> You mean that all militaries are now created equal, many countries hold
> their reserves in Indonesian rupiahs, and the pop culture products of
> Jakarta are now watched around the world?
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No. Although I would note that the fighters in Afghanistan are holding off the US military better than the Germans did in WWII.
Bollywood does not need the US market to thrive.
Many Indonesians enjoy air conditioning, blu ray players and have access to health clinics and schools that teach young people to fix cars and water treatment plants as well as build beautiful skyscapers. So maybe they don't have access to top flight neurosurgeons the way Bill Gates does when he needs one, but neither do you or DRR.
In China people are snorting cocaine and tinkering with ketamine. South Korea recognizes cybermoney in a way the US does not.
The political-cum-computational ecologies of wealth, poverty, technology, knowledge etc. are going to get weirder; why cling to old narratives? Especially given the thread on the decline of leftist story telling that helps workers-citizens in the US make sense of the world?