JERUSALEM DIVISION HALTED MID TRACK

EHESIANS 6:10-13
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,(DEMONIC ANGELS IN HIGH PLACES) against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.(SPIRTIUAL DEMONIC PERSONS)
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

LUKE 4:5-7(BECAUSE SATAN OFFERS WORLD POWER BILDERBERGS HAVE ACCEPTED SATANS GIFT)
5 And the devil, taking him (JESUS) up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

BILDERBERG TO BUILD UP ECONOMY SO PEOPLE GET A FALSE UPSWING,THEN DESTROY THE STOCK MARKET.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjjaGPMrK90&feature=player_embedded

Bilderberg Fears Losing Control In Chaos-Plagued World
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Monday, May 18, 2009

Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin, whose information from inside Bilderberg has routinely proven accurate, states that the global elite’s plan to completely destroy the economy and ultimately lower global population by two thirds has stoked fears even within Bilderberg itself that the fallout from such chaos could ultimately result in the globalists losing their control over the world.In a telephone interview, Estulin re-iterated his original points about Bilderberg’s 2009 agenda, which were released in a pre-meeting booklet to members. These include the notion that investors, whipped up into a false state of euphoria by the belief that the economy is recovering, are being suckered into ploughing their money back into the system as a set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead as the stock market reverses its uptrend and plummets to new lows.One of Bilderberg’s main topics of conversation at this year’s meeting was whether to oversee a long period of economic stagnation or to quickly sink the economy with a rapid depression.

Estulin called the bank stress tests recently conducted as being little more than a shameless hoax based on the irrational assumption that the economy wont get as bad as it already is.Bilderberg are also intent in pushing through the Lisbon Treaty despite it being rejected by countries in Europe who allowed their population to vote on the issue, and are prepared to manufacture demonization campaigns against anti-EU pressure groups, namely the Libertas organization fronted by Declan Ganley.One of Bilderberg’s primary concerns according to Estulin is the danger that their zeal to reshape the world by engineering chaos in order to implement their long term agenda could cause the situation to spiral out of control and eventually lead to a scenario where Bilderberg and the global elite in general are overwhelmed by events and end up losing their control over the planet.Estulin said that the economic crisis is a vastly greater threat than a mere recession and that, as long as the present structure of the global economy remains the same, it will ultimately lead to a massive population reduction of two thirds within a generation or two.Estulin said that such a massive crisis would bring many unknowns that Scare and frighten some of the more savvy members of the Bilderberg inner circle who are wondering how far they have actually gone not only to destroy the world but perhaps even destroy themselves, adding that this subject was a topic of conversation at this year’s meeting.Estulin highlighted a phrase that he first ran across in Bilderberg documents many years ago but only came to understand more recently following the 2002 meeting in Chantilly Virginia, the term demand destruction.Estulin said that a source connected to the World Bank explained to him that, You destroy demand by destroying the world economy on purpose - which is what we’re witnessing right now,added Estulin, destruction of the world economy on purpose.

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Jerusalem division halted in mid-track
Controversial barrier would have isolated Jewish neighborhood May 17, 2009
8:11 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein 2009 WorldNetDaily

Barrier construction earlier this month (WND photo)

JERUSALEM – A Knesset inquiry following a WND exposé earlier this month has halted construction of the country's security barrier along a controversial route that would effectively have blocked off Jewish property and an important Jewish neighborhood from the rest of Jerusalem. The episode began two weeks ago involving an area important to the Jewish neighborhood of Maale Adumim in eastern Jerusalem. The Palestinians want the area as part of a state. During his candidacy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the importance of maintaining and developing the Jerusalem region called E1, which encompasses Maale Adumim. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, however, personally visited the Jerusalem areas in question and unilaterally ordered the defense ministry to construct a barrier through the neighborhood of Anatot, which would block off Jewish land. The new barrier route will essentially isolate the so-called Palestinian side of Maale Adumim, as well cordon off local Jewish property. Since 2002, the security barrier has created a de facto border between Jerusalem and the West Bank. The new route ordered by Barak threads along Anata, leaving eight acres of property owned by Jews on the Palestinian side.

The previous governments of Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon delayed construction of the barrier in the area, largely because the route was being contested by local Jewish landowners, but also because it would disconnect Maale Adumim from greater Jerusalem. A Supreme Court case on the subject is pending. Following WND's article on the subject and a petition from a private group, Otonell Schneller, a Knesset member for Israel's Kadima party, visited Anatot to see the fence construction for himself. Last week, during a Knesset session regarding yearly funding for Barak's defense ministry, Schneller brought up the issue of the Anatot fence and accused Barak of wasting his ministry's money, arguing the Supreme Court could rule against the fence's construction and require the removal of the barrier. Immediately following that Knesset session, Barak ordered the halting of the Anatot fence construction. Aryeh King, chairman of the Land of Israel Forum, which promotes Jewish construction in Jerusalem, told WND he was concerned Arabs will begin squatting on the Jewish-owned property now that it's been quarantined from Jewish sections of Jerusalem. More dangerous, King argued, was blocking off Maale Adumim. After the barrier is finished, there won't be any other chance to connect the rest of Jerusalem with Maale Adumim, he said.The vision will become a nightmare.Sources in Prime Minister Netanyahu's office said Barak acted on his own and did not coordinate the fence's construction with Netanyahu's permission.

Israel has already forfeited Jerusalem

The barrier construction in the Anatot area is not an isolated incident. A WND investigation recently discovered that sections of Jerusalem essentially have been forfeited on the ground to the Palestinian Authority, while Jews, including local landowners, are barred from entering parts of Israel's capital. The probe further determined the U.S. has been aiding the Palestinians in developing infrastructure in Jerusalem. Also, it has emerged that the Israeli government has failed to stop Arabs from illegally building thousands of housing projects on Jerusalem land purchased and owned by a U.S. Jewish group for the express purpose of Jewish settlement, culminating in an Arab majority in the neighborhoods. The situation has been unfolding in the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods of Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, which are close to the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Yaacov and Pisgat Zeev in Israel's capital. Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis are located entirely within the Jerusalem municipality. A tour of the three Jerusalem neighborhoods finds some surprising developments. Official PA logos and placards abound, including one glaring red street sign at the entrance to the neighborhoods warning Israelis to keep out.

Another official sign, this one in Kfar Akeb in Jerusalem, reads in English, Ramallah-Jerusalem Road. This project is a gift form (sic) the American people to the Palestinian people in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and PECDAR. 2007. The sign bears the emblems of the American and PA governments and of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The displays were not present during a previous WND tour of the neighborhoods in 2006. Some local schools in the Jerusalem neighborhoods are officially run by the PA – some in conjunction with the U.N. – with many teachers drawing PA salaries. Civil disputes are usually settled not in Israeli courts but by the PA judicial system, although at times Israeli courts are used, depending on the matter. Councils governed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization oversee some municipal matters. USAID provides the PA funds for road and infrastructure projects.Israeli security officials said the local Jerusalem police rarely operate in Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis; instead security has been turned over to the Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, who work almost daily with PA security forces. The PA police operate in the Jerusalem neighborhoods in coordination with Israel.Shmulik Ben Ruby, spokesman for the Jerusalem police, confirmed the arrangement.If there are fights between some local families, sometimes we involve the PA police to make peace between the families, he told WND.Yes, the PA police can operate in these neighborhoods in coordination with the IDF and Border Police.

Jews barred from sections of Jerusalem

In another recent development, Israeli Jews, including local property owners, have been almost entirely barred from entering Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, while Israeli Arabs can freely enter. Aryeh King, a nationalist activist who holds the power of attorney to some Kfar Akeb land owned by an Israeli Jew, told WND he was barred several times during the past few months from entering the neighborhood to administer to the land, upon which local Arabs illegally constructed apartments.

Police spokesman Ben Ruby explained the new arrangement is due to security concerns.

