http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/opinion/...tml?ref=opinion

There has been much debate in this campaign about which of our enemies the next U.S. president should deign to talk to. The real story, the next president may discover, though, is how few countries are waiting around for us to call. It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power are happening at once — with so few in America’s favor.

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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman

Go to Columnist Page » Let’s start with the most profound one: More and more, I am convinced that the big foreign policy failure that will be pinned on this administration is not the failure to make Iraq work, as devastating as that has been. It will be one with much broader balance-of-power implications — the failure after 9/11 to put in place an effective energy policy.

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world — the U.S. economy — to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states — from Russia to Venezuela to Iran — that are reshaping global politics in their own image.

If this huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians continues, power will follow. According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft, with oil at $200 a barrel, OPEC could “potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days.”

But that’s not all. Two compelling new books have just been published that describe two other big power shifts: “The Post-American World,” by Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, and “Superclass” by David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment.

Mr. Zakaria’s central thesis is that while the U.S. still has many unique assets, “the rise of the rest” — the Chinas, the Indias, the Brazils and even smaller nonstate actors — is creating a world where many other countries are slowly moving up to America’s level of economic clout and self-assertion, in every realm. “Today, India has 18 all-news channels of its own,” notes Zakaria. “And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media. The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative, where it is at the center.”

For too long, argues Zakaria, America has taken its many natural assets — its research universities, free markets and diversity of human talent — and assumed that they will always compensate for our low savings rate or absence of a health care system or any strategic plan to improve our competitiveness.

“That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing,” argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are running fast, working hard, saving well and thinking long term. “They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game,” he said. If we don’t fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness, he added, “the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise.”

Mr. Rothkopf’s book argues that on many of the most critical issues of our time, the influence of all nation-states is waning, the system for addressing global issues among nation-states is more ineffective than ever, and therefore a power void is being created. This void is often being filled by a small group of players — “the superclass” — a new global elite, who are much better suited to operating on the global stage and influencing global outcomes than the vast majority of national political leaders.

Some of this new elite “are from business and finance,” says Rothkopf. “Some are members of a kind of shadow elite — criminals and terrorists. Some are masters of new or traditional media; some are religious leaders, and a few are top officials of those governments that do have the ability to project their influence globally.”

The next president will have to manage these new rising states and these new rising individuals and networks, while wearing the straightjacket left in the Oval Office by Mr. Bush.

“Call it the triple deficit,” said Mr. Rothkopf. “A fiscal deficit that will soon have us choosing between rationed health care, sufficient education, adequate infrastructure and traditional levels of defense spending, a trade deficit that has us borrowing from our rivals to the point of real vulnerability, and a geopolitical deficit that is a legacy of Iraq, which may result in hesitancy to take strong stands where we must.”

The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.

It certainly can, but for how long...

It is time to put its foot down; demand high offsets from the oil it buys from Saudi Arabia.

I do hate it when all these people come out of the wood work and start making these big claim and start comparing the third world economies to America.

Yes the Oil prices are creating problem for american and Weak dollar and credit crunch is not helping the american economy either.

But these idiots forget that Americans fought the great depression, they been through many ups and downs. they always find solutions and they have very positive mind set of "yes we can". They have many technologies in closet waiting to come out at right time. these rising fuel costs are pushing the American auto makers and consumers to look else where for the solutions and stop depending on the Oil. Dont be surprise if someday you see GM to rolling out Fuel cell cars etc.

Even Europe is worried about weak dollar and they want to see a strong dollar because it is very essential for the Global economy. Few calls centers and Software companies and indian cant stop wet dreaming of becoming first world country while their 10000 farmers have committed suicide last year.

Trust me it is in the common Good of the world that Dollar Stays strong and Oil prices stable. Oil needs a big correction, in economics world whatever goes up much comes down. So will the oil prices, Dollar is going through a correction just like American economy due to credit crunch and housing collapse.

My advise stop looking into american demise, and start working hard at home to control inflation and make the life of common man better.

OPEC is shooting itself by having oil price so high in such a short period of time. More investments would be going into R&D for alternate source of energy in the long run.

No one is discussing the criminal role of the so called commodity investors who through thier profiteering are causing the sharp rise in world oil and food prices.

bilal,

Ofcourse the speculators are involved. The whole world talks about them. But I dont see them as the primary cause. They are similar to parasites living off the suppliers.

I think its a good omen and hope we come out with alternate source of energy and stop our reliance on oil. The stone age didnt end with the exhausting of stones, nor would the oil age end with oil wells dried up. It'll end much earlier.

Moth,
IMHO due to recent fall in dollar, slump in real state market and stocks not doing well, these profiteers have invested huge somes of money into the commodity market, which have made a bad situation worse. I wouldn't say there are no shortages at all, but, these people playing a very bad role in driving the prices even beyond. I am of the opinion that we need an international regulatory authority to curb excessive speculation and profiteering on essential items like staple food and fossile fuel.

Isn't Fareed Zakaria from India?

Pakistan needs to start cutting some good energy deals or lose the growth its achieved in the past 8 years. $200 per barrel is nuts. However I think global ingenuity will kick in. Someone will will create the hydrogen power plant. The fusion problem will be solved. Its just a matter of time inshallah.

