open Democracy News Analysis - A new world order, Krzysztof Rybinski - Comments

ew keane on "A new world order "

ew keane — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:34:12 +0000

There will be no doubt places on this earth where the influence of the world central bank will be resisted. If the global powers continue to press a policy of radical austerity upon the free men of the world, the central bank
will have to buy more armed killers to terrorize civilians. It will become a police state, to protect the interests of business organizations that vest a tiny minority of the population with awesome political power, and cause bloody revolution and war.

These corporate power structures must be brought to the heel of the public. The madness of international corporate socialism, and the suffering and death that has been done in its name, must end.

Not logged in on "A new world order "

Not logged in — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:39:53 +0000

Like it or not this "new world order" is coming. Within the next 10-20 years it will be a reality. The subtle and systematic implementation is already taking place. It will not improve the lives of those at the bottom of the new power structure. Most will be victims of the whims of the 21st Century New Nobility. Medieval practices applied to modern economics.

D. Tchurovsky on "A new world order "

D. Tchurovsky — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:34:17 +0000

The phrase "new world order", did not have substantive definition. For me personally, “new world order" is something like Hitler’s New Order, but on global scale; i.e. transition from “Nazi state corporatocracy” to global corporatocracy, not so brutal and violent, but still excessively aggressive and hypocrite.

The idea of a Global Strategic Council, or reshaping G-8 to G-10 is not a solution at all. Alexandrian solutions to Gordian knots of the 21st century is in creating fundamentally different decision-making mechanism and wiping out 19th century political system, which was badly corrupted during the last century. Now political parties are out of date monsters, something like medieval religious orders. "Western democracy" or political system of today is not a democracy at all but a corporate oligarchy and orchestrated corporate propaganda.

Instead to duplicate international organisations like G-8 and UN (highly ineffective however) and multiply bureaucracy, emerging global problems should be addressed, not by elected “professional politics”, advised by experts, but by experts themselves.

bansal on "A new world order "

bansal — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:17:49 +0000

I have read through the entire book. The author also suggests a ‘Global Strategic Council’ (GSC) type solution. He talks about a World Government. United Nations has not turned out to be a solution. The book certainly helped me to think deeply on the above ideas. The author’s view is that we must think of managing the globe, than thinking of managing the nations. Nations are non-natural groupings. There is only one natural grouping and that is the family. It is therefore GSC should not be constituted on the basis of national representation. The GSC should not be given a legal structure. In fact it should evolve out of discussions amongst motivated people on forums like Open Democracy.

bansal on "A new world order "

bansal — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:13:08 +0000

Application of ‘recognizable non-judgmental moral disciplines to reintroduce order’ is ok, if it is the question of one individual. But when it comes to bringing order in a globe of six billion and more, dislodging the existing structure consisting of religion, politics, and economics can cause unmanageable upheaval. In the contemporary world religion based on blind faith and myths will not be acceptable. Traditional religions have to search for a new purpose in view of global problems facing the world. The idea of a Global Strategic Council should be considered for modifying and maintaining the existing structure from a global perspective.

bansal on "A new world order "

bansal — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:06:03 +0000

You seem to disagree with the author. What is it that you mean by ‘New World Order’?

Not logged in on "A new world order "

Not logged in — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:20:27 +0000

Before we put this (& the other "green new deal") debate to bed, I'd like to suggest that a good "moral rallying cry" might be the ancient "Usury is Evil" thing, revived during the last depression of the '30s by Major C.L. Douglas with his "Social Credit" idea. If we can disable the Usurers by developing an alternative, non-usury based, financial system, it will be a lot easier to deal with the other 2 major problems the world is confronted with, i.e. the global population-explosion & fake "representative" Democracy, both of which the Usurers find useful in turning the rest of us into lunch-meat.

P.S. (For the young-folks who havn't yet overcome the dumbing-down they received in school: "Usury" is the lending of money for a promised return of more money than was lent, which promise is guaranteed by a lean on the borrower's property, thus guaranteeing that the Usurer profits while the borrower probably looses isr property sooner or later, since the promise to pay back more than one has is a gambol. (I mean gamble! Its a gambol for the lenders & a gamble for the borrowers.))