It's quite dangerous to be there alone, so if they don't have to be there it's not allowed, because they might find themselves in danger if they go in,said Ben Ruby. In 2002, in response to the outbreak one year earlier of the Palestinian intifada, or terrorist war against the Jewish state, the Israeli government constructed its security barrier blocking off the West Bank from Jewish population zones. The route of the fence also cut into northern and eastern Jerusalem, incorporating Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis on the so-called Palestinian side. Israel recaptured northern and eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians, however, have claimed eastern Jerusalem as a future capital. About 244,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem, mostly in eastern neighborhoods, out of a total population of 724,000, the majority Jewish.Jews lived in Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis years before the establishment of Israel in 1948, but they were violently expelled during deadly Arab riots in 1929.Jordan, together with other Arab countries, attacked Israel after its founding in 1948 and administered the three Jerusalem neighborhoods as well as all of eastern Jerusalem following an armistice agreement. In 1967, Jordan attacked again, and Israel liberated the entire city of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. During the period of Jordanian control, some new construction took place, including in areas previously purchased by Jews.The recent barring of Jews from northern Jerusalem sections apparently coincides with an Israeli government decision the past year to allow the PA some presence in Jerusalem.

Last June, WND exclusively reported then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert allowed the PA to hold an official meeting in Jerusalem to discuss dealing with expected Palestinian sovereignty over key sections of the city. Dmitri Ziliani, a spokesman for the Jerusalem section of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, confirmed to WND the meeting was related to the activities and structure of Fatah's local command in some neighborhoods of Jerusalem.We were covering the best ways to improve our performance on the street and how we can be of service to the community,Ziliani said. Ziliani said the regular PA meetings in Jerusalem are, in part, held in anticipation of a future Palestinian state encompassing all of eastern Jerusalem. Our political program as Fatah dictates there will be no Palestinian state if these areas – all of east Jerusalem – are not included,Ziliani told WND. According to Israeli law, the PA cannot officially meet in Jerusalem. The PA previously maintained a de facto headquarters in Jerusalem, called Orient House, but the building was closed down by Israel in 2001 following a series of suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Israel said it had information indicating the House was used to plan and fund terrorism. Thousands of documents and copies of bank certificates and checks captured by Israel from Orient House – including many documents obtained by WND – showed the offices were used to finance terrorism, including direct payments to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group

U.S. Jewish group to blame for 'division' of Jerusalem?

Key land in Qalandiya and Kfar Akeb is owned by a U.S. Jewish group that over the years has allowed tens of thousands of Arabs to illegally squat on its land, resulting in the current Arab majority. The Jewish National Fund, or JNF, purchased the land in the early 1920s using Jewish donor funds for the specific purpose of Jewish settlement.The JNF lands have been utilized for the illegal construction of dozens of Arab apartment buildings, a refugee camp and a U.N. school. A previous tour of Qalandiya and Kfar Akeb found dozens of Arab apartment complexes, a Palestinian refugee camp and a U.N. school for Palestinians constructed on the land. According to officials in Israel's Housing Ministry, Arabs first constructed facilities illegally in Qalandiya and Kfar Akeb between 1948 and 1967, prior to the 1967 Six-Day War during which Israel retook control of the entire city of Jerusalem. Qalandiya, still owned by JNF, came under the management of the Israeli government's Land Authority in the late 1960s. Ministry officials say the bulk of illegal Arab construction in Qalandiya occurred in the past 20 years, with construction of several new Arab apartment complexes taking place in just the past two years. Neither the Israeli government nor JNF took any concrete measures to stop the illegal building, which continues today with at least one apartment complex in Qalandiya under construction.

Land in another Jerusalem' neighborhood, Shoafat, which has an estimated value of $3 million, was also purchased by JNF in the early 1900s and fell under the management of the Israel Land Authority about 40 years ago. Much of the illegal Arab construction in Shoafat took place in the past 15 years, with some apartment complexes built as late as 2004. In Qalandiya and Shoafat, Israel's security fence cordons off the Arab sections of the JNF lands from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem.

Internal JNF documents obtained by WND outline illegal Arab construction on the Jewish-owned land. A December 2000 survey of Qalandiya summarized on JNF stationery and signed by a JNF worker, states, In a lot of the plots I find Arabs are living and building illegally and also working the JNF land without permission.The JNF survey goes on to document illegal construction of Arab apartment complexes and the U.N. school under the property management of Israel's Land Authority.

THE RADICAL SODOMITE RAINBOW GROUP INFILTRATE GIRL SCOUTS.

NOT YOUR MOTHER'S AMERICA Girl Scouts exposed: Lessons in lesbianism
Communists, radical feminists cited as role models for troops May 17, 2009
7:57 pm Eastern By Chelsea Schilling 2009 WorldNetDaily

When many parents think of Girl Scouts, they imagine young girls in uniform selling Thin Mints and Tagalong cookies – not learning about stone labyrinths, world peace, global warming, yoga, avatars, smudging incense, Zen gardens and feminist, communist and lesbian role models.But that's exactly what many of 2.7 million Girl Scouts will learn about with a new curriculum called Journeys released last year. Patti Garibay spent nearly two decades in Girl Scouts – six years as a girl member and 13 years as a volunteer. She was also a recruiter, camp coordinator and area delegate winning outstanding leader and volunteer in both councils in which she served. In Garibay's words, she bled green.But in 1993 when Girl Scouts USA decided to make God optional in its program at the national convention in Minneapolis, an idea known as Proposal 3: Flexibility in Spiritual Wording,Garibay chose to leave the organization. I had always used Girl Scouts as part of my life's ministry, modeling my faith while serving girls,she told WND.However as this change became policy, mandates were made against Christmas caroling, praying at meetings and singing hymns. I had a true moral dilemma and felt that I could not uphold the GSUSA's rules and remain a Christian never denying my Lord.In the Girl Scout curriculum, the organization's promise now includes an asterisk with the following disclaimer: Girl Scouts of the USA makes no attempt to define or interpret the word God in the Girl Scout Promise. It looks to individual members to establish for themselves the nature of their spiritual beliefs. When making the Girl Scout Promise, individuals may substitute wording appropriate to their own spiritual beliefs for the word God.Garibay said it appears that Girl Scouts has taken a stance toward religion – the religion of the New Age – despite its proclaimed secular scouting program. WND asked Girl Scouts USA spokeswoman Michelle Tompkins if the organization is shifting its focus toward a New Age agenda. Read how America is being sold unwittingly on embracing moral decline in The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom.

No, Girl Scouts isn't headed into a New Age direction,she said.We're just looking for new ways to get through to girls.WND reviewed the following books in the Girl Scouts' new Journeys curriculum: Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along. In Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along, girls from the sixth to the eighth grade will read a quote from Buddha and be encouraged to explore mazes and stone or dirt labyrinths – symbols rooted in pagan mythology and popular within the New Age movement as meditation tools.They will be briefly introduced to Polish poet Anna Swir, known for her feminist and erotic poems, and Jane Addams, an ardent feminist and pacifist who received a Nobel Peace Prize. The text features a quote from Harriet Woods, former president of the National Women's Political Caucus – a bipartisan group that endorses pro-abortion female candidates who run for public office.To cope with bullying, girls as young as 11 are encouraged to take a peace break, make a Zen garden, take martial arts, do yoga and visit a website to learn the sun salutation poses. The book features a strong emphasis on feminism and world peace, concluding with the following message: Life is a maze. Navigate its twists and turns and you'll find true friendships, meaningful relationships, and lots of confidence to boot. So, go ahead, enter the maze. The goal is peace – for you, your world, and the planet, too. Garibay said,Placing an asterisk by the word God in the Girl Scout promise in an effort to be tolerant, yet promoting Eastern mysticism through Zen gardens and Buddha writings hardly seems tolerant to those who believe in Christianity.

Girltopia

In the next age group, for teens in the ninth and tenth grades, girls are taught about wage disparities between the sexes, and a lack of assets and senior management positions held by women.Girltopia poses the questions,When women don't earn enough, what happens to their children? and How could everyone help create a Girltopia?

