World Politics and Nanotechnology

To analyze policy options for administration of molecular manufacturing, it's necessary to predict the future, or at least to make an educated guess about likely geopolitical conditions a decade or so from now.

Until now, CRN has generally assumed that the United States will maintain a dominant position of strength, both militarily and economically. Now, however, some analysts are pointing to an emerging "tendency toward a multipolar configuration of world politics, in which a number of regional power centers compete for hegemony over their spheres of influence..."

This quote is from "Testing the Currents of Multipolarity", an essay in the current edition of The Power and Interest News Report.

The transition to multipolarity -- if it prevails -- has been set off by the severe problems confronted by the United States in its occupation of Iraq and by the decline of the dollar in international currency markets. The former has revealed the limitations and vulnerabilities of U.S. military power and the latter has brought forward underlying weaknesses in the U.S. economic system that are symbolized by persistent trade and budget deficits, and are rooted in changes in the world balance of economic power.

At present, the U.S. has lost the position that it was perceived to have after the fall of the Soviet Union as the undisputed global superpower presiding over an economic order integrating a world of market democracies. Contemporary global politics are structured primarily by a struggle of regional powers to assert themselves against efforts by Washington to reclaim at least some of its dominance.

What does this mean for CRN? Nothing immediately. But it bears watching, because if these currents remain strong, the task of proposing effective and acceptable solutions for managing the power of nanotechnology may require new thinking.

Mike Treder

Comments

[mark]

With Bush as president they better look out!

[jim moore]

I would like to point out the relative loss of American power is the direct result of the brutal stupidity of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress. They have been borrowing and spending money like trust fund kids on a coke binge. A significant portion of that debt has been bought by Chinese Communist Dictators, who now have the power to wreck the American economy any time they want to. All they have to do is start selling their dollars for another currency to precipitate dramatic decline in the value of the dollar. It is not in China's short term economic interest to do this, but if (when?) the rulers of China decide it is in their long term strategic interest to so, they will.
Diplomatically, many governments and people around the world see the US as a rouge super power. The philosophy of the Bush administration is seen as one of "might make right" and "political power flows from the end of a gun." The leadership role in the world that the US government has had sense WWII has been de-legitimized. And now with Bush actually winning an election the animosity towards the US Government will likely spread to the American people as well.
Militarily, our forces are bogged down in Iraq unable to respond to changes / challenges that occur in other parts of the world. Military leaders in other countries are learning the best ways to fight the US military. And the image of the US military has suffered greatly, no longer seen as professional, efficient, competent and deadly, our image now is one of brutal, sexually deviant, oppressors. At home much of our economic infrastructure can still be easily attacked (imagine what would happen if small bands of commandos attacked several oil refineries at the same time.)
The actions of Bush and company insure that the 21 century will not be another American Century. Having radical nanotechnology emerge in this multi-polar world will dramatically increase the probability of a nano-tech arms race.

thanks a lot gee-dub