Not logged in on "A new world order "

Not logged in — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:22:21 +0000

Well, I DID read it; so what, pray tell, is "Lottocracy"?

merlin landwu on "A new world order "

merlin landwu — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:29:51 +0000

Thank you aeionline for you kind words.
I have looked at your thoughts and feel we are talking in a similar arena. It just takes persistence.

I am going to work on blogspot.com for a while and see if this can add stimulation to the change we are all seeking - so thank you for this as well!

Reverting to my earlier theme about tipping points - what is happening in Greece right at this very moment is once again witness to the global unrest with the old order.

Globalization shows "the collective consciousness" becoming more and more evident, as the old order of power through control of information comes increasingly under pressure.

The traditional establishment that is unable to change will eventually fall apart as the collective will increasingly manifests.

Sadly the western religions are witness to this, in falling congregations, because of their inability to move with the human evolution that "waits for no man (or woman)".

New leadership with a better understanding of who and what we are as a species can bring real change about that will be supported by the emerging collective consciousness.

Both the old and new orders will bring positive change through a "unison of competing forces" - exciting times!

aeionline_1 on "A new world order "

aeionline_1 — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:29:45 +0000

Though proving! A must read for those who work for affecting a better change in the World.

How we get into the situation where just put on a button can destroy the whole whole world, and how to get out out it? Historical context must be revisited and for that matter some valid points here:

http://sustainable-prosperity.blogspot.com/

merlin landwu on "A new world order "

merlin landwu — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:20:09 +0000

As I concluded that last post I spotted a piece of paper that I have had pinned above my screen for 7 years now - it goes:

PERSISTENCE

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence

Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts;

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

A wise and successful man!

merlin landwu on "A new world order "

merlin landwu — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:09:14 +0000

I take on board all that you are saying and will try an optimistic slant.

Sure nature has a voice - and as it gets louder more people will listen and force action. New Orleans, Zimbabwe and the credit crunch are just the beginning. In the latter case the banks, by just continuing their stance of self preservation are creating more and more anger and resentment.

By their actions we now have increasing numbers of people without homes and increasing numbers of homes without people. As this continues to grow surely it will be the "common sense people" who will no longer accept this craziness.

The greatest beneficial change that has occurred to our civilisation has happened in the last 20 years - and we are using it right now.

For the first time in our history people have the ability to talk to each other and share views DIRECTLY - without interference or media bias. Do you remember the woman in Iraq who showed the reality of war with the camera on her cell phone - when we were being fed a completely opposing view by the media.

This is the new reality and truth of pure people power.

I have no idea who you are but we share a common ideal - and I don't live in your country and have never spoken to you before!

We know with the web that things reach a "tipping point" where the issue suddenly takes off on the back of rapidly growing numbers of like minded people.

You and I are voicing the views held by the vast majority out there - and all we have to do is keep those views alive and let the banks etc help us by continuing their entrenched actions of self preservation.

In this new environment there can be no "authoritarianism" because the very nature of the medium of the web does not allow for the control and manipulation of people that authoritarianism requires. As you said yourself "I cannot see many people - including the subscribers to this site buying in ...... yours truly included."

The web is the greatest tool for like minded people to come together, as we both know. It is still in its infancy but we are learning about its potential VERY QUICKLY and this is where the point you made in your penultimate para will take root.

It's not going to happen this week but trust me - it is going to happen, and when it does it will happen quickly!!

Pessimism my friend - Nah! just a less than good day perhaps?!!!
Take Care
merlin

Rybinski on "A new world order "

Rybinski — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:57:30 +0000

Thank you for your comments. I would encourage you to think about the world in 2050. Asia and Africa will see their population grow by 2.3 billion, US and Europe will hardly change. What would it mean for the world power balance? Who will decide what is right and what is wrong? Will financial news begin with what US stocks did or what Chinese and Indian stocks did? What if Chindia once again accounts for 50% of world GDP, for 50% of world outward investments? We may still debate our western values, but there is no way, no way we can impose them on Asia, Gulf or Africa in the 21st century. My kids are 7 and 11 and they are learning English, Internet and Chinese, three languages that will be spoken globally in the 21st century.

evangelos on "A new world order "

evangelos — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:50:25 +0000

merlin landwu - you make a pretty good start with the spritiual side of Islam in terms of choosing some new values. Islam in turn can take on the enlightened attitudes towards gender :-)

On your overall suggestion you are of course right "a third party" that is more powerful than us is a good suggestion.

