Since the dawn of the 21st century very few nations have been recognized or emerged to have the largest economic stability in the world. Leading nations like the United States entered the 21st century with an economy that was bigger, and by all means more successful, than ever. Despite enduring two world wars and an everlasting depression in the first half of the 20th century, it faced challenges which ranged from a 40-year Cold War with the Soviet Union to the existence of sharp inflation, huge unemployment, and enormous government budget deficits in the second half of the century. Finally this great nation had the opportunity to relish a period of economic calm in the 1990s. Prices on goods were steady, unemployment dropped significantly, the government posted a budget surplus, and the stock market experienced an unprecedented boom. Iran NEEDS nuclear weapons. It does not need nuclear power. It has enough oil for itself and its young 70million odd population. It needs nuclear weapons because it needs to defend itself. It needs the threat that North Korea has - to be "un-attack-able". The first rule of American military politics now is that the state you attack has to be undefendable. Iraq had nothing, nothing! And American and UK planners knew this. This is why they did not say that al-Qaeda was in North Korea. North Korea has nuclear weapons. This is why they did not say that al-Qaeda was in Pakistan. Pakistan has nuclear weapons (and they are compliant). They said that al-Qaeda was in Iraq. Al-Qaeda, in all its shapes and forms, has not really been into a champagne-guzzling regime like Saddam Hussein's. Iraq was defenceless. It had nothing. And the Amerikans knew it Hundreds of books and articles have been written about him, some supporting him and most criticizing him. When Osama Bin Laden attacked U.S, there was overwhelming support for Bush. He could have ruined the whole middle-east if he had wanted to. The whole world watched afghanistan destroyed and applauded it. Overall sympathy for U.S among other countries was at an all time high Back in the 1980s where America was the lonely superpower with U.S.S.R trying invain to match it, the world had no choice but to accept whatever the U.S did. Fast forward a couple of decades, America is found wanting for its self-image and pride. Yes, it still has the mightiest and the most modernised army in the world, but that is not a sign of domination. Now the world has been accustomised to multi-polar world, where China and India are dictating the economic terms, Latin Americans giving a run for American democracy and last, but not the least, the ever growing Russians, having greater influence on world politics than the United States in recent years. The popularity of U.S is also at all time low. North Korea and Iran doesnt give a damn about America and its U.N council. Leaders in the middle-east are now having greater confidence in Russia as a neutral negotiator than America. No need to mention Iraq and Afghanistan for the billionth time. The foreign policy has failed tremendously under the 'devil', as stated by Hugo Chavez. The loss of Republicans last November to the Democrats resounds throughout the U.S and its allies. The whole world is now hoping that there will be a change, at last, and that too, a good one. The country itself needs a drastic change if it wants to regain its very own self. It will change, but not yet, not yet... Football (sadly) isn't everything in life. Only local value added economies in balanced geopolitical settings will work. Local communities need about 5 to 7 levels of added value from raw product up to the retail or end user level. This way the values are in sync with everything else up and down the line. There is an economic ecology too. We need to duplicate success in local situations and not have chopped up economies spread across the globe. The Marshall Plan helped restore local value added economies around the world. It was based on the awesome industrial might of the U.S. Now that might is chopped up into pieces. The U.S. has to act as if they still have it in a protective mode. The U.S. is becoming a paper tiger even privatising war where there are more contractors than soldiers fighting wars. Globalism means a centralization of control over the flow of commerce. When anything is centralized, it also centralizes all the negatives and make them more of a rule rather than the exception. Survival of the fittest takes over. We also have international enitities like the WTO that controls the flow of commerce outside of any real democratic process and act as if they are above individual nations laws. We have things like the New Deal subsidies being used by giant trans national corporations cutting off the livelihood of subsistent living farmers in places like Mexico, South America, South Korea and Afghanistan. The cash crops turn into illegal drugs. View the Cross 9/11 tangle of terror. Who can untangle the terror Globalization and Free Trade have bred? When the first President Bush start using it, it became a label for offensive tools to control nations not complying with the ruling bodies of the world. It was supposed to be connected with the United Nations and alliances like NATO but it evolved into what a small elitist group in the USA and some other nations, thought was good for the world. Then the term bled into economics, where a new order of "globalization" would create a one size fits all global economy. It was proclaimed a global economy without borders. Another parallel understanding flowed from a historical interpretation of conspiracies. The most focus pointed to the Council on Foreign Relations where many said were elitist groups forming a ruling class to guide those with less know how. Others maintained that a small well organized elite groups met behind closed doors to sculpture and manipulate public opinion by controlling the news and ...