First of all:

I am glad President Obama backed India for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. They deserve it. For all our differences, they are not merely a more natural ally than most nations but, in the long term, the best candidate for our successor as the leading power of what is called, with ever-greater inaccuracy, "the West." These are good things.

Second:

I see such good things where many others on this blog see bad, and grounds for optimism where they see doom. It is true that the US and Europe have been, on the whole, shamefully improvident in their public spending. It is true that the balance of global economic power is shifting and that, ultimately, political and military power, which flow from economic power will follow. It is true that China's rise in particular is profoundly problematic because it is accompanied by all the insecure, erratically aggressive nationalism that Europe largely outgrew after nearly destroying itself in two World Wars. But I agree with Kori Schake [http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/11/geopolitical-shift-old-europe.php#1778040] that the reports of our death are greatly exagerated. I do not look at the future and feel like the American rollercoaster is rushing downhill for the last time.

Third:

We are not doomed because the US is not synonymous with "the West" and "Asia" is not synonymous with China.

The US and Europe have been improvident, yes. Japan -- the third pillar of the misnamed "West" -- has not been so to my knowledge, but its own brand of mismanagement has kept it in worse economic shape than either of the other two for twenty years. Compounding the short-term political problems and the mid-term economic problems, however, is the profound long-term problem of an aging population, with ever fewer young workers paying taxes to support ever more retirees. Japan and Europe face a real crisis of aging, in large part because they are resistant to immigration and at best ambivalent about assimilation: Think of Koreans in Japan, Turks in Germany, all sorts of Muslims in France, and even Pakistanis in Great Britain. The United States faces a much more manageable aging problem because -- despite our own ambivalence, discrimination, and occasional, largely symbolic border fences -- immigration and assimilation are part of our national DNA. (If your last name isn't something like Sitting Bull, guess what, you're an immigrant). Young Hispanic workers will pay taxes to support aging white Baby Boomers. That's not the whole solution to our aging-benefits-deficits problem, but it's a lot more than the rest of "the West" has got.

On the flipside, China and India are growing, absolutely. But China has an aging problem of its own -- one that was self-inflicted by its totalitarian government overcorrecting for overpopulation with the infamous "One Child" rule. Let no one here shovel more of the reeking bullshit that non-democratic regimes make better decisions for the long term because they do not have to bow to the short-sighted whims of the people. Sometimes the people are not as stupid as unelected elites like to think, in whatever country. If it were not for local corruption undermining the One Child policy by allowing prosperous farmers to buy their way out of the restrictions and pay nominal fines for their illegal extra kids, China would have dug itself far deeper into a demographic hole as it has. As it is, government policy plus cultural prejudice combined have meant that the Chinese have aborted or exported (for adoption) more female children than males, which leaves them with a surplus of young men unable to find brides -- historically an ingredient in political unrest.

India does not have this problem. It has plenty of other problems, and compared to authoritarian China it looks terribly untidy (though corruption is bad enough in both places, for all that the Chinese occasionally hang one bent official pour encourager les autres). But at least India has a sizable rising generation to fuel continued growth. (I was particularly struck by the Economist's recent cover piece on this [http://www.economist.com/node/17147648]). And they have a democracy, which turns out to be not such a terrible thing. And they mostly speak English, more or less -- as the English said about Americans when we were their apprentice superpower a century ago.

No, I am not proposing any facile balance-of-power game where we exploit Chinese-Indian rivalries to "balance" the two and "contain" the former. Yes, China is uncomfortably similar, not to Hitler's Germany before World War II, but to Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany before World War I: a rapidly growing nation whose geopolitical status lagged its economic growth, a rising nationalism still smarting over a past of political fragmentation and foreign domination; an authoritarian government struggling to ride the tiger of partial democratization and a more politically active population by exploiting such nationalist sentiment against outside enemies. If the US and China screw up as badly as Britain and Germany did, the respective policy elites could back each other into a crisis where inflamed popular feeling will accept no way out but war.