Asked what the purpose of including a message of inequality served in the Girl Scout curriculum, Tompkins explained:It's to show girls what's going on in the country and have them be part of the dialogue. A lot of girls just aren't aware of what's going on. I think that specific topic might be new this year, but in the broader scheme of things, it's not that new. I'm sure it's something that came up in the 1920s as well. Girls Scouting has been around since before women had the right to vote, so I'm sure these discussions were always part of this. The text praises Renaissance author Sir Thomas More for his book Utopia,Mary Cavendish for her book A New World: The Blazing World about a utopian kingdom and 24-year Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood and feminist author Sheri S. Tepper for her novel,The Gate to Women's Country.Girltopia encourages girls to let songs inspire you, and as some examples, it provides lyrics to songs such as Independent Women, part 1 by Destiny's Child; Hammer and a Nail by the Indigo Girls – an out lesbian rock band; and Imagine by John Lennon. The curriculum also asks girls to create an avatar to represent the ideal you in Girltopia and features Wild Geese,a short poem by lesbian poet Mary Oliver.

This book was so depressing that I don't know what I would have done as a teen reading it,Garibay said.The sense of hopelessness abounds in Girltopia.The positivity, the enthusiasm and the vigor of youth is completely destroyed by data found to further the Girl Scout USA's feminist agenda. It plants seeds of despair and hopelessness in today's girls.Girltopia also features a section on ethics and asks, What are your ethical standards based on? Girls must check all of the following answers that apply: Whatever does the most good and least harm ,Whatever treats everyone as fairly and equally as possible ,Whatever is best for most people in the community,Whatever is consistent with your character,Although not everyone shares the same sense of personal ethics, most people in the world have many ethical principles in common,it states.The hollow toll of moral relativism is throughout these books, Garibay said.The girls are left up to their own feelings in making decisions. This is not age appropriate for girls, nor is it what girls want to be forced to do. They want to know right from wrong.Your Voice Your World: The Power of Advocacy.When teens reach their junior and senior years in high school, they begin a Girl Scouts curriculum called Your Voice Your World: The Power of Advocacy. It encourages young women to begin raising their voices as advocates and follow the examples of other young people who are speaking out on causes such as global warming, universal health care, racism and child poverty.One question asks,What policies is our city putting in place to combat global warming? Teens are then asked to generate a list of causes they are passionate about. One example suggests girls propose new environmental protection laws for waterways in your state.The text encourages Girl Scouts to take their ideas and list steps necessary to accomplish goals on advocacy charts. It provides the following suggestion for a cause:

I worry about all the waste in using plastic bags and how their use in my community contributes to global warming. One example is the supermarket – do we really need to be using all those plastic bags? Girls are encouraged to read the bottom of each page to discover a Voice for Good,or female advocates who are meant to be role models. Of more than 50 women listed, only three are women who are known for their faith: Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and Mother Teresa. Their religions are only briefly mentioned, if at all.Many of the female role models mentioned are feminists, lesbians, existentialists, communists and Marxists. Examples include: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn .Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: labor leader, activist, feminist, founding member of ACLU and chairwoman of the American Communist Party Luisa Moreno: labor leader, social activist, member of the Communist Party, married to delegate of the Socialist Party of America Simone de Beauvoir: existentialist, French author of feminist books including The Second Sex,key player in France's women's liberation movement ,Rigoberta Menchu: Guatemalan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who joined Marxist guerrilla movement ,Emily Greene Balch: writer, feminist, recipient of Nobel Peace Prize, pacifist who campaigned against U.S. involvement in World War I, former editor of The Nation Billie Jean King: retired tennis champion, sued for palimony by lesbian girlfriend while she was still married, first prominent professional athlete to come out as homosexual Billy Jean King (photo: Stanford University)Ethel Mary Smyth: English composer, lesbian, leader of the women's suffrage movement, member of Women's Social and Political Union Ethel Mary Smyth

Jeanette Rankin: first woman elected to the House of Representatives, R-Montana, pacifist who voted against U.S. entry into World War I and World War II, founding vice-president of American Civil Liberties Union and founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom ,Carrie Chapman Catt: feminist politician, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, founded the League of Women Voters, anti-war activist ,Frances Perkins: teacher and U.S. secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet, helped write New Deal legislation including minimum-wage laws, allegedly had lesbian relationship with Mary Harriman Rumsey ,Rachel Carson: marine biologist and nature writer, author of Silent Spring (1962), spurring a nationwide ban on DDT, inspiration from book led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, reported to have had lesbian relationship with Dorothy Freeman ,Barbara Jordan: member of House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979, first black woman to deliver keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 1976, supported Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 requiring banks to lend to poor and minority communities. The Houston Chronicle reported Jordan had lesbian partner of more than 20 years named Nancy Earl Martina Navratilova

Martina Navratilova: former World No. 1 women's tennis champion from Czechoslovakia who fled communism, came out openly as a lesbian and admitted to having crushes on other female tennis players, spoke before the National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights, was 2000 recipient of National Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign ,Shirley Chisholm: member of the House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983, feminist, first black woman elected to Congress, first major-party black candidate for president of the United States, founding member of the National Organization of Women, helped pass Title IX, homosexual advocate ,Pauli Murray: feminist, lawyer, writer, poet, teacher, ordained priest, author of the 1950 book States' Laws on Race and Color,founder of the Women's Rights Law Reporter, co-founder of the National Organization for Women.Betty Friedan,Betty Friedan: feminist writer on Girl Scouts' board of directors, best remembered for 1963 book The Feminine Mystique,primary founder and first president of the National Organization for Women, founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, strong opponent of abortion laws, founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, or NARAL, active in Marxist circles, spoke in favor of homosexual rights.Dolores Huerta: co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chávez, directed the UFW's national grape boycott, serves on boards of People for the American Way and Feminist Majority Foundation, spoke in favor of gay and lesbian rights, marched in GLBT parades, served as Human Rights Campaign board member

Bette Midler: singer, actress, self-proclaimed advocate for gay liberation movement

Other Voices for Good include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – a former Brownie and Girl Scout – and TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey. WND asked Tompkins why Girl Scouts USA has chosen to focus on lesbians, radical feminists and controversial figures as role models instead of other significant female pioneers. There was a council of people who worked on the Journeys.They tried to figure out who would be profiled,she said.It came out from lots of discussions. I think the change the world message has been part of Girl Scouts since the beginning. It's not a radical agenda at all.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – former Girl Scout.She continued, I think the concept of change is incredibly radical, but it's about making the world better and being conscious and respecting authority. There was a wide cross-section of women mentioned in the Journeys' that came about from the discussions.Readers will find very few men in the book, with the exception of a brief mention of Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations. Men are not seen favorably but, rather a force to diminish and avoid,Garibay said. It alarmed me that women of faith were only mentioned in these few cases despite their many contributions. Not one pro-life woman was mentioned, nor was a missionary or conservative public figure.Tompkins said she doesn't know why there are only three women of faith mentioned, but she said, Girl Scouts isn't a religious organization, so that could be part of it.She continued,I would imagine we keep everything open when it comes to faith. I know no doors are ever shut with us. It's sort of like the way that God can never be taken out of the Girl Scout promise and law – in writing.Your Voice Your World finishes by encouraging teens who are bitten by the advocacy bug to pursue some of the following careers:

ambassador, congressperson, artist, filmmaker, labor union organizer, fund raiser/grant writer, lawyer, lobbyist, mediator, professor, public affairs officer, researcher, religious leader, senator, web master, blogger, journalist …
Tompkins told WND a new Journeys book will be arriving this month called It's Your Planet, Love It.She said the text has a strong environmental focus.

Other controversy

As WND columnist Jane Chastain reported, at the 51st Girl Scout National Council Session and Convention last year, the organization did away with its traditional flag ceremony and the playing of the National Anthem. Flags of all nations were brought in to the tune of September by Earth, Wind and Fire. The Girl Scouts also made headlines in recent years after it refused to adopt what it called a discrimination policy against homosexual leaders. In a 2000 National Review Online editorial titled The Cookie Crumbles, author Kathryn Jean Lopez cites the 1997 book On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience. She said it is filled with coming-of-age stories sparked by gay encounters in the Girl Scouts.On My Honor includes an essay titled All I Really Need to Know About Being a Lesbian I Learned at Girl Scout Camp. Lopez reported that staffers writing in the book claim that roughly one in three of the Girls Scouts' paid professional staff is lesbian.Kathy Cloninger.According to news reports, Planned Parenthood has also had some involvement with Girl Scouts in recent years. In Waco, Texas in 2004, a Girl Scout council cosponsored a sex education program with Planned Parenthood and honored PP Executive Director Pam Smallwood. On NBC's Today Show in 2004, Kathy Cloninger, CEO of Girls Scouts USA, admitted that it partners with Planned Parenthood across the country to bring information based sex education programs to girls.In response to the interview, American Life League's STOPP International surveyed 350 councils to ask if they had any involvement with Planned Parenthood. While 80 percent refused to answer, 17 councils reportedly admitted to associating with Planned Parenthood, and 49 said they don't.Garibay told WND Girl Scouts USA is not the same program most women remember.

