
competition from these two new whiz kids in our complacent neighborhood in a "flattened,"
globalized, playing field. Others have warned about the momentous implications of "three
billion new capitalists," largely from China and India, redefining the next phase of
globalization.

While there is no doubt about the great potential of these two economies in the rest of this
century, severe structural and institutional problems will hobble them for years to come. At
this point, the hype about the Indian economy seems patently premature, and the risks on the
horizon for the Chinese polity – and hence for economic stability – highly underestimated.

Both China and India are still desperately poor countries. Of the total of 2.3 billion people in
these two countries, nearly 1.5 billion earn less than US$2 a day, according to World Bank
calculations. Of course, the lifting of hundreds of millions
of people above poverty in China has been historic. Thanks
to repeated assertions in the international financial press,
conventional wisdom now suggests that globalization is
responsible for this feat. Yet a substantial part of China's
decline in poverty since 1980 already happened by mid-
1980s (largely as a result of agricultural growth), before
the big strides in foreign trade and investment in the
1990s. Assertions about Indian poverty reduction primarily through trade liberalization are
even shakier. In the nineties, the decade of major trade liberalization, the rate of decline in
poverty by some aggregative estimates has, if anything, slowed down. In any case, India is as
yet a minor player in world trade, contributing less than one percent of world exports.
(China's share is about 6 percent.)

What about the hordes of Indian software engineers, call-center operators, and back-room
programmers supposedly hollowing out white-collar jobs in rich countries? The total number
of workers in all possible forms of IT-related jobs in India comes to less than a million
workers – one-quarter of one percent of the Indian labor force. For all its Nobel Prizes and
brilliant scholars and professionals, India is the largest single-country contributor to the pool
of illiterate people in the world. Lifting them out of poverty and dead-end menial jobs will
remain a Herculean task for decades to come.
Even in China, now considered the manufacturing workshop of the world (though China's
share in the worldwide manufacturing value-added is below 9 percent, less than half that of
Japan or the United States), less than one-fifth of its labor force is employed in
manufacturing, mining, and construction combined. In
fact, China has lost tens of millions of manufacturing jobs
since the mid-1990s. Nearly half of the country's labor
force remains in agriculture (about 60 percent in India). As
per acre productivity growth has stagnated, reabsorbing
the hundreds of millions of peasants will remain a
challenge in the foreseeable future for both countries.
Domestic private enterprise in China, while active and
growing, is relatively weak, and Chinese banks are
burdened with "bad" loans. By most aggregative measures, capital is used much less
efficiently in China than in India, even though in terms of physical infrastructure and progress
in education and health, China is better poised for further economic growth. Commercial
regulatory structures in both countries are still slow and heavy-handed. According to the
World Bank, to start a business requires in India 71 days, in China 48 days (compared to 6
days in Singapore); enforcing debt contracts requires 425 days in India, 241 days in China (69
days in Singapore).

China's authoritarian system of government will likely be a major economic liability in the
long run, regardless of its immediate implications for short-run policy decisions. In the
economic reform process, the Chinese leadership has often
made bold decisions and implemented them relatively
quickly and decisively, whereas in India, reform has been
halting and hesitant. This is usually attributed to the
inevitably slow processes of democracy in India. And
though this may be the case, other factors are involved. For
example, the major disruptions and hardships of
restructuring in the Chinese economy were rendered
somewhat tolerable by a minimum rural safety net – made possible to a large extent by land
reforms in 1978. In most parts of India, no similar rural safety net exists for the poor; and the
more severe educational inequality in India makes the absorption of shocks in the industrial
labor market more difficult. So the resistance to the competitive process of market reform is
that much stiffer.

But inequalities (particularly rural-urban) have been increasing in China, and those left
behind are getting restive. With massive layoffs in the rust-belt provinces, arbitrary local
levies on farmers, pervasive official corruption, and toxic industrial dumping, many in the
countryside are highly agitated. Chinese police records indicate a sevenfold increase in the
number of incidents of social unrest in the last decade.

China is far behind India in the ability to politically manage

conflicts, and this may prove to be China's Achilles' Heel.
Over the last fifty years, India's extremely heterogeneous
society has been riddled with various kinds of conflicts, but
the system has by and large managed these conflicts and
kept them within moderate bounds. For many centuries,
the homogenizing tradition of Chinese high culture,
language, and bureaucracy has not given much scope to pluralism and diversity, and a
centralizing, authoritarian Communist Party has carried on with this tradition. There is a
certain pre-occupation with order and stability in China (not just in the Party), a tendency to
over-react to difficult situations, and a quickness to brand dissenting movements and local
autonomy efforts as seditious, and it is in this context that one sees dark clouds on the horizon
for China's polity and therefore the economy.