But balance-of-power games ultimately don't prevent such conflicts and sometimes make them worse, as Europe's intertangled alliances showed in August 1914. We should not ally with India and applaud its progress because it can help us against the Chinese. We should ally with India and applaud its progress because the Indians are, in a profound sense, simpatico. India can be to us what we were to Great Britain: a young and vigoruous ally, inexperienced in the world, politically uncouth at home and abroad, but full of energy; and above all sharing enough in terms of democratic values, capitalist spirit, and culture -- including the much-butchered Queens' English -- that the old superpower could trust the new one to make a world it would be comfortable living in. The British Empire is gone, but the US-dominated world is one where Britain has an important place and in which British students, entrepreneurs, and pop stars can move freely. An Imperial German- or Soviet Russian-dominated world would not have been so. Similarly, however China evolves, I am not sure a world shaped by Beijing would be congenial for my children. As alien as India is, I think a world dominated by India is one where my kids could do well.

Yes, I am looking out to an inevitable (I hate that word) American decline. It happens. To everyone. While we are strong, India has the right values and the right strengths to be a good junior partner, as America was to Britain before, say, 1942. That phase may last for ten years or a hundred. I do not predict. But at some point, when our power, at least in relative terms, declines -- and I predict this will eventually happen to us only because it eventually happened to everyone else in history -- India is the best candidate I see to take up the torch and light the world.

As the US has mired itself in wars in small countries that will have minimal implications toward reducing the threats that the country faces, as the country has spent over $3 trillion on these asymmetric wars of attrition to nowhere, as the country pours money into bailouts, impotent monetary policy and indebting fiscal policy, as the Fed tries to push the country forward with QE2, what are China and India doing? They are staying out of quagmire conflicts. They have spent way over $3 trillion building their economies, building cities, building railroads (like the one into Tibet), building schools and universities, and building a new world for their people.

As poverty in the US grew to over 14.7% China and India are bringing hundreds of millions out of poverty. The greatest anti-poverty program in the history of the world has been going on in China. As many of our cities have been hollowed out and the middle class has truly begun a fall into the housing trap, not the American dream, foreclosures, unemployment and a fear for the economic future like many have never have seen in their lifetimes the Chinese and Indians are bootstrapping themselves into a better future. The profligacy of America, the irresponsible and dysfunctional fiscal leadership at the federal, state and local levels, and the sense of entitlement and denial of responsibility for debts that pervade our society can be seen in sharp contrast to what is happening in China and India. We should all look at the mirror, and look at the data, and wonder: why is the greatest country on earth acting like an adolescent asking for a bigger allowance?

The sovereign debt issues in the EU are enormous. Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and more to come all have lived way beyond their means. Budgets in some places were fudged so much that it is embarrassing. The less responsible states are expecting the Germans, and to a lesser extent the French, to bail them out a la the big US investment banks, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

As the budgets of these countries go into severe stress the people are hitting the street to preserve their 35 hour weeks and retirement in time to go to the Costa Del Dole. Switzerland and Norway were smart enough to stay out of the EU. I am sure the Irish are wondering what they got themselves into. The other day, after looking hard at the debt, deficit, and growth number for most EU states (outside of the very well run Germany) I mentioned to a colleague from the EU that maybe the best thing to do would be to have the EU go under receivership to the Swiss. Of course I was joking, but I was also frustrated to see so many great countries become enfeebled with fiscal irresponsibility. Switzerland is a brilliantly run country, with little debt, growing, environmentally amazing, and the trains don't not only run on time – one could set one's clock with them.

There is a lot to learn from the Swiss, the Germans and the Norwegians. This is part of what some would call "Old Europe", but this is also frugal, investing, thoughtful, well governed "Old Europe". There is a lot to admire in "Old Europe". Let's not dismiss them for the future just yet. There are world class business people, diplomats, scholars, inventors and more to be found there. However, its population is stagnating and their economies overall are growing quite slowly, the Germans, Swiss and Norwegians aside. There are many nuances and differences to be found in "Old Europe", not just the media view that they are all on the downslide into debt oblivion. France, Spain, Italy others remain great countries, but they need to find their ways to a better future.

