Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, May 9, 2008; 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON -- The decline of U.S. influence in the world has been fodder for a lot of media analysis lately. "We're just not that strong anymore," columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote this week in The New York Times. "We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes."
Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek's international editor, identifies the problem as "the rise of the rest." Emerging global powers are growing richer and more influential, challenging U.S. pre-eminence in industry, economy and culture. As Zakaria points out, the world's "largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood."
This "seismic shift" is redefining the world's relationship with Washington. While many in this country are feeling unsettled about this development, Zakaria suggests that their worries are unfounded because the rise of new powers is no longer defined by their opposition to the United States. Rather, these new actors have moved on and, while they extensively challenge U.S. dominance, their attitude is not one of anti-Americanism but what Zakaria calls "post-Americanism." (more)
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