We should not lose our sense of proportion in thinking about the rise of China and India.
While adjusting its economies to the new reality and utilizing the new opportunities, the West
should not overlook the enormity of the economic gap that exists between it and those two
countries (particularly India). There are many severe pitfalls and roadblocks which they have
to overcome in the near future, before they can become significant players in the international
economic scene on a sustained basis.

Pranab Bardhan is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-
chair of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on the Effects of Inequality on Economic
Performance. He is Chief Editor of the Journal of Development Economics.

One of the most popular dinner party conversation topics is the

possibility that the United States will be joined or even surpassed as a
superpower by another nation, such as China. China has some very
smart people, a vast land area, and over four times the population of
the US, so it should catch up easily, right? Let's assess the what makes
a superpower, and what it would take for China to match the US on
each pillar of superpowerdom.

A genuine superpower does not merely have military and political

influence, but also must be at the top of the economic, scientific, and
cultural pyramids. Thus, the Soviet Union was only a partial
superpower, and the most recent genuine superpower before the United
States was the British Empire.

To match the US by 2030, China would have to :

1) Have an economy near the size of the US economy. If the US

grows by 3.5% a year for the next 25 years, it will be $30 trillion in
2006 dollars by then. Note that this is a modest assumption for the US,
given the accelerating nature of economic growth, but also note that
world GDP only grows about 4% a year, and this might at most be 5%
a year by 2030. China, with an economy of $2.2 trillion in nominal
(not PPP) terms, would have to grow at 12% a year for the next 25
years straight to achieve the same size, which is already faster than its
current 9-10% rate, if even that can be sustained for so long (no
country, let alone a large one, has grown at more than 8% over such a
long period). In other words, the progress that the US economy would
make from 1945 to 2030 (85 years) would have to be achieved by
China in just the 25 years from 2005 to 2030. Even then, this is just
the total GDP, not per capita GDP, which would still be merely a
fourth of America's.

2) Create original consumer brands that are household names

everywhere in the world (including in America), such as Coca-Cola,
Nike, McDonalds, Citigroup, Xerox, Microsoft, or Google. Europe
and Japan have created a few brands in a few select industries, but
China currently has none. Observing how many American brand logos
have populated billboards and sporting events in developing nations
over just the last 15 years, one might argue that US dominance has
even increased by this measure.

3) Have a military capable of waging wars anywhere in the globe

(even if it does not actually wage any). Part of the opposition that anti-
Americans have to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is the envy
arising from the US being the only country with the means to invade
multiple medium-size countries in other continents and still sustain
very few casualties. No other country currently is even near having the
ability to project military power with such force and range. Mere
nuclear weapons are no substitute for this. The inability of the rest of
the world to do anything to halt genocide in Darfur is evidence of how
such problems can only get addressed if and when America addresses
them.

4) Have major universities that are household names, that many of the
worlds top students aspire to attend. 17 of the world's top 20
universities are in the US. Until top students in Europe, India, and
even the US are filling out an application for a Chinese university
alongside those of Harvard, Stanford, MIT, or Cambridge, China is not
going to match the US in the knowledge economy. This also
represents the obstacles China has to overcome to successfully conduct
impactful scientific research.

5) Attract the best and brightest to immigrate into China, where they
can expect to live a good life in Chinese society. The US effectively
receives a subsidy of $100 to $200 billion a year, as people educated at
the expense of another nation immigrate here and promptly participate
in the workforce. As smart as people within China are, unless they can
attract non-Chinese talent that is otherwise going to the US, and even
talented Americans, they will not have the same intellectual and
psychological cross-pollination, and hence miss out on those economic
benefits. The small matter of people not wanting to move into a
country that is not a democracy also has to be resolved.

6) Become the nation that produces the new inventions and

corporations that are adopted by the mass market into their daily lives.
From the telephone and airplane over a century ago, America has been
the engine of almost all technological progress. Despite the fears of
innovation going overseas, the big new technologies and influential
applications continue to emerge from companies headquartered in the
United States. Just in the last two years, Google emerged as the next
super-lucrative company (before eBay and Yahoo slightly earlier), and
the American-dominated 'blogosphere' emerged as a powerful force of
information and media.