Originally scouting was about citizenship, service and life skills,she said. The founder, Juliette Lowe, wanted girls to do their duty to God and their country. She encouraged girls to activate, not meditate. Now the Girl Scouts want to move into self-discovery and lobbyist training.An alternative to Girl Scouts,Garibay said she had enough after she heard about sexuality camps for Girl Scouts.I realized it was no longer my mom's Girl Scouts,she said.We thought we would have a little alternate scouting group for our daughters here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Word got out, and we started getting calls from across the nation from people asking to be a part of it.

Garibay founded a group called American Heritage Girls in 1995, and she has encouraging news for families who do not want to participate in the Girl Scouts' new direction:Do not despair. There are still some scouting organizations holding onto traditional values, she said.Now the organization has 8,000 members and is growing rapidly – by more than 20 percent in the last year. American Heritage Girls has also started a Trailblazer program that allows girls who are not in troop areas to be members and work on establishing their own troops. American Heritage Girls has expanded internationally, with troops in Japan, Germany and Italy.American Heritage Girls' mission is to build women of integrity through dedication to service, spiritual growth, servant leadership, goal setting through merit badge and advancement opportunities and teamwork through its outdoor program.American Heritage Girls.Parents won't find an emphasis on New Age spirituality, radical feminism, homosexual role models and combatting global warming at American Heritage Girls. Garibay said she has a higher goal for her troops.Instead, she said, Girls in AHG learn about their God-given gifts, their identity in Christ and the importance of seeking His will for their life.

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS MON MAY 18,2009

09:30 AM +10.25
10:00 AM +107.76
10:30 AM +130.78
11:00 AM +159.45
11:30 AM +151.49
12:00 PM +165.43
12:30 PM +164.55
01:00 PM +187.65
01:30 PM +175.30
02:00 PM +176.98
02:30 PM +167.66
03:00 PM +207.48
03:30 PM +194.74
04:00 PM +235.44 8504.08

S&P 500 909.71 +26.83

NASDAQ 1732.36 +52.22

GOLD 922.50 -8.80

OIL 59.23 +2.89

TSE 300 HOLIDAY

CDNX HOLIDAY

S&P/TSX/60 HOLIDAY

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -5.79%
S&P -2.26%
Nasdaq +6.54%
TSX Advances 695,declines 810,unchanged 272,Volume 1,773,238,177.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 363,Declines 408,Unchanged 326,Volume 262,331,039.

Dow +101 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +10 points at low today.
Dow +159 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $930.70.OIL opens at $57.76 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +10 points at low today so far.
Dow +188 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 2,885,declines 694,unchanged 73,New Highs 14,New Lows 40.
Volume 2,622,312,245.
NASDAQ Advances 1,940,declines 659,unchanged 94,New highs 18,New Lows 13.
Volume 758,229,036.
TSX Advances ,declines ,unchanged ,Volume .(HOLIDAY)
TSX Venture Exchange Advances ,Declines ,Unchanged ,Volume .(HOLIDAY)

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +10 points at low today.
Dow +235 points at high today.
Dow +2.85% today Volume 288,276,433.
Nasdaq +3.11% today Volume 1,881,611,418.
S&P 500 +3.04% today Volume N/A

RECORD LOWS DOW
-Sept 30,1996 5,882.17
-Oct 30,1996 5,993.23
-Nov 6,1996 6,177.71
-Dec 16,1996 6,268.35
-Apr 15,1997 6,587.16
-Apr 21,1997 6,660.21
-Apr 28,1997 6,783.02
-May 1,1997 6,976.48
-May 7,1997 7,085.65

RECORD LOWS S&P 500
-Sept 5,1996 649.44
-Sept 6,1996 655.68
-Sept 11,1996 667.28
-Sept 12,1996 671.13
-Oct 1,1996 689.08
-Oct 28,1996 697.26
-Nov 4,1996 706.73
-Nov 5,1996 714.14
-Dec 17,1996 726.04

PHOENIX TV REPORTS ON ILLUMINATI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tk-dSxwah8&feature=player_embedded

AMERICORPS PROPAGANDA AD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhUMDFMf1fQ&feature=player_embedded

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER Google joins Bilderberg cabal,Rich, powerful meet secretly in Greece May 17, 2009 10:04 pm Eastern 2009 WorldNetDaily

Astir Palace Hotel Resort, reported site of this year's Bilderberg Group meeting

WASHINGTON – The latest meeting of the secretive, half-century-old Bilderberg Group concluded yesterday outside of Athens with a few arrests, but little news.

Demonstrators from the political left and right shouted outside the Astir Palace hotel letting some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world know they weren't entirely welcome. A photographer for the London Guardian was briefly taken into custody while police insisted he delete pictures he took outside the hotel, which was closed to the public during the three-day meeting. A police officer told the Associated Press the resort was being protected by hundreds of police, navy commandos, coast guard speedboats and two F-16 fighter planes. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with his department's regulations. Attendees this year reportedly included U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner; Larry Summers, the director of the U.S. National Economic Council; Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan; World Bank President Robert Zoellick; European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. Get the inside story of the super-secret group of globalist insiders. Learn from author who penetrated Bilderbergers

Bilderberg attendance is by invitation only. And if you want an invitation, you'd better be extremely rich or extremely powerful. New invitees reportedly include the nouveau riche Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt. Henry Kissinger, a lynchpin of continuity with other secretive internationalist groups including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, is a regular attendee, as is Wall Street Journal Editor Paul Gigot. Former British cabinet minister, Lord Denis Healey, one of the founders of the group, explained the purpose of the group to Jon Ronson of the Guardian: Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.

Meanwhile, Daniel Estulin, author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, said before the confab the main topic of the agenda for this meeting was the world economy. He said his sources inside the group told him the movers and shakers would be discussing two options – either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline, and poverty ... or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.As WND has reported, The Bilderberg Group meets at luxury hotels and resorts throughout the world. Last year's conference was held at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Va. WND made an effort to gain entry, but was denied. Every four years the conference is held in the U.S. or Canada. The group has an office located in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands. The highly secretive meeting is off limits to press, but past reports from sources that have managed to penetrate the high-security meetings have stated that the meetings emphasize a globalist agenda and dismiss national sovereignty as regressive. The BBC declared it to be one of the most influential organizations in the world. It's officially described as a private gathering,BBC reported,but with a guest list including the heads of European and American corporations, political leaders and a few intellectuals, it's one of the most influential organizations on the planet.Attendees of the Bilderberg conference are not allowed to speak a word of what is discussed in the meeting outside of the group. The group has no website and no minutes are kept of the meetings to ensure secrecy.Last year, however, the Bilderberg Group made a press release available listing topics of discussion and providing a general overview of the gathering.

Approximately 140 participants will attend, of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America,the release stated.About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.This year's event was the 57th annual gathering of the Bilderberg Group, which began meeting in 1954. A scheduled meeting in 1976 was canceled, but if added to the tally, leads some to count this year's gathering as the 58th.

AmeriCorps Paramilitary Propaganda Ad Infowars May 17, 2009

In the distinctly militaristic propaganda here, the AmeriCorps organization City Year adopts Obama’s change mantra and remixes it with clips of Mohandas Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King, César Chávez, and Mother Teresa. City Year’s militaristic propaganda PSA.City Year’s pitch is obviously directed at middle school and high school students. In the ad, young people are assembled on a parade ground in bright red jackets. According to a Wikipedia write-up on the organization, corps members start their day in an event called unity rally. One aspect of unity rally is PT or physical training. Some of the exercises may include jumping jacks and lunges. When PT is completed, Corps members read their sites official newspaper, called Daily or Weekly Briefings.Comparisons to the Jungsturm Adolf Hitler and Stalin’s Komsomol are unmistakable, especially in regard to the regimented physical training aspects of City Year.It should be noted that AmeriCorps is fully integrated into the homeland security apparatus. AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) is part of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).

