Atlantic Review

In April 2006, the Atlantic Review posted Poll: 45% of Germans consider U.S. more dangerous than Iran.
Perceptions have changed. Spiegel International reports:

China has now overtaken the United States as the greatest perceived threat to global stability in the eyes of Europeans, according to the opinion poll commissioned by the Financial Times. The poll, carried out by the Harris agency between March 27 and April 8 and published on Tuesday, found that 35 percent of respondents in the five largest EU states see China as a bigger threat to world stability than any other state.

Moreover, the United States is also doing better in popularity contests: Atlantic Community noted: "For the first time since 2005, the number of people abroad that view the US as a positive force has increased slightly, to 35 percent."

Related posts in the Atlantic Review:

• Europe is a Threat to the United States

• Transatlantic Foreign Policy Attitudes and Threat Perceptions

The short-lived age of US hegemony is over, with no hope of return.  Instead of comfortable primacy, the United States will struggle as one of three global superpowers.

This is the 21st century described by Parag Khanna in an essay published in New York Times Magazine, titled “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony” (HT: David Vickrey).  Khanna, a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, bases the essay on his new book, “The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order,” to be published by Random House in March (the book is already the second bestseller at Amazon).  Here is Khanna’s line of argument:

Continue reading "Parag Khanna: "Europe's Influence Grows at America's Expense""

When Gerhard Schroeder suggested lifting the EU's arms embargo on China, many Americans were furious. Never mind that there was never sufficient support for such a move in Germany and in the European Union. Anyway, it now seems that China will profit in some other ways from the United States. The Washington Times:

A Chinese company with ties to Beijing's military and past links to Saddam Hussein's army in Iraq and the Taliban will gain access to U.S. defense-network technology under a proposed merger, Pentagon officials say. (...) Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he is worried the deal will lead to the loss of sensitive technology to China.

Also, the government of Iraq makes an arms deal with China. Washington Post:

Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday. The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops.

This reminds me of Representative Murtha's statement from 2006: "The only people who want us in Iraq is Iran and al-Qaeda." Well, European policy analysts want Americans to stay in Iraq as well...