7) Be the leader in entertainment and culture. China's film industry

greatly lags India's, let alone America's. We hear about piracy of
American music and films in China, which tells us exactly what the
world order is. When American teenagers are actively pirating music
and movies made in China, only then will the US have been surpassed
in this area. Take a moment to think how distant this scenario is from
current reality.

8) Be the nation that engineers many of the greatest moments of

human accomplishment. The USSR was ahead of the US in the space
race at first, until President Kennedy decided in 1961 to put a man on
the moon by 1969. While this mission initially seemed to be
unnecessary and expensive, the optimism and pride brought to anti-
Communist people worldwide was so inspirational that it accelerated
many other forms of technological progress and brought economic
growth to free-market countries. This eventually led to a global
exodus from socialism altogether, as the pessimism necessary for
socialism to exist became harder to enforce. People from many nations
still feel pride from humanity having set foot on the Moon, something
which America made possible.

China currently has plans to put a man on the moon by 2024. While
being only the second country to achieve this would certainly be
prestigious, it would still be 55 years after the United States achieved
the same thing. That is not quite the trajectory it would take to
approach the superpowerdom of the US by 2030. If China puts a man
on Mars before the US, I may change my opinion on this point, but the
odds of that happening are not high.

9) Be the nation expected to thanklessly use its own resources to solve

many of the world's problems. If the US donates $15 billion in aid to
Africa, the first reaction from critics is that the US did not donate
enough. On the other hand, few even consider asking China to donate
aid to Africa. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the fashionable
question was why the US did not donate even more and sooner, rather
than why China did not donate more, despite being geographically
much closer. Ask yourself this - if an asteroid were on a collision
course with the Earth, which country's technology would the world
depend on to detect it, and then destroy or divert it? Until China is
relied upon to an equal degree, it is not in the same league.

10) Adapt to the underappreciated burden of superpowerdom - the

huge double standards that a benign superpower must withstand in that
role. America is still condemned for slavery that ended 140 years ago,
even by nations that have done far worse things more recently than
that. Is China prepared to apologize for Tianenmen Square, the
genocide in Tibet, the 30 million who perished during the Great Leap
Forward, and the suppression of news about SARS,every day for the
next century? Is China remotely prepared for being blamed for
inaction towards genocide in Darfur while simultaneously being
condemned for non-deadly prison abuse in a time of war against
opponents who follow no rules of engagement? The amount of
unfairness China would have to withstand to truly achieve political
parity with America might be prohibitive given China's history over
the last 60 years. Furthermore, China being held to the superpower
standard would simultaneously reduce the burden that the US currently
bears alone, allowing the US to operate with less opposition than it
experiences today.

Of the ten points above, Europe and Japan have tried for decades, and
have only achieved parity with the US on maybe two of these
dimensions at most. China will surpass Europe and Japan by 2030 by
achieving perhaps two or possibly even three out of these ten points,
but attaining all ten is something I am willing to confidently bet
against. The dream of anti-Americans who relish the prospect of any
nation, even a non-democratic one, surpassing the US is still a very
distant one.
A point that many bring up is that empires have always risen and fallen
throughout history. This is partly true, but note that the Roman Empire
lasted for over 1000 years after its peak. Also note that the British
Empire never actually collapsed since Britain is still one of the the top
seven countries in the world today, and the English language is the
most widely spoken in the world. Britain was merely surpassed by its
descendant, with whom it shares a symbiotic relationship. The US can
expect the same if it is finally surpassed, at some point much later than
2030 and probably not before the Technological Singularity, which
would make the debate moot.

That writing this article is even worthwhile is a tribute to how far

China has come and how much it might achieve, but nonetheless, there
is no other country that will be a superpower on par with the US by
2030. This is one of the safest predictions The Futurist can make.

Introduction
It is well known that the United States of America is the worlds, at the time, supreme
superpower. This is a unique situation; no other nation has ever had the same amount of power
in such a concentrated way as the US has. Despite other potentially superpowers in an ever
changing world such as China and maybe eventually, the European Union, today, and probably
for many years to come, the US remains the most powerful nation in the world. Financially,
politically and not least, military, the US are the leading nation. The country is incredibly
inflencal in the entire world, causing it to have many allies, but also many enemies.

Because the US politics on international and internal matters are of such an importance to the
entire world, and because it reflects upon the evolution of the US as a nation, its relationship to
other countries and the many conflicts the US is and has been involved in, the USA is
undoubtedly one of the most interesting countries analyse. Also, because the actions of the USA
in the next few years will decide much of the future, many find the USA interesting in this
context. Describing the rise of the USA as a superpower, and, considering recent events, how
they have behaved after the recent terrorist attacks is also relevant in the world today.