Frank Morales writes (Homeland Defense: The Pentagon Declares War on America):

In the wake of 9/11, CNCS was fully integrated into homeland defense efforts. In March 2002, the Corporation issued a notice of availability of funds to strengthen communities and organizations in using service and volunteers to support homeland security.With an emphasis on public safety and freeing up police time, the grants offered under the announcement are to assist communities in getting involved in the war against terrorism on the home front.In the area of public safety the grants will help provide members to support police departments… in tasks and other functions that can be performed by non-sworn officers.Now mind you, the volunteers are not armed, nor can they make arrests, but they carry out vital tasks including organizing neighborhood watch groups…They also organize communities to identify and respond to crime and disorder problems…Obama has proposed arming these cadres. Recall his speech on July 2, 2008, when he said: We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the U.S. military. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Corporation has made funding available to organizations whose focus includes homeland security,declares the Virginia Commission for National and Community Service. AmeriCorps engages more than 70,000 Americans each year in intensive service to meet community needs in education, the environment, public safety, homeland security, and other areas,the IN.gov site states.

AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) is specifically tasked with homeland security, according to The United States Conference of Mayors.AmeriCorps NCCC, a residential, team-based program, offers approximately 1,300 young people between the ages of 18 to 24 the opportunity to serve their country for ten months on various projects. The primary focus of these are assisting in responding disaster relief and homeland security,reports Shannon Holmes. The NCCC are well positioned to leverage existing community efforts,according to the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and can make significant contributions to homeland security activities in American communities.NCCC programs may also meet homeland security needs, which the Corporation for National Service defines as engaging citizens and communities in preparedness and response to acts of terrorism and other disasters, explains the AmeriCorps State Concept Paper Guidelines. According to reports issued by the Department of Homeland Security, terrorism now stems from domestic rightwing extremists,not a far-flung al-Qaeda, and activities such as advocacy of the Second Amendment, pro-life activism, and the growing states’ rights movement threaten the fatherland.As noted on Alex Jones’ Infowars and Prison Planet websites last week, Homeland Security has captured the heretofore non-political Boy Scouts and turned it into a paramilitary organization. As the New York Times notes, Boy Scouts are now training to disarm military veterans. On April 21, Obama signed the Serve America Act,which will use $1.1 billion in earmarks from the 2010 budget to reauthorize and expand programs offered by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The Serve America Act,co-sponsored by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, intends to extend AmeriCorps membership from 75,000 to 250,000 by 2017. Although it’s likely that the recession and citizen goodwill have contributed to soaring numbers in national and international service organizations, it’s also just as likely that most people are just supporting a summoning from America’s new favorite man,writes the OhMyGov website.

The Nature of the Current Financial Crisis: The System is designed to exert Total Control over the Lives of Individuals,The Report from Iron Mountain Revisited
by Richard C. Cook Global Research, May 9, 2009

What impresses me in the current financial crisis is the near-total failure of so-called progressives to appreciate the magnitude of what is going on or the level of intelligence behind it. How many will say, for instance, that the crash was deliberately engineered by the creation, then destruction, of the investment bubbles of the last decade? When the financial system creates bubbles it drives up the cost of assets far beyond their true value in producing or storing wealth. When the bubbles burst the value of the assets plummets. Those with ready cash then buy them up on the cheap. When the dust settles more wealth has been concentrated in fewer hands. The rich get richer, and ordinary people are left in a deeper condition of indebtedness, poverty, and pressure to perform to the liking of the financial masters.

Progressives think the system needs to be reformed.Maybe the banking system needs to be re-regulated or even nationalized. Maybe it should be possible for families facing loss of their homes to get a lower monthly payment from a bankruptcy court. Maybe the government instead of the private sector should administer student loans.What we fail to acknowledge is that the system itself is totalitarian. This means that it is designed to exert total control over the lives of individuals. We are accustomed to use this label when thinking of anachronisms of history like communism or fascism. We do not understand that globalist finance capitalism and the government which protects, enables, or even regulates it are also totalitarian.What has happened in the last year as the financial system has seemingly gone belly-up, and is coming back only through massive government bailouts, is part of a pattern that has been around for decades if not centuries. How the controllers work was laid out in 1967 when Dial Press published a leaked copy of The Report from Iron Mountain. This was a study put together by a team of academics and analysts who met at the underground facility in New York that was home to the Hudson Institute.The report began by identifying war as the central organizing principle of society. It stated, War itself is the basic social system, within which other secondary modes of social organization conflict or conspire. It is the system which has governed most human societies of record, as it is today.The report said that,The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers. It said that any failure of will by the ruling class could lead to actual disestablishment of military institutions.The effect on the system would be, the report said,catastrophic.The appearance of the report caused a sensation when it came out at the onset of the Vietnam War. Officials within the government had no comment, and the report faded into history. But certain of its sections fit the situation in 2009 precisely.

This is because the report outlined the ways the civilian population of a developed nation could be controlled even in the absence of a large-scale war that disrupted their daily lives. One of these ways was defined as follows: A…possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies of society is the reintroduction, in some form consistent with modern technology and political process, of slavery….The development of a sophisticated form of slavery may be an absolute prerequisite for social control….(Cited in Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marrs, 2000.)We see the development of such a sophisticated form of slavery today. What else can a system be called that subjects the population to skyrocketing personal and household debt, a widening gap between the rich and everyone else, constant warfare justified as necessary to fight terrorism,erosion of personal freedoms, constantly expanding power allocated to the military and police, pervasive electronic eavesdropping, complete lack of accountability by politicians for their dishonesty and crimes, a mass media devoted solely to establishment propaganda, etc.None of this seems to be diminishing under the Barack Obama administration. Even the economic recovery Obama is attempting to engineer through massive Keynesian deficit spending is expected by economists to be another jobless one like that of 2002-2005. Of course the unemployed or those who fear unemployment are easy to control. And the permanent series of Asian land wars George W. Bush instigated for control of resources and geopolitical leverage against Russia and China continue unabated.None of this is accidental. As The Report from Iron Mountain made clear four decades ago, it’s what has been planned all along.

Richard C. Cook is a former federal analyst who writes on public policy issues. His book We Hold These Truths: the Hope of Monetary Reform is now available at www.tendrilpress.com. His website is www.richardccook.com.

MR FALSE CHRISTIAN OBAMA TRYS TO PUT ON A CHRISTIAN FACE IN HIS HIPPOCRITICAL SHEEPS CLOTHING.

Text of Obama's Notre Dame speech By The Associated Press – Sun May 17, 5:10 pm ET

Text of President Barack Obama's commencement address Sunday as the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., as delivered, as transcribed by the White House. The Rev. John Jenkins is the school's president. The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh is Jenkins' predecessor. Brennan Bollman is the class valedictorian.

Well, first of all, congratulations, Class of 2009. Congratulations to all the parents, the cousins — the aunts, the uncles — all the people who helped to bring you to the point that you are here today. Thank you so much to Father Jenkins for that extraordinary introduction, even though you said what I want to say much more elegantly. You are doing an extraordinary job as president of this extraordinary institution. Your continued and courageous — and contagious — commitment to honest, thoughtful dialogue is an inspiration to us all.Good afternoon. To Father Hesburgh, to Notre Dame trustees, to faculty, to family: I am honored to be here today. And I am grateful to all of you for allowing me to be a part of your graduation.And I also want to thank you for the honorary degree that I received. I know it has not been without controversy. I dont know if youre aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I'm only 1 for 2 as President. Father Hesburgh is 150 for 150. I guess that's better. So, Father Ted, after the ceremony, maybe you can give me some pointers to boost my average.I also want to congratulate the Class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. And since this is Notre Dame ...

(Speech is interrupted by anti-abortion protesters.)

