This is a really great article. Maybe the history and conclusions are already familiar to people who read MemeStreams but it wraps them up very clearly.

Today's global liberal democratic order faces two challenges. The first is radical Islam -- and it is the lesser of the two challenges. Although the proponents of radical Islam find liberal democracy repugnant, and the movement is often described as the new fascist threat, the societies from which it arises are generally poor and stagnant. They represent no viable alternative to modernity and pose no significant military threat to the developed world. It is mainly the potential use of weapons of mass destruction -- particularly by nonstate actors -- that makes militant Islam a menace.

The second, and more significant, challenge emanates from the rise of nondemocratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes. Authoritarian capitalist great powers played a leading role in the international system up until 1945. They have been absent since then. But today, they seem poised for a comeback.

Noteworthy says: "I am skeptical of the idea that Russia is poised for a comeback. Putin and his government may be poised, but the people are not. Russia will have a political role, due to its Security Council seat, but economically, what does it have to offer?"

I don't agree. I think the article's analysis is right on. Admitedly, Russia and China have a long way to go before they rival the United States economically. There may be certain energy constraints that make a rivalry difficult to acheive. The core question is at what point does their economy enable them to challenge the US militarily. I don't think military challenge requires economic parity.

I would go one further than this article. I think that China and Russia are already challenging the US, and that Islamic militancy is in some respects part of that challenge. Who backs Hezbollah? Syria? Well, who backs Iran? Who is responsible for Darfur? China and Russia enable Iran to create instability in Iraq and Israel. China is the problem, and the solution can only come through China. I think its quite possible that we're not really at war with militant Islam. We're in a proxy war with China. Things are actually not that different than they were decades ago.

I also think this article underscores why what happens here is so important... Why battles over government surveillance, habeas corpus, checks and balances and the like really matter. They matter because the United States is the great liberal democratic power. There are a large number of people in this country who don't like the liberal part of liberal democracy. People who hate the constraints that the Constitution places on the exercise of majoritarian power and are eager to tear those constraints apart in response to the next terrorist attack.

If the United States is allowed to embrace authoritarianism, as it very well may do in fearful response to the pressures it will increasingly face in the world, then we will indeed have reached the end of history. History will end perhaps exactly as it began, with the realpolitik of authoritarian capitalism. All the great powers will stand united in principle if divided in interest. Untimately, those powers will collide and destroy eachother, but arguements about democracy and socialism and rights and equality will be long forgotten. Power and nationalism and war will be all that is left, for generations.

This is an extremely likely scenario. Ideals like freedom of speech and innocence until proven guilty are really what is at stake in the world today, just as they were really what was at stake in the great wars of the 20th century. They are threatened by Islamic militants. They are threatened by the rise of authoritarian capitalist states. And they are threatened by our own politicians. We're in for a long, hard slog, and none of us will see the end of it.

The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers | Foreign Affairs