| Mehmet Murat BEKDÝK | |
| Editor-in-Chief |
|
Did U.S.A. come to the end? |
“Raise your heads and look at the world. The highest building of the world is in Taipei and this appellation will be taken over by a building in Dubai. The biggest public company is in Peking. The biggest refinery is being constructed in India. The biggest passenger plane is being produced in Europe.”
According to Zakaria, a new era starts in the world and U.S.A. is not the only power that drives this era. Zakaria defends that U.S.A., which declared its domination after the collapse of USSR in 1991, becomes more and more “careless, rude and lazy”. “Many countries become more open, market friendly and democratic. Even some African countries thought to be desperate very recently makes huge improvements” says the writer. According to Zakaria, U.S.A., to be successful in the new world order, needs to change its general attitude and act like a global arbitrator by changing its image of a powerful and tough boss that gives orders to everybody.
In U.S.A. the number of the people that are afraid of the changes driven by the rapid growth of the emerging markets outside U.S.A. and by the power acquired by the countries in Middle East is increasing more and more. If you ask today an ordinary man in U.S.A. you could receive the answers stating that China and Russia where the terrorism is normal and the people burnt with the fire of Jihat are abundant, are financing to a larger extent the separatist groups as the result of their economical development. Zakaria emphasizes that these perceptions are not as serious as exaggerated. The figures are very interesting. The defense expenditures of Russia whose army is so frightening amounts merely US 35 billions $, that means only one thirty-fifth of the expenditures of Pentagon. China has only about 20 nuclear missiles able to hit US territory but USA has 830 missiles able to hit China. The economy of Iran, seen as a threat because of its wealth thanks to the oil, is only one sixty-eighth of the US economy and USA’s defense budget is 110 times bigger than the defense budget of Iran. And the other oil rich countries do produce, invest and build their military forces under the control of USA: But, where comes this fear from? The main reason of it is the penetration of the media… Even the smallest bombing is recorded and becomes breaking news. In 1990, during the civil war in Congo where millions have died or during the First Gulf War, the world couldn’t penetrate to the details of the events due to limited media resources. But today the situation is not the same.
In fact, when we look at the big picture, it is possible to see that the USA is not actually weakening. Zakaria’s comment is that “Actually, USA is not falling but other countries are rising”.
Zakaria is afraid that the end of USA might be like the British Empire. The writer thinks that, one day in the future, historians might talk about the big irony that lies in the fact that other powers have been arisen as the result of what USA have done. He says that “the historians may write that USA has completed its holy and historical mission and globalized the world, but forgot to globalize itself” and he goes on by saying: ”Today when the rest of the world starts to open themselves, USA should loose its power”.