The only issue is that this third party - nature - has no voice or if it has we are not listening and by the time we start it might be too late.

I just think it is time that people with "common sense" started speaking up, re evaluating priorities and setting a different course.

Lets us be frank we all know what the problem are but are we willing to do something about them

The problem is that smacks of authoritarianism and I cannot see many people - including the subscribers to this site buying in ...... yours truly included.

The truth - if I maybe so bold as to voice it - is that we are looking for someone to save as i.e make the decision for us rather than look at the problem ourselves and take on the responsibility of solving it.

Sorry for the pessimism but until WE all speak up as well as take responsibility and put a plan into action nothing will happen.

Rafael Perez on "A new world order "

Rafael Perez — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:27:00 +0000

To say that an example of technological are the terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Madrid train is incredibly appalling and shows the poor judgment of the author. ¿Where is the technological creativity and innovation of a suicidal group of plotters by taking the crew hostage and crasing the airplanes? ¿Where is the creativity, the value being created? [... edited ....]

A new world order, Krzysztof Rybinski

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:15:22 +0000

What is and should be the future of global governance? Who should make the key decisions and in what institutional frameworks? The answers to these questions may be approached via a retrospective glance at an epochal moment when they might have seemed far clearer than they do today: the "diamond jubilee" of 1897 which marked Queen Victoria's sixty years on the British throne. Fareed Zakaria brilliantly evokes the scene on 22 June 1897 which conjoined London and much of the globe:

"(About) 400 million people around the world, one-fourth of humanity, got the day off. (The jubilee) stretched over five days on land and sea, but its high point was the parade and thanksgiving service on this midsummer day. The eleven premiers of Britain's self-governing colonies were in attendance, along with princes, dukes, ambassadors and envoys from the rest of the world...
Krzysztof Rybinski is a partner in Ernst & Young and assistant professor at the Warsaw School of Economics.

This article is (with minor editorial changes) the text of a talk delivered on 25 November 2008 at a seminar on "Reforming International Organisations" in Warsaw, co-organised by the British embassy and the Unia & Polska Foundation

"The jubilee was marked with great fanfare in every corner of the empire. In Hyderabad every tenth convict was sent free. There was a grand ball at Rangoon, a dinner at Sultan's palace in Zanzibar, a salute of gunboats in Table Bay, a monster Sunday-school treat at Freetown, a performance of the Hallelujah Chorus in Happy Valley at Hong Kong....

"In today's world it is difficult to imagine the magnitude of the British empire. At its height, it covered about a quarter of the earth's land surface and included a quarter of its population. London's network of colonies, territories, bases, and ports spanned the entire globe, and the empire was protected by the Royal Navy, the greatest seafaring force in history...

"Over the preceding quarter century the empire had been linked by 170,000 nautical miles of ocean cables and 662,000 miles of aerial and buried cables, and British ships has facilitated the development of the first global communication network via the telegraph. Railways and canals (the Suez canal, most importantly) deepened the connectivity of the system. Through all of this, the British empire created the first truly global market. Moreover, 2% of the world population produced more than 30% of global GDP, its energy consumption was five times that of United States and Prussia, and it accounted for two-fifths of the world manufacturing trade" (see "The Future of American Power: How America Can Survive the Rise of the Rest", Foreign Affairs, May-June 2008).

