The Emerging World Order

From the comfort and relative security of Highland in Boulder, I have the luxury of contemplating the state of the world and sharing a few thoughts.

The current buildup of pressures in our domestic and global political and financial environment is akin to tectonic plates pushing against each other to release powers equal to multiple nuclear bombs to form a new world order.

On the domestic front, last night’s presidential debate made it clear we are faced with a choice between a candidate with a troubled legal background and dictatorial tendencies, and a low-energy candidate well past his sell-date.

Globally, the 80-year-old America-led international world order is being challenged by China and Russia, with the aid of second-tier actors such as Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. Our opponents certainly aren’t helping us to “stabilize the situation” before the November elections. Instead, they are engaging us on many fronts like space, trade, currency, and technology, with the prospect of hot wars – think China in Taiwan and the Philippines, and Russia in Ukraine and Cuba, not to mention the soon-to-be nuclear-armed Iran and its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Huttis.

This week, the United States Navy dispatched the U.S.S. Dwight D.Eisenhower, a Nimitz Class nuclear-powered supercarrier, to the Mediterranean amid concerns that a full-scale conflict may be imminent on the Israel-Lebanon border. A war with Iran is inevitable.

On the economic front, Russia’s Putin acts like an aggressive gas station owner looking to expand his operations. China's economy, especially its real estate market, is in a tailspin, and America's national debt is off the chart, with its dollar now being challenged as a global reserve currency.

We can only kick the can down the road so far before facing reality. The good news is that as bad as things may be, America is still in the best shape among the nations. With resilience arguably built into the American constitution and its people’s psyche, let us hope that a leader like Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, or FDR will emerge to lead us to the next stage of the American experiment.

— Sina.