The rise of the USA as an international superpower

After the World War I, the prosperity grew in the American society. An economic optimism was
growing, and many believed that the US would never face financial problems again. In the early
1930’s, however, the US was hit by a severe economic depression after the Wall Street hit the
bottom the 24th of October 1929. This was triggered by a general concern for the American
economy, because of the current low dollar and the much larger amount of export than import.
People began to sell their stockholdings, and as a wave of panic spread as the Wall Street index
slowly decreased, more and more sold stocks. This led to the Wall Street collapse, that would
eventually lead to a period of economical depression.

The American government was forced to intervene, as it was clear that the financial matters
would not get better by themselves. In 1938, president D. Roosevelt started the New Deal
program, a program in which the government financially boosted the civilian economy by
regulating and pushing capital into the economy, hoping to stabilise it and to create more jobs.
To avoid the poverty spreading further, a minimum standard of living was established, and the
rather primitive social security system was largely enhanced. This undoubtedly led to some
improvements in the American economy, but it did not put a complete end to the economic
crisis known at the Great Depression. By the end of the 1930s, almost 20% of the American
working force was still unemployed.

An unexpected end was to come to the crisis soon, however. As the war broke out all over
Europe, the US maintained their passive role for the first time of the war. However, they were
forced into action after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. This attack, in which the
American pacific fleet suffered severe losses (though not fatal), triggered the USA to engage in
the war not only in the pacific against Japan, but also on the European continent, against
Germany as well. Cooperating with the UK, Russia and other allies, the Americans managed to
free the invaded parts of Europe and push the Nazis back to Germany. In the aftermath of the
war, the USA also managed to put an end to certain communist regimes in eastern Asia.
Interestingly, in the time leading from World War I to World War II the USA had been relatively
isolated in a military perspective, and was thus not considered a very influencal country
compared with for example France or Britain. At the end of the Second World War, however, the
US rose as a major power as many other, such as Germany and the United Kingdom lost much
influence and power. In the years after the Second World War, the only power able to match the
US was the Soviet Union, which is now long since dissolved.

Thus, the results of the war were the US taking a leading role in international politics, a role
that it still holds. Not only did the Americans make the Axis fall, they also prospered greatly
internally because of the war.

The many war facilities required to maintain the American army during World War II had
provided more than enough jobs for the American people. After the war, many of these facilities
effectively adapted themselves into making more peaceful products, such as cars and civilian
airplanes. This newly created industry did not only maintain the jobs for the ones working under
the war; it also provided jobs for the many unemployed who volunteered for the army during
the war. As a result, only 670 000 Americans were unemployed in 1945. This great economic
leap for the Americans also allowed them to give economical help to the many countries ruined
by war through the Marshall Plan. This plan mainly was about giving Europe dollars to spend on
American products, something that would boost the civil economy of the USA even more.
Almost as much as 12 billion dollars was freely distributed around Europe as a result, and most
of these dollars were spent on American products or spent on buying American services for
rebuilding Europe. At this time, the US was completely out of the Great Depression, and they
had also started to make important influencal bonds with Europe, helping many countries in
their time of need.

This would later lead to many important European allies. At this time, the US started to realise
their full potential, understanding that the USA had, by "saving" Europe during World War II,
started their period of superpower.

Just having stabilised itself and Europe, the USA did not have to wait long to be involved in
another conflict. As the US gained more and more influence in Europe and Asia, they quickly
came in conflict with the communistic Soviet Union. Basically, the reason for the conflict was the
different ideologies of the nations, with the USA being capitalistic and the Soviet Union being
communistic. From 1945 and to the 1990s, both of these countries tried to spread their
ideologies throughout the world. In this process, both nations used not only politics, but also
military power. Luckily, the nations never went to war with each other directly. They fought
their wars in other countries, fighting for them to be either capitalistic or communistic.
Examples of such wars are the war in Afghanistan, the war in North-Korea and the well known
Vietnam War. This dangerous time of indirect warring and espionage is known as the Cold War,
a war in which the use of nuclear weapons was an imminent threat. Because of incredibly
inefficient economical systems, because of ignoring the civilian economy while pushing too much
money on the military and because of corrupt leaders, the Soviet Union fell in the early 90s.
This left the US as the single most powerful nation in the world, with no one to compete. This
gave the US even more influence around the world, and caused further economical growth,
despite the military being somewhat lessened.

