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A Postmodern Middle Ages
By Parag Khanna
VISIONS OF
In the future, globalization will further weaken the nation-state. A long transition process toward global government will be, like the Middle Ages, a time of great insecurity. But Europe's governance structure will prevail, even in the United States. It will buy its way to peace and its model will be copied across the globe.
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Not only
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The robust Ukrainian and Turkish populations will be ever more part of the European economic and social fabric, maintaining the empire's status as a manufacturing juggernaut.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/euro
This applies particularly to Russia, the currently assertive and completely overrated bogeyman of Europe. It makes little sense for Russia to contemplate a reactivation of its zone of influence (its demographic development is a disaster, and in structural terms the potential of the last decade of luxury has been squandered on nepotistic petro-politics). On its eastern borders it is already seeing a creeping Sinicization that it is helpless to combat, and it will remain fully occupied with maintaining the status quo on its Muslim borders in the south. By 2030 at the latest (probably after surrendering territory in the east) Russia will at best be able to hope -- like Ukraine und Turkey -- for inclusion in the European Union, thus developing its market according to the latter's rules. This will prove a liberating solution for both sides.
