Shifting Power

The US is now increasingly perceived as a power in decline. New centresand communities of power are crystallisingat the global, regional, and sub-regional levels.The economic strength of nations, as opposed to brute military force, is now defining the power calculus of the world. At the global level, China and Russia continue to pose multidimensional challenges to the US-led West.At the regional level, middle and smaller powers are breaking free of the stranglehold of erstwhile colonial and other masters and pursuing independent policies. A KSA-Israel rapprochement at the regional level leading to a Jew-Muslim reconciliation at the global level would be an enormous feather in his cap. If the quid pro quo meets KSA and Palestinian ambitions only partially then this solution itself might create an even more vitiated strategic environment.