It could take a decade or more for the less than well run "Old Europe" to get out of their debt, deficit, and economic stagnancy mess. It could take the US just as long if we continue to apply the policies of the "Old US" to the new international and national environments. Fiscal and monetary policies, given the state of our interest rates and our debt and deficits, do not have the clout they would have in other environments of higher interest rates and more fiscal leeway. We and the "Old Europe" also face severe structural unemployment that cannot be resolved by simply tossing money at it.

We need to build things. Here is an idea. The Saudis are building economic cities and knowledge cities. The Qataris are building education cities. The Chinese are building the equivalent of a New York City each year. We need to create about 14 million jobs at least to get back to 5 percent unemployment.

Why not build a city, call it "Renaissance City", or a group of smaller "Renaissance cities", where we can get millions of people to work either directly or indirectly in the building. Think of the linkages to so many industries. Think of the skills to be built. Think of how this could drive the rest of the economy. Think also about how long term these developments could be and how it could effect how our cities of today are managed, run and invested in. We should also make the city (or cities) sustainable, easy to manage, and have places where the people can have a super quality of life.

We spent $1.7 trillion plus bailing out banks and others. We are thinking about sending $600 billion into the money markets via purchase by the Fed of our own debt. Why not use the next trillion, instead of wasting it on throw away programs, in building something that could be long lasting and true.

Fixing roads and high speed rail are good ideas? But these may be far too modest for what we need to do. Again, these are far too modest. We need a radical remake of the way we do things and the way we think about things. Then we could, through our building, our inventions and our innovations, and, more than anything else, our new long term strategic thinking, be the country of this century.

We need not lamely hand off the trophy because we have limited thinking at the important strategic levels. Let's boldly go forward with a new America, and leave the idea of the old America to the history books. This would include, of course, the idea that we can spend our way out of economic problems with ineffective projects that lack the boldness that made this country great.

When it comes to the new powers in Asia: so be it, but we and the smart Old Europe are still in the race and we are still competitors and partners with each other and with Asia more than ever before. So let's get real.

Let us also get real that the new giants of Asia are still small players in investment markets, in foreign exchange markets, and more. The Old Europe and the US are still the major players in the $4.5 trillion a day foreign exchange markets. 85% of that trade is in dollars/Euro transactions. Most of the FDI and FPI flows in the world are between the EU and the US by far. There are many positive things to be said about China and India. They are trotting along at 7-8% growth in India and 8-10% growth in China.

However, China is facing a serious housing bubble (sound familiar) and they are hauling back on their money supply to get some serious indications of inflation under control. India still needs to get its political house in order and get its infrastructure in line with its economic development. Both countries have large parts of their populations remaining in dire poverty and face increasing inequalities. They are also looking resource constraints that could test them severely in the future.

The most important of these is water. The key to this is Tibet, the "Water Tower of Asia". I am getting a paper out on this soon. Bottom line: we have trouble ahead in the sharing of the waters of Asia and hardly anyone in the investment communities and even the diplomatic communities are taking it as seriously as it should be. Combine climate change and pollution of this most vital resource and you have the one thing that could stop China and India in its tracks or at the very least slow them down: water.

There are also increasing numbers of demonstrations against pollution and water problems (51,000 in 2006 alone) and employment issues (tens of thousands in this year alone).

It is to the benefit of the US, the EU, China and India, and the rest of Asia, including slow and no growth Japan that we all grow. But what is even more important is that we all develop, and by that I mean above all, human development via improved education, improved health, and improved freedoms to prosper and choose one's life. The Chinese, Indians and others see the problems they face. Hu Jin Tao is a hydrologist.

