http://www.lobelog.com/the-new-world-order-rebooted/#more-29696

The New World Order Rebooted

by James A. Russell
America’s fool’s errand in Iraq continues, with depressing daily headlines suggesting that the United States is doubling down yet again on previously failed attempts to build another Iraqi Army with more advisers and more sophisticated arms.
The latest saga in America’s 25-year war in and around Iraq is seen by some as emblematic of the strategic problem facing the United States in the post-Cold War era: failing states, the rise of violent non-state actors, and terrorist-inspired violence that supposedly threatens the country.
America’s pointless and fruitless diversion in Iraq comes at a cost—and that cost is the inability to focus time and energy on the more important shift in geostrategic plate tectonics that dwarf any issues associated with an irregular militia driving around in captured US equipment in Middle East deserts.
The post-Cold War realignments are upon us. Those realignments involve the changing roles of states—not terrorist groups or non-state actors— in the global balance of power. The four principal changes in the global system over the last 15 years are the rise of China, the decline of Europe and NATO, the rise of Russia’s mafia-like dictatorship, and the long-overdue challenge to the corrupt familial and security sector rulers in the Middle East.
In response to these changes, the global order is adjusting itself pretty much as realist IR theorists would suggest. States are considering the restructured environment and taking steps to balance and cooperate in response to the structural shits. These adjustments represent opportunities for US strategy and policy.http://www.lobelog.com/the-new-world-order-rebooted/#more-29696