We're fine, everybody. We're following Brennans adage that we dont do things easily. We're not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable sometimes.Now, since this is Notre Dame I think we should talk not only about your accomplishments in the classroom, but also in the competitive arena. No, dont worry, I'm not going to talk about that. We all know about this university's proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world — Bookstore Basketball.Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year's tournament, a team by the name of Hallelujah Holla Back. Congratulations. Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the Barack OBallers did not pull it out this year. So next year, if you need a 6-2 forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty-three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you sit today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare — periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.You, however, are not getting off that easy. You have a different deal. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and for the world — a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It's a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations — and a task that youre now called to fulfill.This generation, your generation is the one that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before the most recent crisis hit — an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day's work.

Your generation must decide how to save God's creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. Your generation must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity — diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family. And it's this last challenge that Id like to talk about today, despite the fact that Father John stole all my best lines. For the major threats we face in the 21st century — whether it's global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease — these things do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups.

Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and greater understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.Unfortunately, finding that common ground — recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a single garment of destiny — is not easy. And part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man — our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see here in this country and around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education that you've received here at Notre Dame is that you've had time to consider these wrongs in the world; perhaps recognized impulses in yourself that you want to leave behind. You've grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexing things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, bringing together men and women of principle and purpose — even accomplishing that can be difficult. The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved.

The question, then — the question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side? And of course, nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an e-mail from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the Illinois primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life — but that was not what was preventing him potentially from voting for me. What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my Web site — an entry that said I would fight right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose.The doctor said he had assumed I was a reasonable person, he supported my policy initiatives to help the poor and to lift up our educational system, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.Fair-minded words. After I read the doctor's letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him. And I didn't change my underlying position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my Web site. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that — when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe — that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.That's when we begin to say, Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let's reduce unintended pregnancies. Let's make adoption more available. Let's provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women.Those are things we can do. Now, understand — understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It's a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. A lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where differences of culture and religion and conviction can coexist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love.And I want to join him and Father John in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today's ceremony. You are an example of what Notre Dame is about. This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago — also with the help of the Catholic Church.You see, I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. And a group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed. And it was quite an eclectic crew — Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish and African American organizers, working-class black, white, and Hispanic residents — all of us with different experiences, all of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help — to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in these neighborhoods — perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I was really broke and they fed me. Perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn not just to the work with the church; I was drawn to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ. And at the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him or known of him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads — unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty and AIDS and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together, always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said,You can't really get on with preaching the Gospel until you've touched hearts and minds.My heart and mind were touched by him. They were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside in parishes across Chicago. And Id like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling. Now, you, Class of 2009, are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You'll be called to help restore a free market that's also fair to all who are willing to work. You'll be called to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or simply someone who insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communication than ever existed before. You'll hear talking heads scream on cable, and you'll read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and you will watch politicians pretend they know what they're talking about. Occasionally, you may have the great fortune of actually seeing important issues debated by people who do know what they're talking about — by well-intentioned people with brilliant minds and mastery of the facts. In fact, I suspect that some of you will be among those brightest stars. And in this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you've been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. In other words, stand as a lighthouse.But remember, too, that you can be a crossroads. Remember, too, that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It's the belief in things not seen. It's beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us. And those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

And this doubt should not push us away our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open and curious and eager to continue the spiritual and moral debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us even as we cling to our faith to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works and charity and kindness and service that moves hearts and minds. For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It's no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule — the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. The call to serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth. So many of you at Notre Dame — by the last count, upwards of 80 percent — have lived this law of love through the service you've performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. Brennan is just one example of what your class has accomplished. That's incredibly impressive, a powerful testament to this institution. Now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn't just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens — when people set aside their differences, even for a moment, to work in common effort toward a common goal; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another — then all things are possible.After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Now, Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the separate but equal doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God's children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the 12 resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of this commission. It included five whites and one African American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. So they worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. And finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame's retreat in Land OLakes, Wisconsin — where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal. And years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away — because life is not that simple. It never has been. But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family, the same fulfillment of a life well lived. Remember that in the end, in some way we are all fishermen.

If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations, Class of 2009. May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Empire Falls by Robert A. Pape
01.22.2009

AMERICA IS in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq War, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today’s world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration years as the death knell for American hegemony.

Since the cold war, the United States has maintained a vast array of overseas commitments, seeking to ensure peace and stability not just in its own neighborhood—the Americas—but also in Europe and Asia, along with the oil-rich Persian Gulf (as well as other parts of the world). Simply maintaining these commitments requires enormous resources, but in recent years American leaders have pursued far more ambitious goals than merely maintaining the status quo. The Bush administration has not just continued America’s traditional grand strategy, but pursued ambitious objectives in all three major regions at the same time—waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking to denuclearize North Korea and expanding America’s military allies in Europe up to the borders of Russia itself.

For nearly two decades, those convinced of U.S. dominance in the international system have encouraged American policy makers to act unilaterally and seize almost any opportunity to advance American interests no matter the costs to others, virtually discounting the possibility that Germany, France, Russia, China and other major powers could seriously oppose American military power. From public intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer and Niall Ferguson to neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Kagan, even to academicians like Dartmouth’s William Wohlforth and Stephen Brooks, all believe the principal feature of the post-cold-war world is the unchallengeable dominance of American power. The United States is not just the sole superpower in the unipolar-dominance school’s world, but is so relatively more powerful than any other country that it can reshape the international order according to American interests. This is simply no longer realistic.

For the past eight years, our policies have been based on these flawed arguments, while the ultimate foundation of American power—the relative superiority of the U.S. economy in the world—has been in decline since early on in the Bush administration. There is also good reason to think that, without deliberate action, the fall of American power will be more precipitous with the passage of time. To be sure, the period of U.S. relative decline has been, thus far, fairly short. A healthy appreciation of our situation by American leaders may lead to policies that could mitigate, if not rectify, further decline in the foreseeable future. Still, America’s shrinking share of world economic production is a fact of life and important changes in U.S. grand strategy are necessary to prevent the decline in America’s global position from accelerating.

Although the immediate problems of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda’s new sanctuary in western Pakistan, Iran’s continued nuclear program and Russia’s recent military adventure in Georgia are high-priority issues, solutions to each of them individually and all of them collectively will be heavily influenced by America’s reduced power position in the world. Most important, America’s declining power means that the unipolar world is indeed coming to an end, that major powers will increasingly have the strength to balance against U.S. policies they oppose and that the United States will increasingly face harsh foreign-policy choices. Like so many great powers that have come and gone before, our own hubris may be our downfall.

FROM ROME, Imperial China, Venice, Spain, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union to the United States today, the rise and fall of great nations has been driven primarily by relative economic strength. As Paul Kennedy so ably describes in his classic The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, the more international commitments a state has, the more its power matters and hence the more relative economic strength it needs.

Although scholars have long debated its nuances, the basic definition of power in international politics is simple: power is the aggregate resources a state has at its disposal to achieve its aims, the most important of which are to defend its national interests, both at home and abroad.1 But it is not only how much power a state has that matters. It is also how much power a state has relative to other states. This is true in any rough-and-tumble environment. A Ford Explorer is a powerful vehicle—unless it collides with a Mack Truck. In international politics, power does not ensure success. But, power certainly helps.

At any given moment, U.S. power is heavily dependent on the size and quality of its military forces and other current power assets. A successful grand strategy, however, must work for the long haul and so depends on the power a state is able to produce in the future.

Over time, America’s power is fundamentally a result of its economic strength. Productive capacity—defined by indicators such as wealth, technology and population size—is a prerequisite for building and modernizing military forces. The United States, like any state, may choose to vary the degree to which its productive capacities are used to create military assets. But it is the economy as a whole that constrains the choice. And the size of the economy relative to potential rivals ultimately determines the limits of power in international politics. Major assessments of this relative position have long turned heavily on a single statistic: America’s share of world economic product.

Percentage of world product (other measures).
Advocates of extending America’s unipolar dominance are well aware of the central importance of the economic foundations of American power and routinely present detailed statistics on the U.S. share of world product. The basic notion is simple: take U.S. domestic product in any year and divide it by the aggregate total of the gross domestic product of all states in the world. To measure gross domestic product, the unipolar-dominance school prefers to compare every country’s output in current-year U.S. dollars, a method that tends to show America is much further ahead of other countries than alternative measures. Indeed, the most recent call for America to exploit its hegemonic position (published in 2008) rests on the presumption of U.S. dominance based on the current-year dollar figures.2 By this metric, in 2006 the United States had 28 percent of world product while its nearest most likely competitor, China, had 6 percent. Looks pretty good for America, right?