But hubris was being shadowed by nemesis. The bitter wars against the Afrikaaners ("Boers") of South Africa in 1899-1902 - waged in the teeth of opposition from France, Germany and United States - were an early signal. The beginning of an end of the 19th-century superpower - already anticipated by Rudyard Kipling at the time of the 1897 jubilee - was in sight.

openDemocracy
writers analyse the search for new forms of global governance amid financial turmoil: Kerry Brown, "China goes global" (2 August 2007)

Robert Wade, " The financial crisis: burst bubble, frayed model" (1 October 2007)

Andras Ortega, " The power of the few" (4 October 2007)

Ivan Krastev & Mark Leonard, " The world's choice: super, soft, or herbivorous power?" (26 October 2007)

David Hayes, " A world in contraflow" (3 January 2008)

David Held, " Global challenges: accountability and effectiveness" (17 January 2008)

Ann Pettifor, " The week that changed everything" (22 September 2008)

Fred Halliday, "The revenge of ideas: Karl Polanyi and Susan Strange" (24 September 2008)

Rein Müllerson, "The world after the Russia-Georgia war" (5 September 2008)

Godfrey Hodgson, "The week that democracy won" (29 September 2008)

Tony Curzon Price, "Unprincipled madness" (1 October 2008)

Grahame Thompson, "Deglobalising the crisis" (3 October 2008)

Will Hutton, "Wanted: a fairer capitalism" (6 October 2008)

Avinash Persaud, "Europe's financial crisis: the integration lesson" (7 October 2008)

Paul Rogers, "A world in flux: crisis to agency" (16 October 2008)The title of Fareed Zakaria's essay from which the above extracts come - and the fact that in turn they are drawn from a book called The Post-American World - is an indication that these questions have found a fresh relevance today. Now, however, they refer not to the coming of a United States-dominated world but to its ending - and in particular, to the rise of China (or "Chindia"). Will a country of 300 million stand the competition of a charging dragon (albeit a troubled one) and racing elephant (albeit a wounded one) with 2.5 billion inhabitants; will this relatively small country be able to remain the global superpower?

A rebalancing

My answer to these questions is simple. While the United States is very likely to retain a big part of its political influence over the next decades, its economic and financial influence will rapidly diminish. The US's continued political influence will be related to its massive defence budget, one that dwarfs all other countries' put together. But in economic terms the restoration of the world order that prevailed until the early 19th century is likely. In 1820, Chindia accounted for 50% of the world's GDP, but both countries missed the industrial revolution and Chindia's share of the world's GDP dropped to less than 10% in mid-20th century. Since then it recovered to 20% and (according to IMF estimates) China had the highest contribution to the world GDP growth in 2007 and in the same year accounted for 25% of global growth on a purchasing-power parity (PPP). The "BRIC" countries, meanwhile - Brazil, Russia, India, China - accounted for almost half of global growth.

In the early 20th century, the United States replaced Britain as the world's only superpower. With the US's economic and financial power fading in relative, and recently also in absolute terms, the world faces two options:

* Design the new world order, the new vision

* Let the market and non-coordinated political processes determine the new world order.

A rising tide

The second option may be very costly. This claim can be illustrated with a few examples:

* Oil prices have topped $140 per barrel in 2008, then receded to $50 amid cyclical factors; but according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast published in November 2008, the price of oil will soon exceed $100 again. The emerging markets' - and China's in particular - appetite for energy will continue to rise at a very fast rate, much faster than the pace of innovation allowing to reduce energy consumption and to use the new, non-fossil fuels based sources of energy.

The IEA predicts that in 2030 energy demand will be higher by 45% than in 2007, with Chindia responsible for 51% of that increase. Without globally coordinated massive policy intervention, fossil-fuels will retain its dominant share in energy generation accounting for 80% of world energy production cannot be ruled out. With a high risk of excess demand for energy, there may be massive and frequent blackouts around the globe in the future. The current recession may make matters worse, because the credit-crunch reduces investments in the energy sector. Energy may become a very powerful political weapon, helping to shift global power from energy-deficit countries to energy-surplus countries. This is of particular importance in Europe, which heavily relies on gas imports from Russia.

Climate disasters have become much more frequent in the past two decades, jeopardising the life and well-being of millions of people on all continents. Yet despite strong evidence that human industrial activity is contributing to this trend, the world's biggest countries cannot agree on the set of measures that will prevent humanity destroying itself. Europe's lonely fight against climate change is meaningless without US and China coming on board. Even if the European Union cuts emissions as planned by 20% by 2020, the cumulative reduction over fifteen years will be smaller than a single year greenhouse-gasses emissions by China in 2020.