Fareed Zakaria was born and raised in India, but its seems he hasn't gone back since he's moved. The guy seems to conveniently leave out the fact that 700 million people in india wake up each morning and take a 5 minute trek to the nearest rail-lines to take a dump. The idea he's even comparing the recent growth in the Indian economy to the economic giant that is the US is laughable. Dont forget, the US is at least 3 times larger in land mass and 1/3 in population. That alone wins the game. Its typical indian wet dreaming.

I think we have to cut on our cunstumption of oil, keep it only for transport purposes, where as the energy needs should be filled by making Nuclear power plants regardless of who says what and who opposes the decision, Nuclear power plants is the way to go for a country our size and the power we need we should start creating nuclear power plants on a huge scale unfortuntaley we should have 25 to 30 power plants to generate eletricity for our countries by now.

Whether it is Fareed Zakaria or some one else from the developed world, it is absurd to mention India in their hit list; if there is a food crisis they blame on China & India; if there is any increase in oil price they blame on China & India; they should understand and stop blaming India. We can understand about China & its growth; why do they mention India? Really absurd and they must stop doing it. This guy should come and see the reality in India and stop mentioning its name when ever he writes about world issues. Why can't he just compare China vs. US? Why drag India into this?

Thanks & Regards,



Keralite

the crude oil is priced in US$. the US$ is supposed to be a stable currency.

but due to the US economic policies , to avoid economic recession , the interest rates have been decreased thus decreasing the value of the US$.

when the value of the US$ decrease , the crude oil price will increase.

and the circle just goes round and round. the USA is the main responsible state for the rise of oil prices.

Just a question, but why exactly did the KSA decide to not increase oil production for this fiscal year (or at least thats what I've heard)?? They haven't reached their peak oil production have they??

KSA will increase its porduction by 300,000 barrels/day starting shortly in the next month.

in the oil market , as long as the supply meets the demand , KSA can't be blamed for anything.

KSA will never increase production unless if it is to meet the demand only. making supply more than demand will be against all laws of economics and will harm KSA's economy and all OPEC's.

The cost of petrol in venuzuela is $0.03 per litre. I almost fell off my chair when I heard that. Pakistan should form good links and import cheap oil from them , perhaps arms for oil?

I drive 300Km daily ... 3.8 L (3800 cc) 99' Ford Windstar.


I already bleed enough on gas ...... $200/barel can't do much worse to me ....

I ! AM ! READYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Bro bro bro, you got it allll wrong.

Distance makes no difference, do as me and use a bicycle. Mine is currently at the workshop so I am using the big car (aka. Zhe bus).

I spend 0 = NADA = ZEROOOO on fuel when using the bicycle :-P

So I say too, Bring it on, I AM READYYYYYYYY!

For someone like me who does multi drops and drive van all day long the diesel prices are killing me


SPEEDY
enjoy

$200 a barrel will snap Pakistan as well as most other countries in the world.

lol .. infact you both got it wrong !!! .... Unless you're a robot who doesn't need to eat and has night vision eyes that can see through the dark then sure knock urself out ... ;)

But for a human like me and many on this forum here, we need to eat and we need electricity oil at 200 $ will have an impact on all these things ... and for a student like me who is already paying 50 P extra every day for all day bus ticket it ain't good ...

What do you about situations where you have 200~300 KG to move about?

Usually, thats the situation in my case ...

in the short term pakistan needs coal fitred plants made fast by china

in the longer term pakistan need to commit to indigenous nuclear power plants, which it can export and there by recoup its losses (many countries i think 30 have gone to the UN to express a desire to start a civilian nuclear power program) we can be a part of earning a share of that market and paying for our investment that way

also we should invest in soar power panel production, and become experts in that so we can sell those as well and keep money within the country

the key to our survival through high commodity prices is bring in more money then we send out, the chinese are doing it, and we need to see what works for them and applying as much as possible to us

I dont buy the argument of dollar is weak therefore oil is expensive.

Dollar has become weaker by only 10% or so, while oil price has increased a 100% since the past year. Someone can do the math here. As bilal said, this system of having commodity futures is quite flawed. Essential items should not be open to such speculation.

There are some questions we need to be asking. Why havent the Arabs decided to switch over to Euro or other stable currencies. I've read somewhere that the Saudis are bound to channelize their petro dollars into US Treasury Department, as a result of the deal which was made a few decades ago, right after the oil crisis in the late 70s. I dont know how true is that. That maybe the reason why they arent switching over.

The US has also been stuffing its Strategic Reserves (which are 97% full at the moment). Plus the instability in the Middle East (majority of which is caused again by the US). Not one factor by itself is causing the increase in prices, several factors all together culminate into the significant rise.

Bro!

No excuses: http://www.christianiabikes.com/images/web...VID%20CYKEL.jpg

Well I read one of international credible report this weekend saying that about 60 pc of price on 130 dollars a barrel is inflated, that means 60-65$/barrel is the actual price that should be, rest all is exaggeration. I guess that is why OPEC is also cautious on expanding the output.

I think Saudi Arabia should be looking into selling Oil in a different currency, like the Euro. As it is, the Euro is bumping up the Pound Sterling in more ways than one. The Brits are already sweating like p!g$ as summer time comes and they wanted to go spend their vacation somewhere in Europe, they aren't now, cuz their currency is getting weaker against the Eyropean countries. Saudi Arabia should do this, they would benefit alot from it and would also ensure the cut-off on American dependency.