I found a few good articles over at Antiwar.com on the shifting of different alliances and relationships among the major world powers. No one really seems to know for sure which way the world is headed, but it seems clear that the role of the United States as the ‘sole remaining superpower’ (something you hear in American media) is increasingly being challenged more and more openly by the advocates of multilateralism. In response, the US foreign policy establishment has acted with a flurry of diplomatic and institutional activity, in addition to the usual implicit warnings against opposing the US.
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Describing EU integration as “irreversible” in the paper released Monday, Beijing marveled at Europe’s 25 percent to 35 percent share of the global economy and its projected 450 million population once it expands into the former communist bloc next year.
The “white paper” follows a flurry of Sino-European ventures, including the Galileo global satellite system, described as a direct challenge to the American Global Positioning System monopoly in space.
The two sides are also working together on nuclear research.
France and Germany have been pushing hardest for closer ties with China, hoping to cash in on a lucrative market but also to develop a strategic alliance as a counterweight to American power after the diplomatic trauma of the Iraq war.
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Jones has launched a counter-offensive to European plans for their own defence structures. Last week he inaugurated the “Nato Response Force” . The NRF, which will eventually be 21,000 strong, contains elite units from many Nato countries, ready to be deployed to troublespots anywhere in the world at just five days’ notice. The force has its own dedicated battleships, warplanes, troops, logistics and intelligence. Jones refers to it as “global”, ready to take on the challenges of the 21st century – primarily terrorist threats.
The NRF’s readiness to act in just five days, however, will depend on Nato politicians also being able to take decisions quickly – and given the furious rows over Iraq, which did not even involve Nato as an organisation, that could pose problems. But here Jones has an even more interesting plan. At present, Nato takes all decisions unanimously. “In future,” Jones told me, “ nations will probably have to consider whether the will of the majority can continually be stymied by the opposition of one or two nations.”