China has amassed more than $2 trillion of foreign-exchange reserves. An estimated $1.5 trillion has been invested by the Chinese in US assets, mostly US government debt or US government guaranteed debt. Nowadays Chinese leaders can crash the dollar and send the US economy into a tailspin recession with just one comment - namely that China will stop buying dollars. At the same time the leading 20th-century economic powers refuse to recognise the key role that China plays in the world of politics, economics and finance. The best example of that is the fact that Belgium and Netherlands together have more votes on the boards of the IMF and the World Bank than China.

The global push to a switch from fossil-based fuels to biofuels has contributed to a global rise of food prices - so-called agflation. In 2007-08, the food-import bill of the poorest countries has risen by 75%, which combined with rising climate-related disasters may bring famine to many developing countries, killing millions. There is no coordinated action to face this problem, and countries respond by prohibiting food exports, which only makes the global food situation even worse. The Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) summit in Rome on 3-5 June 2008 was a formidable event. While zipping Brunello di Montalcino and chewing Bistecca Fiorentina, participants agreed to chip in some money and pretended the problem is over.

If you google "world vision" or "global vision", 2.4 million and 1.1 million entries respectively will be returned. It means that this phrase is very popular and used frequently. One could argue that the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) constitute such a world vision. The world has agreed to improve the living conditions in poor countries between 1990 and 2015, and the United Nations set a series of indicators to measure this progress. Details of MDGs are presented in Table 1:

Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and selected numerical targets, and the progress achieved so far (east Asia, west Asia and sub-Saharan Africa)

MDG Target (1990-2015)	east Asia (1990-2005)	west Asia (1990-2005)	sub-Saharan Africa (1990-2005)
Halve the proportion of people living under $1 a day, %	33/9.9	1.6/3.8	46.8/41.1
Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, %	19/7	11/7	53/46
Ensure universal primary school enrolment, %	99/95	81/86	54/70
Eliminate gender disparity, female employment, % of total	38/4	16/21	28/32
Reduce by two-thirds child mortality, mortality rate per 1000 births	126/82	68/55	185/166
Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio, proportion of deliveries attended by skilled personnel, %	51/83	60/66	42/45
Combat HIV, malaria and other diseases, number of tuberculosis cases per 100,000	319/204	92/56	331/490
Ensure environmental sustainability, CO2 emissions, billions of metric tones	2.9/5.6	0.7/1.2	0.5/0.7
Develop a global partnership for development, number of internet users per 100 population (2002/2005)	7/12	6/11	1/3

Source: United Nations (2007)

Table 1 reveals a telling pattern. With very few exceptions (the poorest people in western Asia, tuberculosis in Africa) steady progress can be observed. However, there was a very little progress in sub-Saharan Africa, where huge developed world aid is deployed, while there was a massive improvement in east Asia, mostly China, as a result of an almost 10% annual GDP growth on average in the past two decades. It is evident that the most powerful weapon in fighting poverty is economic growth. However, fast growth has its price. East Asia doubled the amount of CO2 emissions and China exceeded the United States on the list of biggest polluters. This shows enormous policy inconsistency on the global level: achieving progress in one dimension (moving away from poverty) leads to a massive deterioration in another dimension (environmental sustainability).

A global mandate

The vast majority of world innovations are created in developed countries. But in the last few years the world has learned in a very painful way that developing countries can master innovation as well. The al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York (2001) and on trains in Madrid (2004) were examples of organisational innovation that bypassed all security measures and reached beyond the imagination of secret services in developed countries.

