Hegemony? Maybe not.

In the mid-1990s, neo-conservative globalists began touting the supposed virtues of a Washington-directed "benevolent global hegemony." The open-ended "war on terror" begun after 9/11 provided a rationale to pursue global dominance in the name of securing the homeland. But a funny thing happened on the way to "hegemony": much of the rest of the world decided it didn't want to play along.

"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," observed the December 15 issue of the Power and Interest News Report, a geo-strategic newsletter. "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." This is because "Washington has ... lost [the] acquiescence to its leadership. Other powers no longer have any compunction about opposing U.S. policies and preferences when it is not in their own independent interests to follow them."

By way of illustration, PINR cites the following developments:

* EU weapon sales to China. In early December, Beijing and Brussels held a summit in the Netherlands to discuss the possible end to an arms sale embargo imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. "Despite Washington's opposition," PINR reports, "the summit reached a result favorable to Beijing."

* South American Community of Nations (SACN). Led by the Marxist government of Inacio Lula da Silva, 15 South American countries are moving to form SACN. This would combine two existing regional blocs, the Andean Community of Nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru) and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), along with Chile, Guyana, and Suriname. The SACN is seen by PINR as an alternative to a U.S.-dominated Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), although the term "foil" might be more appropriate.

* NATO revolt over Iraq. During a recent meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Secretary of State Colin Powell "encountered the refusal of France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Greece to participate in a mission to train Iraqi security forces.... Powell had come to Europe to mend fences. ... He left seeing the divisions widened."

These and similar developments herald the advent of a "multipolar" world, PINR concludes. They also illustrate the increasing role played by regional political and economic blocs with the power to define international priorities.