International Power Shifts Threaten the Western World
Western global supremacy is definitely on the wane as key Asian nations make significant economic progress while Middle Eastern conflicts trouble the West politically and militarily. We are in desperate need of a biblical compass so we can grasp the tragic implications of how these potentially massive political power shifts will impact the West's way of life.
by John Ross Schroeder
The leaders of China, Russia and India seek a new multipolar world that would significantly counter U.S. political and economic power.
According to a recent article in The Times, "India, China and Russia account for 40 per cent of the world's population, a fifth of its economy and more than half of its nuclear warheads. Now they appear to be forming a partnership to challenge the US-dominated world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War" (Jeremy Page, "Giants Meet to Counter US Power," Feb. 15, 2007, p. 47, emphasis added throughout).
Foreign ministers from these three countries held a crucial February meeting to discuss the possibilities of a new world order--a world no longer dominated by America and the West, a world they can reshape more to their liking.
The decline of the West and the diffusion of world power
Author Samuel Huntington articulates an alternate view to the reality of present Western domination in so many aspects of our world. "The second picture of the West is very different. It is of a civilization in decline, its share of world political, economic and military power going down relative to that of other civilizations. The West's victory in the Cold War has produced not triumph but exhaustion.
"The West is increasingly concerned with its internal problems and needs, as it confronts slow economic growth, stagnating populations, unemployment, huge government deficits, a declining work ethic, low savings rates, and in some countries including the United States, social disintegration, drugs and crime.