Table 2

World ranking of countries, 20 largest by GDP-PPP and population (European Union as one area)

Country Rank

1. China 15.4
2. European Union 14.7
3. United States 12.8
4. India 10.8
5. Japan 4.3
6. Brazil 2.8
7. Russia 2.6
8. Indonesia 2.4
9. Mexico 1.9
10. Pakistan 1.6
11. Bangladesh 1.3
12. Korea, South 1.3
13. Nigeria 1.2
14. Canada 1.2
15. Iran 1.1
16. Turkey 1.0
17. Egypt 0.9
18. Philippines 0.9
19. Thailand 0.9
20. Vietnam 0.8

Source: CIA World Factbook, author's calculations based on weights: 50% GDP (PPP) and 50% population

Or think about the present financial crisis driven by financial innovation, greed and policy failure that has jeopardised the existence of many large world financial institutions that were forced to seek capital injections by investors based in Asia and in oil-exporting countries, and then were bail out by governments. How was it possible, that a country whose universities occupy 54% to 68% of the top 100 universities list (depending on the ranking), and whose citizens were awarded 270 Nobel prizes, was not able to act pre-emptively and reduce the amount of "zombie finance" that was building around the US real-estate bubble and around the credit-derivatives market? This is a $10-trillion question.

The Bank of England estimated that until October 2008 governments' interventions around the globe to save financial institutions and secure deposits totalled $7 trillion; on top of that central banks expanded their balance-sheet by $2 trillion, lending to banks against dodgy collateral. These estimates are not good in November, with US government bailout of Citibank totalling $330 billion, with the European Union's and president-elect Barack Obama's recovery package underway, and with China's $650 billion-equivalent fiscal stimulus.

Ireland launched a beggar-thy-neighbour action when its government announced full deposit insurance, and Irish banks started to market their services to British customers as safe as opposed to "risky" and not guaranteed financial services of British banks. This happened soon after a "memorandum of understanding" on the crisis was signed by twenty-seven EU finance ministers. The United Kingdom has announced VAT cuts to 15% without discussing these matters with other EU members; French President Nicolas Sarkozy called this ridiculous, arguing that it makes no sense to reduce prices further in an already deflationary situation.

There are plenty of examples of unilateral actions by countries that produce negative global externalities. In other words the first option, a creation of the new world vision and the new world order is clearly a superior scenario, we should not leave it to uncoordinated political and market forces. Unfortunately, today there is no shared vision of the world, be it in 2020 or in 2050. There is no globally accepted strategy to deal with the issues that could cost millions if not billions of human lives in the coming decades. There is a widespread tendency to think about one's own yard, and forget about the bigger picture.

Many international organisations engage in a range of activities that are often contradictory and lead to a tremendous waste of resources. Some global policies pursued in the last few decades proved to be the best example of "destructive creation", at least judging by their outcomes. The global governance is collapsing and there are no signs of a process which could lead to the creation of a new world order. The United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) have recently been helpless in solving the most pressing global problems.

The existing groups of leading countries, G7, G8 or G20 patchwork are not representative and are rapidly losing any meaning and importance. The G20 meeting in Washington on 15 November 2008 concluded that the IMF role's should be expanded, but people tend to forget that the IMF policy advice and track-record is horrible. Even before the mission comes to a country X in crisis, what it will recommend is horrible: raise interest rates, reduce fiscal deficit and implement structural reforms. The IMF is perceived in many countries as a partisan institution pursuing United States objectives, no wonder Saudi Arabia refused to extend a loan of $100 billion to the fund.

Table 3

World ranking of countries, 20 largest by GDP-PPP and population. European countries shares estimated separately

Country Rank

1. China 15.4
2. United States 12.8
3. India 10.8
4. Japan 4.3
5. Brazil 2.8
6. Germany 2.8
7. Russia 2.6
8. Indonesia 2.4
9. United Kingdom 2.1
10. France 2.1
11. Mexico 1.9
12. Italy 1.8
13. Pakistan 1.6
14. Spain 1.3
15. Bangladesh 1.3
16. Korea, South 1.3
17. Nigeria 1.2
18. Canada 1.2
19. Iran 1.1
20. Turkey 1.0

Source: CIA World Factbook, author's calculations based on weights: 50% GDP (PPP) and 50% population

It is hard to understand why the world has arrived at this juncture. There are more great scientists and great ideas than ever before, technological progress is advancing at an exponential rate, and for the first time ever, thanks to ICT deepening, the internet has created a global information and knowledge pool. We live in a flat world indeed. Hence the global knowledge economy and society should be able to come up with a range of solutions to cope with 21st-century global problems.

