Testing the currents of multipolarity (loss of US geostrategic influence)

[Nancy Waterman]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FL17Aa01.html

This story about 6 meetings this week, taken with Canada's recent refusal to participate in the missile shield, shows a definite trend.

The tendency toward a multipolar configuration of world politics, in which a number of regional power centers compete for hegemony over their spheres of influence within a framework of international agreements and institutions, is a long-term process involving incremental gains and losses for the major players.

The transition to multipolarity - if it prevails - has been set off by the severe problems confronted by the United States in its occupation of Iraq and by the decline of the dollar in international currency markets. The former has revealed the limitations and vulnerabilities of US military power and the latter has brought forward underlying weaknesses in the US economic system that are symbolized by persistent trade and budget deficits and are rooted in changes in the world balance of economic power.

At present, the US has lost the position that it was perceived to have after the fall of the Soviet Union as the undisputed global superpower presiding over an economic order integrating a world of market democracies. Contemporary global politics are structured primarily by a struggle of regional powers to assert themselves against efforts by Washington to reclaim at least some of its dominance.

snip

During the week of December 5, the drift toward multipolarity was confirmed at six international meetings - with one special exception - at which Washington's power was challenged to the detriment of its perceived interests.