The Rest on the Rise

Are we witnessing the Rise of the Rest? Are we witnessing a reconfiguration of historical forces (political, social, cultural, and economic forces)?

"Look around. The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world's ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories."

To this list I would add the USA's (decreased) international standing. In the American countries (for instance, south of Mexico), the influence of the USA has been historically very strong. Today, it is not longer the case. Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chile, Ecuador and Argentina had been moving slowly outside the influence of the USA, in particular, during the last eight years. The only exception to this pattern is Colombia, which is closely linked to the USA via drugs (and so Colombia and the USA share a common problem).

Then the USA is beginning to shed its superpower cloak not only in symbolic terms (the tallest building and the largest mall) but in concrete terms (the waning of its influence in Asia and Latin America). It is still a military superpower: but there are limits to the use of this power (a lesson learned? in Iraq). It does not mean that the US is not a power anymore. On the contrary, it is still a power but a power among other (emerging) powers: in a sense, we are going back to normal (balance of powers as oppose to a superpower): the Rest on the Rise.