But somehow they fail, and every passing year shows that we have done very little to deal with such issues as resources constraints, climate disasters, the rapid ageing of many societies, the rise of China or the hegemony of financial markets. Annual meetings held at the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are not always as fruitful as desired. Often, speeches by a given country's delegations are attended by its own delegates, while the rest of the hall is empty. This raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of institutions that are supposed to act according to a global mandate. Politicians who try to think globally are in a deep minority.

A world vision

No leadership; no shared global vision; no shared values; bad incentives which favour short-termism, red-tape, and corruption - all have impeded global strategic thinking since the 1980s. To end this chaos, I postulate that old Bretton Woods institutions and the G7-G8 that existed under the Pax Americana should be replaced by a Global Strategic Council, formed by the new leaders. There are four reasons for this.

First, we need a shared world vision for the 21st century. Vision is about the future, not about the past. Therefore it should be formed by future global leaders, not by yesterday's leaders. Italy, Canada, and soon France and the United Kingdom will fall into the yesterday's-leaders category.

Second, you cannot have twenty, thirty, or forty countries to form the leadership. Think about a company board-meeting that needs to reach consensus among the thirty board members. Either there will be a true single leader, or a strong group of a few leaders that will be followed by the rest of the board. In the absence of such leader(s) the decision-making process at board level becomes a nightmare. To avoid this risk a new group of leading countries of a limited size, based on very simple rules, should be formed. The recent process of changing the vote and quota at the IMF/World Bank - seen inside Bretton Woods institutions as a great success - in my view was an example of a long, inefficient, complicated and partisan process that did not respond at all to the challenges of the 21st century.

Third, the old powers of the 20th century should give up boxing above their weight; France's Nicolas Sarkozy is the best example, especially as he is pushing hard a French, not a European, view of the world. Old parities should not apply anymore: "we get the Bank, you get the Fund" rule has become ridiculous. Partisanship, parities, and short-termism should be replaced by discussions about the new world vision. It is impossible under the old global-governance rules amid very strong political dependence. New structures and new rules should be created from scratch.

Fourth, if we do not create new global institutions, new regional ones will likely be created. My book Three Faces of Globalisation: offshoring, global imbalances, monetary policy (published in Polish, in 2007) explains that recent initiatives in Asia may lead to the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund in charge of maintaining financial stability in the region. It is possible that by the 2020s or 2030s an Asian common currency will be created for the Asean+3 group of countries, with a regional central bank that will be much more powerful than the US Federal Reserve or European Central Bank are today.

The Global Strategic Council that I propose should be formed by leaders of the eight-to-ten biggest countries. The metric used to rank countries should be very simple and intuitive: it should be a country's GDP according to purchasing-power parity (PPP) divided by global GDP, and the country population divided by the global population - each with 50% weight. Those eight-to-ten countries with the highest scores should form the new group of G8 or G10 and should establish the Global Strategic Council (see Table 2 and Table 3).

The vision and strategy agreed by the council should be shared and implemented by the biggest countries, while others will follow on a voluntary basis. There should be incentives to ensure that no country will chose to opt-out (possibly with the rare exceptions of countries such as North Korea, Burma, Cuba or Belarus). An innovative proposal for how such incentives should be designed, that adopts strategic-asset allocation (SAT) methodology from the world of finance, is presented in the book Gordian Knots of the 21st Century (by Rybinski, Opala & Holda [2008]).

The Global Strategic Council would seem an outside-the-box idea to many politicians, especially those whose mindset was shaped by the 20th century and who failed to notice how fast the world has changed. I have documented in this article how far the failures of global governance and the lack of global vision have produced many global Gordian knots. Traditional methods will fail to untie them - and we do need Alexandrian solutions.

Every four years the National Intelligence Council - which oversees America's baroque collection of intelligence agencies - releases a global trends report, which is given to the new president. The latest report, published on 20 November 2008, stated that "the most dramatic difference" between the new report and the one issued in 2004 is that it now foresees a world in which the United States plays a prominent role in global events, but the US is seen as "one among many global actors". The report issued four years ago had projected "continuing US dominance". The heart of the US security establishment has acknowledged that the global landscape has changed. It is time indeed to reflect this change in a transformed global-governance setup. The new world order should be established without delay.

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