-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Doug Henwood Enviada em: terça-feira, 3 de dezembro de 2002 16:17 Para: lbo-talk Assunto: end of American empire?
The decline and fall of the American empire
An expert on geopolitics says forget Islamic terrorism -- the real future threat to America's supremacy will come from Europe.
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By Suzy Hansen
Dec. 2, 2002 | The title of Charles A. Kupchan's new book, "The End of the American Era," sounds grim, but after a year of terrorist violence, "spectacular" attack warnings and ominous analyses of fundamentalist Islam, his argument is almost refreshing. According to Kupchan, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, it isn't radical Islam that we should be most concerned about. It's our friends across the Atlantic, the European Union, that pose the greatest threat to American primacy.
In "The End of the American Era," Kupchan compares the current world situation to past turning points in history -- the end of World War I, the federation of the American colonies, the Great Depression -- to suggest ways in which the world might transform itself. In some of his most illuminating passages, Kupchan disputes the predictions of such optimistic leading thinkers as Francis Fukuyama and Thomas Friedman, who perceive democracy and globalization as great panaceas, and pessimists such as Samuel Huntington who foresees a "clash of civilizations." Instead, Kupchan's global map resembles that of the 19th century, when the reigning empire, Great Britain, gave the rising United States entree as a world power. This time, Kupchan says, it's America's turn to make room for Europe.
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http://www.salon.com/books/int/2002/12/02/kupchan/index.html
-Europe is at significant disadvantage in demography, geographic position, -natural resources, military power, and furthermore, is plagued with -internal divisions. Unless it incorporates Russian, they have no chance -to challenge US hegemony, but, of course, Islam is even a weaker foe..
Alexandre Fenelon.