Alas, single-year snapshots of America’s relative power are of limited value for assessing the sustainability of its grand strategy over many years. For grand-strategic concerns—especially how well the United States can balance its resources and foreign-policy commitments—the trajectory of American power compared to other states is of seminal importance.

For the sake of argument, let us start with the unipolar-dominance school’s preferred measure of American hegemony, but look at the trajectory of the data over time. According to GDP figures in current U.S. dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States increased its share of world production during the 1990s, reached its apogee in 2000, and then began to steadily lose ground during the eight years of the Bush administration, with its relative power ultimately falling by nearly a quarter in the first decade of the twenty-first century. At the same time, the relative power of China, the state many consider America’s most likely future rival, has grown consistently. If we look out as far as the IMF can see (2013), things get even worse—with the United States expected to continue declining and China to continue rising. The United States has been going through the first decade of the twenty-first century not stronger than before, but substantially weaker.

Uneven growth rates.
How good are the numbers? Economists commonly use two other methods to calculate GDP, constant-dollar calculations and purchasing power parity.3 Although each offers advantages and disadvantages, for our purposes what matters is that they form a lower bound of America’s relative decline. And regardless of the metric, the trend is the same. Again using IMF figures, Table 2 shows the trajectory of the share of world product for the United States and China using both alternative measures.

Simply put, the United States is now a declining power. This new reality has tremendous implications for the future of American grand strategy.

THE EROSION of the underpinnings of U.S. power is the result of uneven rates of economic growth between America, China and other states in the world. Despite all the pro-economy talk from the Bush administration, the fact is that since 2000, U.S. growth rates are down almost 50 percent from the Clinton years. This trajectory is almost sure to be revised further downward as the consequences of the financial crisis in fall 2008 become manifest.

As Table 3 shows, over the past two decades, the average rate of U.S. growth has fallen considerably, from nearly 4 percent annually during the Clinton years to just over 2 percent per year under Bush. At the same time, China has sustained a consistently high rate of growth of 10 percent per year—a truly stunning performance. Russia has also turned its economic trajectory around, from year after year of losses in the 1990s to significant annual gains since 2000.

Worse, America’s decline was well under way before the economic downturn, which is likely to only further weaken U.S. power. As the most recent growth estimates (November 2008) by the IMF make clear, although all major countries are suffering economically, China and Russia are expected to continue growing at a substantially greater rate than the United States.

True, the United States has not lost its position as the most innovative country in the world, with more patents each year than in all other countries combined. However, the ability to diffuse new technology—to turn chalkboard ideas into mass-produced applications—has been spreading rapidly across many parts of the globe, and with it the ultimate sources of state power—productive capacities.

GDP annual percent change 2007 to 2009.
America is losing its overwhelming technological dominance in the leading industries of the knowledge economy. In past eras—the age of iron and the age of steel—leading states retained their technological advantages for many decades.4 As Fareed Zakaria describes in his recent book, The Post-American World, technology and knowledge diffuse more quickly today, and their rapid global diffusion is a profound factor driving down America’s power compared to other countries. For instance, although the United States remains well ahead of China on many indicators of leading technology on a per capita basis, this grossly under-weights the size of the knowledge economy in China compared to America. Whereas in 2000, the United States had three times the computer sales, five times the internet users and forty times the broadband subscribers as China, in 2008, the Chinese have caught or nearly caught up with Americans in every category in the aggregate.5 The fact that the United States remains ahead of China on a per capita basis does matter—it means that China, with more than four times the U.S. population, can create many more knowledge workers in the future.

So, how much is U.S. decline due to the global diffusion of technology, U.S. economic weaknesses under Bush or China’s superior economic performance?

Although precise answers are not possible, one can gain a rough weighting of the factors behind America’s shrinking share of world production by asking a few simple counterfactual questions of the data. What would happen if we assumed that the United States grew during the Bush years at the same rate as during Clinton’s? What would have happened had the world continued on its same trajectory, but we assume China did not grow at such an astounding rate? Of course, these are merely thought experiments, which leave out all manner of technical problems like interaction effects. Still, these back-of-the-envelope approximations serve as useful starting points.

The answers are pretty straightforward. Had the American economy grown at the (Clinton) rate of 3.7 percent per year from 2000 to 2008 instead of the (Bush) rate of 2.2 percent, the United States would have had a bigger economy in absolute terms and would have lost less power relative to others. Assuming the rest of the world continued at its actual rate of growth, America’s share of world product in 2008 would have risen to 25.2 percent instead of its actual 23.1 percent.6 When compared to the share of gross world product lost by the United States from 2000 to 2008—7.7 percent—the assumed marginal gain of 2.1 percent of world product amounts to some 27 percent of the U.S. decline.

How much does China matter? Imagine the extreme case—that China had not grown, and the United States and the rest of the world continued along their actual path of economic growth since 2000. If so, America’s share of world product in 2008 would be 24.3 percent, or 1.2 percent more than today. When compared to the share of world product lost by the United States from 2000 to 2008—7.7 percent—the assumed marginal gain of 1.2 percent of world product accounts for about 15 percent of the U.S. decline.

Percentage of European product, 1890 to 1910, 1913 to 1938.
These estimates suggest that roughly a quarter of America’s relative decline is due to U.S. economic weaknesses (spending on the Iraq War, tax cuts, current-account deficits, etc.), a sixth to China’s superior performance and just over half to the spread of technology to the rest of the world. In other words, self-inflicted wounds of the Bush years significantly exacerbated America’s decline, both by making the decline steeper and faster and crowding out productive investment that could have stimulated innovation to improve matters.

All of this has led to one of the most significant declines of any state since the mid-nineteenth century. And when one examines past declines and their consequences, it becomes clear both that the U.S. fall is remarkable and that dangerous instability in the international system may lie ahead. If we end up believing in the wishful thinking of unipolar dominance forever, the costs could be far higher than a simple percentage drop in share of world product.

THE UNITED States has always prided itself on exceptionalism, and the U.S. downfall is indeed extraordinary. Something fundamental has changed. America’s relative decline since 2000 of some 30 percent represents a far greater loss of relative power in a shorter time than any power shift among European great powers from roughly the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War II. It is one of the largest relative declines in modern history. Indeed, in size, it is clearly surpassed by only one other great-power decline, the unexpected internal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Most disturbing, whenever there are major changes in the balance of power, conflict routinely ensues. Examining the historical record reveals an important pattern: the states facing the largest declines in power compared to other major powers were apt to be the target of opportunistic aggression. And this is surely not the only possible danger from relative decline; states on the power wane also have a history of launching preventive wars to strengthen their positions. All of this suggests that major relative declines are often accompanied by highly dangerous international environments. So, these declines matter not just in terms of economics, but also because of their destabilizing consequences.

Tsarist Russia presents the first case in point. Compared to other great powers on the European continent, its power declined the most during the mid-nineteenth century. And, it became the target of opportunistic aggression by the state with the greatest rising power, Great Britain, during the Crimean War (1854–1856). Indeed, the consequences of Russia’s decline were not fully recognizable until the war itself. Though Russia was still a great power and the war cost Britain and France more than expected, Russia emerged the clear loser. Russia’s inability to defend the status quo in the Crimea confirmed its grand-strategic weaknesses, and ultimately left it worse-off than had it anticipated its vulnerabilities and sought to negotiate a reduction in its military commitments to the region peacefully. Considering that the Crimea conflict left Russia with fairly gaping wounds, and that even its slow 10 percent decline in relative power over twenty years left the country bruised and battered, one might wonder how our far more rapid descent might play out.

Percentage of world product.
Meanwhile, similar destabilization occurred in the two decades before World War I and before World War II, when France and Great Britain were declining European powers. In both instances, France and Britain became targets of opportunistic aggression by one of the strongest rising powers in the region: Germany. And as a small cottage industry of scholarship suggests, Germany’s fairly modest relative declines compared to Russia prior to World War I and the Soviet Union prior to World War II encouraged German leaders to wage preventive wars. Again, these declines occurred as another power was concomitantly rising (Germany in the case of France and Britain, and Russia—later the Soviet Union—relative to Germany). Of course, this only served to increase the danger. But again, these rises and falls were less precipitous than America’s current losses, and our descent appears far trickier to navigate.