The EU and the US see their problems. But there seems to be way too much nail biting and complaining in the US and the EU. What we need is to take a meta-lesson from the Chinese and Indians: don't doddle, don't waddle, but take bold steps, make creative and inventive changes in policies, and work hard (yes, work hard) for a much better future for our people.

The future is everyone's for the taking.

My impression of President Obama's trip to Asia is that he has unfortunately gone as chief arms salesman to new frontiers. This says much more about the US than it does about Asia. First, Congress allocates much of our discretionary income, more than half, to strengthening our military and bolstering our armaments, and then our President flies off to Asia to boost the sales of tanks, planes and missiles to client states. We call it geopolitics, but at its heart it is about greed and gluttony. Asian economies seem vibrant. Ours seems stuck in the mud of militarism.

America's needless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are reducing us to a second or third rate power, a helpless giant. China is one beneficiary of our wasteful militaristic policies. India and other Asian countries could be as well, if they resist the temptation to purchase our second-hand military hardware and follow our lead into unnecessary and illegal wars. If the United States still wishes to be respected in the world it needs to return to the basics of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and international cooperation. There are too many serious problems confronting the world for the US to be focussed on pushing arms and building war coalitions in Asia or any other part of the world. We need to think much more deeply about the example we are setting and how it is already returning to haunt us.

The debate about East vs West is pretty lame. America has friends and adversaries in both places and many important interests in every other corner of the globe as well.

If America is going to remain a global power with global reach, it is going to have to have a global perspective.

The Obama Doctrine clearly did not reflect this. It treated the challenges of global leadership as a series of "one-each." The global vision was clearly missing. The president trashed outsourcing and now finds himself defending it in Mumbai. He kowtows to Russia and discovers our allies in Europe doubting U.S. resolve. He punts on defending freedom of transit in the South China Sea and wonders why Australia, South Korea and Japan wonder what the U.S. is up to.

The White House has to appreciate that it cannot pick and choose what parts of the world to focus on and that everybody is not listening all the time to everything the administration has to say.

Shortly after the 2008 presidential election, Senator Obama was given a briefing by the National Intelligence Council on global trends. The briefing warned that the on-going transfer of wealth from West to the East was "without precedent" in modern history. The implication was that if economic trends were not reversed, the United States would eventually be overtaken in global influence by China and other Asian nations.

Mr. Obama subsequently took office and proceeded to embrace all the the bad behaviors that have contributed to America's decline and China's rise. Massive deficits. New entitlements. Taxes on the productive and handouts to the unproductive. So the trends described by the intelligence council have continued. In just the present decade, foolish economic and regulatory policies have reduced America's share of global output from 32 percent to 24 percent. Where will we stand after another ten years of spending billions of dollars per day we do not have, while driving our industries offshore?

The point being that Asia's rise has as much to do with the destructive policies we are visiting on our own people as it does with the productive policies pursued by China and other rising nations in the Western Pacific. Take the example of rare earths, vital commodities very much in the news these days. Twenty years ago, most of world demand for these materials was met by the United States, which has substantial reserves. But just about the time China entered the market with lowball prices courtesy of mercantilist policies, the biggest U.S. rare earth mine in California ran afoul of environmental agencies. End result: China now produces 97 percent of global output, and America is out of the rare earth business.

What this example shows is that the decline of America's economy is a bipartisan affair. Republicans pursue a naive notion of free trade that enables foreign producers to destroy one U.S. industry after another. Democrats finish the job by taxing and regulating industry to a point where it can't make decent profits in America. This is why it's impossible to make penicillin in the U.S. today without precursor chemicals from China or India (thank you FDA). It's also why no refineries have been built in the U.S. for over 30 years, but Exxon just finished building one of the biggest -- in China (thank you EPA).

America's influence around the world is based ultimately on the strength of its economy. When that economy produces no net new jobs for an entire decade -- as ours has in the present decade -- while other countries grow at double-digit rates, it is a clear sign of decline. Changing our strategies in Asia won't affect this trend. Changing our economic and regulatory policies at home will.

