Well, the EU and East Asia are the co-hegemons of the 21st century. Yes, nation-states are important, sure -- but China and France are, shall we say, the neo-national templates through which the new metropoles are beginning to assert their political primacy over the Bananamericans. The EU's new peace plan, detailed below, was apparently discussed between China, Russia, France and Germany at the highest level for weeks, without even notifying Rumsfeld:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,234387,00.html
-- DRR
-EU and China still armed forces still are to weak to seriously -contest US hegemony. US itseld id responsible for almost 40% -of world overall military spending, so, those diplomatic moves -won´t do anything to prevent US agression against Iraq. To -make things even worse, Europe is deeply divided on this matter -(althought the European people is against military agression) -and European elites seem unable to to have a common policy -(with UK working as an effective US 5th column in the EU)
Alexandre