Painting a Grim Picture

China is the next superpower and the West is losing its grip fast.

This collective loss of nerve in the European democracies is partly the result of government gridlock in Great Britain, the US, France, Germany and Italy because of internal power struggles at the top (Britain, Germany, America) or because the governments are on their last legs (France, Italy, America); the result is that five of the Group of Seven richest countries are all but incapacitated, leaving only Canada, which is not important enough to make a difference, and Russia, which has its own backyard to sort out, to give a lead.

Make no mistake: the democracies are about to pay a high price for this power vacuum, which will leave them twiddling their thumbs as problems mount, from the fall-out from this weekend’s referendum in Iraq to the looming trial of Saddam Hussein, fundamentalist Iran’s blatant power grab in the Middle East, the spectre of nuclear proliferation in more and more failed states, the future of North Korea, the security of international energy supplies, the increasingly difficult economic conditions plaguing the West and the growing imbalances and strains in the international financial system.

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