A shifting of global power - the changing of the guard

But in assessing all progress and all gains, we must also tally the costs.

If the United States, now apparently so far down the road towards self-destruction, really does collapse economically, financially, politically and strategically, then we will be confronted with a global situation of terrifying instability and enormous risk. This would be not just another shift in the balance of global power at a pace which has been historically the norm, but a shift of such magnitude and abruptness that the end result cannot be even guessed at, let alone foreseen with any precision.

We can see the underlying plates of global power already shifting, rather like the early tremors of a major earthquake. The tremors might still be contained but much, if not most, would seem for the moment to depend on those to whom power is shifting. If their concept of desirable change is peaceful, then a world which has armed itself to the teeth with the most formidable weapons of all time, might yet survive.

However, that would seem to be our only chance. Perhaps they will conceive, design and create an environment for peaceful change of the kind that was our goal at the end of World War II. But it will still be vital that the United States and those who have modelled themselves on the United States in their economic and financial policies in the last three or four decades, should see the wisdom of this change in direction and join actively in creating that peaceful environment.

At the moment, the prospects for such a re-direction of United States policy seem meagre, whether under the present administration or its potential successor from early 2009. The prospects for such a re-direction seem almost equally meagre in the "Anglo-Saxon" countries which have modelled themselves on the United States. The Europeans might be rather more positively promising; but that promise is so far a mumble when it needs to be a roar.

As the Chinese are reputed to say, "We live in interesting times". Right now, they themselves are moving into a position in which it will be the Chinese people and its governance which will have perhaps a major or even dominating influence on how the key word "interesting" comes to be defined. Others in South and East Asia and, for example, in Latin America and central Asia, as well as Russia, are likely to help determine the accent in which "interesting" is heard and its intent propagated.

Indeed, the signs are there that such a process has already begun.