The Post-American World

By Phar Kim Beng
Founder/Chair
Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena
Strategicpipa.com
Twitter: @indo_pan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Strategicpipa

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From the standpoint of Fareed Zakaria in “The Post American World”, the world is not an enigma. With emerging economies adopting various “killer apps”, to borrow the phrase coined by Niall Ferguson, countries once left behind by the United States and Group of Seven can attempt a strike back. China, India, Indonesia, and South Korea, are all attempting their own unique revivals, according to Fareed Zakaria. This process is known as the “rise of the rest”.

“The rest”, coined by Fareed Zakaria, is however, but a mere handful. Just as some exceptions do not prove the rule, the rise of China, India and others, cannot explicitly imply that the hegemony of the United States across various metrics are gone. The United States still have the world’s best universities, coders, programmers, and potentially hackers too. The US army is feted by several trillions worth of government funding. No country can be on par with the United States as yet, including China. Even if India and China formed a twinning partnership, the GDP of the US would still out-weigh the importance of both economies. At USD 18 trillion, the US has the world’s largest GDP, even if other countries have begun to break the USD 1 trillion GDP with a great cause. “The Post American World” will arrive. It is just now.