It's easy to overstate both the rise of Asia and the degree to which they could supplant U.S. influence. As a benchmark, per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity (which strips out currency fluctuation and standard of living differences and therefore gives the most robust relative index) in the U.S. is $46,000; for China it is $7,000 and India a mere $3,000. These standings are reinforced by their correlation with Transparency International's corruption index and states' rankings on the UN Human Development Index.

Asia is rising, but more slowly and with much more difficulty than we often acknowledge. China is in a race between prosperity and gerontocracy, with a political system in a crisis of legitimacy, and "strategic" investments in the developing world tarnishing efforts to brand themselves positively (they would do well to read the history of United Fruit in Honduras). The law of gravity applies to them as well as us, and their aggressive behavior in Asia has created a strong pull by other Asian states for greater US involvement.

I'd love to see us foster more cooperative security in Asia, giving practical opportunities for China to be a responsible stakeholder, take the edge off Japan's relations with others in the region, and support leadership roles for Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and other states with positive visions for Asia. In that regard, Secretary Clinton's offer to mediate disputes is helpful; China's rejection was damaging to them. Establishing joint patrols to preserve freedom of the seas provides another opportunity to show our commitment to strengthening security and cooperation. We do this well, and Asia is becoming ripe for cooperation of the sort that strengthens American influence.

There was a time when east Asia was a major (perhaps THE major) focus of American interest in the world. Our gunboats ranged far up the Chinese rivers guarding American missionaries and commercial interests. The Yangtze River Patrol came into being just after the US Civil War and lasted until Pearl Harbor. There were usually half a dozen ships. Their flagship was at Shanghai. There was a US Navy hospital there as well. The British, French and Japanese also had ships in the rivers. Our Pacific posessions tended to guide our eyes to the western horizon.

Then came World War Two, the huge struggle against Germany on the European continent and the quick commencement of the Cold War thereafter. The thermonuclear confrontation and the need to unite western Europe against the Soviet threat of necessity held our attention. Korea and Vietnam never really dragged our attention to the Pacific. It is a curiosity of that period that in spite of a decade of massive war in Vietnam the US Army never made the war the over-riding concern that it might have been.

Now, India and China are coming of age economically, scientifically and militarily. The economic growth rate for the two countries makes the economies of Europe and North America pale by comparison. Perhaps it is correct that a rivalry that does not truly threaten the United States is the likely outcome of the rise of these two manufacturing and trading giants. Perhaps.

India's behavior would seem to support the possibility of such an outcome. China does not seem the same. Chinese naval developments are particularly hard to understand in a way that does not reflect the growth of naval competitiion in the Pacific. Such competitions are inherently dangerous. The friction that occurs when heavily armed forces rub up against each other can lead to incidents of escalatory violence. We have already seen that happen between US forces and those of the Chinese.

We should pay attention to such incidents before patterns become established.

Those great British philosophers, Sir Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, once said, “you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes if you try, you might find, you get what you need.” And so it is with America in Asia.

We spent a lot of time, money, blood, tears and rhetoric over the years exclaiming how we wanted Asia to stand on its own. We wanted India to feed itself. We wanted China to throw off the yoke of communism and join the capitalist world. In both cases, we wanted democracy to reign.

In the case if India, it always has. In the case of China, the Central government still controls. But everyone in Beijing knows that democracy is a matter of time no matter how oppressive the leftovers from the old days hang on to power.

As for capitalism, we they are pushing aggressively in the world economy and are being rewarded handsomely for it. Despite India’s British inspired tangle bureaucracy, business is prospering and there is a substantial growing middle class. China, while practicing a 21st Century form of mercantilism, is also the economic miracle of this century and is not likely to turn back. Both India and China may have future economic problems, but they are here to stay and grow.

