It’s probably too late now — but get Thomas Friedman away from today’s Washington Post! The Post’s Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick outline a new report, "Global Trends 2025" where intelligence professionals forecast an America losing its political, economic and cultural clout. The only area where the U.S. will remain the undisputed no. 1 is conventional military force (the report hasn’t been actually released yet so I’m not sure if they discuss basketball). But conventional military force doesn’t really matter when you’re fighting counterinsurgency wars.

The report does surely sound troubling — especially when Pincus and Warrick relay the floods and droughts that will result from global warming. But hopefully it won’t sound the bells from pundits like Friedman that America has "lost its way" because China might have a higher Gross Domestic Product. In fact, this could be good news. Author Fareed Zakaria has said the shift is not about the "decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." A more pluralistic global society sounds fine to this American. It would at least be better than a super-powerful U.S. that declares preemptive wars and detains and tortures criminal suspects.-MB

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