The Obama administration drew criticism in 2011 when one anonymous adviser, in an effort to explain the U.S.’s seemingly subordinate role in the military intervention in Libya, referred to U.S. strategy in the campaign as “leading from behind.”
The ill-timed and awkwardly crafted comment was dissected and maligned for months in American media circles, prompting eventual pushback and clarification from the administration.
But that unnamed, and possibly unemployed, adviser might have been on to something. While the United States reigned as the preeminent superpower for much of the 20th Century, the new century holds far more uncertainty.
Once a rallying cry of conspiracy theorists and the black helicopter crowd, the world of 2050 may resemble the new world order long warned of by global government Cassandras. And while the U.S. will remain a dominant figure in this new reality, authority will likely devolve in the decades to come to nations rooted not in the wealthy West, but to emerging nations in what was for years regarded as the global south.
That was the conclusion reached in a 2010 report by Uri Dadush and Bennett Stancil of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled “The World Order in 2050.” Dadush and Stancil outline a scenario in which rising powers will command a larger piece of the economic pie, and with it, greater influence in decision-making bodies like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.