There are few lessons of history more clear than that the rise of economic power means the rise of political and military power. China is already moving headlong in that direction on the world stage. I suspect India will demand more soon as well.

So what does that mean for the United States. Well, it means you got what we wanted in terms of its efforts in India and China. It also means we have some tough competitors who are not going to stand too much on ceremony regarding our being either the “sole remaining superpower” or the “leader of the free world.”

Frankly, the United States has not been challenged for nearly twenty years since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. We got lazy and soft in our international dealings simply assuming that everyone would follow us because we are “number one.” Those days are quickly coming to an end politically, if not, already over economically.

So what do we do? First, as they say in the 12 step programs, embrace the fact we have some competition. Second, we need to get our economic and fiscal house in order. The private sector is paying off its debt. Washington is engaging in an economic madness spending like there is no tomorrow. That must come to an end soon. Third, we need economic policies that encourage our homegrown businesses and exports. And we need to stick to them.

Finally, and this is the most important part, we cannot and should not treat China and India as enemies a la the Soviet Union. Now, in the case of China, make no mistake, whatever fumbling is going on their part, they want to be the number one player in the world and see us in the way. Still, we are better off trying to engage them than fight them. As a former Senator used to say, “if you are going to lose, lose on your own terms.” Beijing is not going to go away. We have to deal with them from a consistent position of strength reminding them every step of the way, America ain’t going away either.

As for India, they have less political ambition. Still, they are looking to be a player. That is a relationship we can build on as they have mutual interests with us beyond trade – such as having a stable Pakistan on their borders and a China that is not militarily or politically aggressive in Asia. From such roots, friendships are formed.

Bottom line: Washington must recognize that China and India are the new powers of the 21st Century. We must engage and embrace them where we can.

We must also let them know that the United States is not going away. However, we must understand that our economic profligacy is the threat to our maintaining that power and it must stop now.

Competition is what we need to pull us out of our lethargy – whether we want it or not.

Our editors deserve thanks for encouraging us to reflect on how the major trends in world affairs may shape the future pattern of international relations and the implication for American foreign policy. An expanded view of what counts and will count is long overdue in the foreign affairs community – not to speak of the present administration. A piecemeal approach bound to the here and now is imposing a heavy price in terms of both mortgaging the nation’s future to current exigencies and distorting the significance of those issues of the moment.

The theme of East &/or West is so broad is to defy systematic exploration in a short essay. Moreover, it soon becomes evident that following that analytical thread open up even wider vistas that encompass the entire world system. So here are just a few guideposts that may help intellectual navigation. They are offered in didactic form with no examination of their intersections.

1. Juxtaposing ‘aged’ Europe to a vibrant, young Asia is a shorthand formulation that conceals as much as it reveals. Obviously, in civilizational terms Asia is much older than most of Europe. We are talking about those parts of Asia, especially China and India, whose striking economic development now is transforming them from debilitated societies into thriving societies. The phenomenon is as important in terms of their sense of self (and how others imagine them) as it is in tangible terms. The Europe of the EU is much wealthier than the newcomers (Japan is in a separate category) and will remain so for quite some time. The notion of Europe as one big retirement home is highly misleading. Indeed, within the imagery of the West it glows more attractively than the US for many peoples.

2. More meaningful is the political will to translate economic capacity and attendant rise in national self confidence into assertiveness on the world stage. It is true that there is a discernible historical pattern of rapid economic growth leading to a greater readiness to throw one’s weight around internationally – at times, taking the form of outward expansionism. Whether and how that dynamic plays out in China’s case is the big question that looms over us. The aim of American and European strategy (and Japan as well) should be to encourage the channeling of those energies into the revamping and extension of collective arrangements for organizing a stable world system. That means yielding a measure of the influence we now exercise and it means pulling into focus their strategic perspectives.