Despite behaving fairly well, stopping many conflicts and contributing to the international
society in many ways, the US can really do whatever they want in the world today with few
exceptions. They can for instance refuse to sign international resolutions such as the Kyoto-
agreement without having to face any consequences but a few demonstrations.
No country has been able to pose a potential military threat to the US in the recent years, and
this is in many ways reflected in the ways the US behave towards the rest of the world.
However, many extremist groups who greatly oppose the politics of Western Europe and the US,
commonly known simply as the West, now pose a threat in the new way of waging war:
terrorism.

The war on terror

Being the worlds most powerful nation, even the USA finds that it cannot be protected from all
kinds of wars. This was shown on 9/11 2001, when a terrorist group known as Al Quaida
crashed planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. This led to the US declaring war on
terrorism. This war has been waged relatively independently of the other nations, as many
European countries have critical views on US international politics. The fact that the US is not
entirely in co-operation with the UN and the rest of Europe, was clearly shown when the US
decided to attack Iraq without the UN agreeing. Attempting to force democracy into other
countries in order to rid the world of terrorism might not be a strategy agreed upon by many.

The current US president, George W. Bush jr., has made many decisions that are generally
disliked in the international community. In the aftermath of the second Gulf War, many now
asks for the true reasons for invading Iraq. The original motive was to instate democracy and to
rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, but as no weapons were found, and as the
Americans were met by great both military and civilian resistance in the country, many now
question whether it was right to go to war to Iraq. Some even believe that the US invaded the
country in order to get access to the oil recourses there.

Regardless, the war on terror goes on, but with a seeming lack of success, and incriminating the
US in accusing them of waging war on nations like Iraq and Afghanistan for no reasons but to
get their oil, the US is not considered the shiny knight it once was. Involving itself in many
conflicts and wars in the Middle East the last twenty years, some to oppose the soviets, some to
instate democracy, some to stop terrorists and some, seemingly, only to get oil, the US is not
very popular in that part of the world today, either. Despite invading Iraq and ridding it of its
dictator, Saddam Hussein, many Islamite extremists as well as civilians feel that the US
involvements in the Middle East has only lead to worsening the conflicts, and believe that the
US want to impose their much contrasting culture to the Middle East as well. This hostile
attitude in many places of the world has lead up to the current situation, in which the US with
the rest of Europe is trying to stop the terrorism that has mainly aspired from the Middle East.

A centre of this conflict today, is the recently invaded Iraq. Here, American soldiers are being
attacked every day as a response to their invasion of the country. Here, the US focuses its
military power to crush the extremist groups opposing them, while they are waging an
international war of intelligence against terrorism in general.

Consequences of the US as the one supreme power in the world

Today, as said, the United States is the world’s only superpower. But how do they use their
enormous influence, especially in the war on terrorism and what are the consequences?

“A superpower is a state with the ability to influence events or project power on a wide scale. In
modern terms, this may imply an entity with a strong economy, a large population, and strong
armed forces, including air power and satellite capabilities, and a huge arsenal of weapons of
mass destruction.” (Definition from the online lexicon Wikipedia (wikipedia.org)). Today the US
has all of these characteristics.

The USA today is involved in a series of conflicts all over the world, and which many feel that
they have no business. An example of such a conflict is the conflict in Israel and Palestine, a
long ongoing religious war between Jews and Muslims. The US has for many years supported
Israel military, and Israel is now a leading military nation in that part of the world. A reason for
the US boosting Israel in such a way would probably be to gain popularity also in the Middle
East and to avoid Israel being invaded by one of the near Muslim countries. Israel has, however,
used much of its military power to limit the state of Palestine, taking much of what is considered
Palestine land. In this conflict, many Europeans feel sympathy for the Palestinians, being
suppressed by Israel. The many Palestinian terrorist groups do, however, limit this sympathy.
Regardless, with the US supporting Israel and many Europeans supporting the Palestinians, the
European negative attitude towards the US has increased. If anything, the Iraqi war also
contributed much to creating negative attitudes towards the US and its president, Bush, also
among European allies.
Into the future
After spending enormous resources on the Iraqi war, many now realise that not even the US
can wage an unlimited amount of wars without suffering severe economic and military losses.
Many believe that the Iraqi war shows that the US will not have its place of power uncontested
in the future. The fact that a large part of the US industry depends on Middle-east oil, is in itself
a weak link in the American economy. In addition, the fact that the US is dependent on many
raw-resources from Asia and Europe, it is now clear only good economics is not everything.

With the European Union discussing whether or not to establish an army and with China’s
incredible economic growth, the foundation for other superpowers to rise are now evident.
Whether or not several superpowers are better than one remains to be seen.