3. Europe’s deficit of political will stems in good part from its dependency relationship on the United States. It goes much deeper than reliance on American leadership for dealing with security threats. It includes deference to American ideas, mores, and power of initiative. This is unhealthy for all parties. Yet Washington does all it can to perpetuate it. The United States’ interests would be better served by having a more independent, confident partner that can pull its weight in addressing the multiple challenges of achieving an accommodation with the powers of the East on terms satisfactory to all.

4. We should differentiate the economic sphere from the politico-security sphere. Admittedly, they intersect in several place and those intersections pose issues that are among the most difficult to assess and to manage, e.g. China’s oil appetite as it affects policies toward Iran, Central Asia, disputed isles in the South China Sea and elsewhere. Generally speaking, though, it is not particularly helpful to superimpose static models from the past on emerging realities. Comparing expansion of the Chinese or Indian navy with Imperial Germany’s bid to challenge Britain’s rule of the seas tells us little of value about what naval expansion means in today’s world.

5. The thorniest, most complicated issues are in the economic sphere. We are already encountering them in the mounting war of words over currency matters. Here, the United States is suffering from a domestic structural deficiency that is driving its external monetary and trade policies. China is the target of American criticism and unilateral action. That is due to a number of factors: China’s huge dollar holdings; it chronically large trade surpluses, its skirting the norms if not explicit rules of exchange rate management, and the implicit understanding that China counts today more than anyone else because of what it may be tomorrow. A resilient, stronger American economy free of its financial deformations could make more cool headed decisions as to what are appropriate actions now in the light of longer-term considerations. Our manifest impulse to do just the opposite owes to weakened self-confidence at all planes, as well as to habit. That in turn is aggravated by the state of political paralysis at home. Last week’s action by the Federal Reserve to engage in another round of massive Quantitative Easing evinced the durability of the entrenched attitude that Washington can impose its will on the world by arbitrary, unilateral actions when deemed necessary. The result was not only to exacerbate relations with Beijing; it also infuriated the Europeans who saw the Fed’s move as both misguided and a betrayal of accords agreed just weeks earlier. Behaving in a way that makes Europe and China allies of convenience in opposing American policies is the antithesis of what we should be doing.

6. The state of affairs outlined above makes clear that the Asian challenge is far more subtle than its rendering in models that reduce historical (and historic) transformations to contests over who is king of the hill. That is not the nature of this game. Nobody will be crowned as No. 1 after a series of jousts. This mentality leads nowhere but into blind alleys. Indeed, it can easily become counter productive.

Some reflection on this challenge points to the unhappy conclusion that the United States is not ready for it. That is true in many respects: intellectually, politically, and at the level of national identity and self-image. Leaving aside the intangibles, there are a couple of uncomfortable truths about American foreign policy-making that should be acknowledged. One is that we are overly absorbed by short term matters that consume a vastly disproportionate amount of time, energy and diplomatic capital. The endless ‘war on terror’ is the outstanding case in point. The Asian challenge is not and cannot be met amidst the poppy fields of Helmand province or on the high valleys of the Hindu Kush. The other is the total lack of a strategic vision that moves beyond the flimsy, lazy constructs of a ‘unipolar moment,’ a second American century, soft hegemony through a globalized economy designed according to American specifications that serve American interests, etc.

Second, only one person can begin making the necessary changes in outlook and action. It is the President. Yet, neither Mr. Obama nor the members of the team he selected show signs of being up to the task. A marker of our times was the President’s op. ed. in Saturday’s New York Times. It was an insipid statement of how his forthcoming trip to Asia was going to open markets for American goods. The piece was worthy of a senior vice-president for marketing reporting to the corporate board before heading off an extended tour of foreign buyers. It was unworthy of the President of the United States at a time of severe crisis in our financial and political affairs. It was a telling sign that doesn’t auger well for a serious reexamination of our place in the world. Obama’s turning into the sales rep for America, inc. is demeaning. To think that that the idea passed muster with Mr. Donilon, Ms Clinton, or anyone else whom he listens to in the post-Rahm era is a further reason for distress.