As we look to address our current fall from grace, lest we forget, the United States faced two major declines of its power during the cold war as well. Neither was without risk. The first occurred shortly after World War II, when the devastation of the Soviet, European and many Asian economies, combined with the increasingly productive American economy, left the United States with a far larger share of gross world product—41 percent in 1948—than it even possessed in the age of unipolar dominance beginning in 1991. As the war-torn economies recovered, U.S. share of world product fell 20 percent by 1961 while that of its main rival, the Soviet Union, grew by 167 percent. This relative American decline corresponds to the height of U.S.-Soviet cold-war rivalry in Europe and Asia. Eight of the nine U.S.-Soviet nuclear crises occurred from 1948–1962, all of which involved efforts by the Soviet Union or its allies to revise the political status quo in their favor7—that is, all could be reasonably interpreted as instances in which the United States or its allies became the targets of opportunistic aggression.

The second major U.S. relative decline occurred from 1970 to 1980, when the U.S. share of world product fell 27 percent. This decade brought with it challenges to America’s position in the world. This was especially true toward the end of the decade with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution, which collectively increased concern about Soviet dominance of Persian Gulf oil. However, the 1970s was mainly a period of détente between the cold-war protagonists, which corresponds to the fact that the shares of world product for both the United States and the Soviet Union were in decline. In other words, it is reasonable to think that America’s decline in the 1970s did not lead to more significant trouble for the United States because its main rival was descending even faster.

Clearly, major shifts in the balance of power in the international system often lead to instability and conflict. And America’s current predicament is far more severe. This time, our relative decline of 32 percent is accompanied, not by an even-steeper decline of our near-peer competitor, but rather by a 144 percent increase in China’s relative position. Further, the rapid spread of technology and technological breakthroughs means that one great discovery does not buoy an already-strong state to decades-long predominance. And with a rising China—with raw resources of population, landmass and increasing adoption of leading technology—a true peer competitor is looming. America’s current, rapid domestic economic decline is merely accelerating our own downfall.

The distinct quality of a system with only one superpower is that no other single state is powerful enough to balance against it. A true global hegemon is more powerful still—stronger than all second-ranked powers acting as members of a counterbalancing coalition seeking to contain the unipolar leader. By these standards, America’s relative decline is fundamentally changing international politics, and is fundamentally different from Russia circa 1850 and Great Britain circa 1910.

In current-U.S.-dollar terms—the preferred measure of the unipolar-dominance school—the United States has already fallen far from being a global hegemon and unipolarity itself is waning, since China will soon have as much economic potential to balance the United States as did the Soviet Union during the cold war.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the United States was indeed not only stronger than any other state individually, but its power relative to even the collective power of all other major states combined grew from 1990 to 2000. Although the growth was small, America almost reached the crucial threshold of 50 percent of major-power product necessary to become a true global hegemon. So it is understandable that we were lulled into a sense of security, believing we could do as we wished, whenever and wherever we wished. The instability and danger of the cold war quickly became a distant memory.

Near the time of the Iraq War, it would have required virtually every major power to actively oppose the United States in order to assemble a counterbalancing coalition that could approximate America’s potential power. Under the circumstances, hard, military balancing against the United States was not a serious possibility. So, it is not surprising that major powers opted for soft-balancing measures—relying on institutional, economic and diplomatic tools to oppose American military power. And yet we are beginning to see the conflict of history repeat itself.

Even with less relative power, in the run-up to the Iraq War, people grossly underrated the ability of Germany, France, Russia and China, along with important regional powers like Turkey, to soft balance against the United States; for instance, to use the United Nations to delay, complicate and ultimately deny the use of one-third of U.S. combat power (the Fourth Infantry Division) in the opening months of the Iraq War. This is not yet great-power war of the kind seen in centuries past, but it harkens the instability that future unilateral efforts may trigger.

The balance of world power circa 2008 and 2013 shows a disturbing trend. True, the United States remains stronger than any other state individually, but its power to stand up to the collective opposition of other major powers is falling precipitously. Though these worlds depict potential power, not active counterbalancing coalitions, and this type of alliance may never form, nonetheless, American relative power is declining to the point where even subsets of major powers acting in concert could produce sufficient military power to stand a reasonable chance of successfully opposing American military policies.

Indeed, if present trends continue to 2013 and beyond, China and Russia, along with any one of the other major powers, would have sufficient economic capacity to mount military opposition at least as serious as did the Soviet Union during the cold war. And it is worth remembering that the Soviet Union never had more than about half the world product of the United States, which China alone is likely to reach in the coming decade. The faults in the arguments of the unipolar-dominance school are being brought into sharp relief. The world is slowly coming into balance. Whether or not this will be another period of great-power transition coupled with an increasing risk of war will largely depend on how America can navigate its decline. Policy makers must act responsibly in this new era or risk international opposition that poses far greater costs and far greater dangers.

A COHERENT grand strategy seeks to balance a state’s economic resources and its foreign-policy commitments and to sustain that balance over time. For America, a coherent grand strategy also calls for rectifying the current imbalance between our means and our ends, adopting policies that enhance the former and modify the latter.

Clearly, the United States is not the first great power to suffer long-term decline—we should learn from history. Great powers in decline seem to almost instinctively spend more on military forces in order to shore up their disintegrating strategic positions, and some like Germany go even further, shoring up their security by adopting preventive military strategies, beyond defensive alliances, to actively stop a rising competitor from becoming dominant.

For declining great powers, the allure of preventive war—or lesser measures to merely firmly contain a rising power—has a more compelling logic than many might assume. Since Thucydides, scholars of international politics have famously argued that a declining hegemon and rising challenger must necessarily face such intense security competition that hegemonic war to retain dominance over the international system is almost a foregone conclusion. Robert Gilpin, one of the deans of realism who taught for decades at Princeton, believed that the first and most attractive response to a society’s decline is to eliminate the source of the problem . . . [by] what we shall call a hegemonic war.

Yet, waging war just to keep another state down has turned out to be one of the great losing strategies in history. The Napoleonic Wars, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, German aggression in World War I, and German and Japanese aggression in World War II were all driven by declining powers seeking to use war to improve their future security. All lost control of events they thought they could control. All suffered ugly defeats. All were worse-off than had they not attacked.

As China rises, America must avoid this great-power trap. It would be easy to think that greater American military efforts could offset the consequences of China’s increasing power and possibly even lead to the formation of a multilateral strategy to contain China in the future. Indeed, when China’s economic star began to rise in the 1990s, numerous voices called for precisely this, noting that on current trajectories China would overtake the United States as the world’s leading economic power by 2050.8 Now, as that date draws nearer—indeed, current-dollar calculations put the crossover point closer to 2040—and with Beijing evermore dependent on imported oil for continued economic growth, one might think the case for actively containing China is all the stronger.

Absent provocative military adventures by Beijing, however, U.S. military efforts to contain the rising power are most likely doomed to failure. China’s growth turns mainly on domestic issues—such as shifting the workforce from rural to urban areas—that are beyond the ability of outside powers to significantly influence. Although China’s growth also depends on external sources of oil, there is no way to exploit this vulnerability short of obviously hostile alliances (with India, Indonesia, Taiwan and Japan) and clearly aggressive military measures (controlling the sea-lanes from the Persian Gulf to Asia) that together could deny oil to China. Any efforts along these lines would likely backfire—and only exacerbate America’s problems, increasing the risk of counterbalancing.

Even more insidious is the risk of overstretch. This self-reinforcing spiral escalates current spending to maintain increasingly costly military commitments, crowding out productive investment for future growth.

Today, the cold-war framework of significant troop deployments to Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf is coming unglued. We cannot afford to keep our previous promises. With American forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and mounting troubles in Iran and Pakistan, the United States has all but gutted its military commitments to Europe, reducing our troop levels far below the one hundred thousand of the 1990s. Nearly half have been shifted to Iraq and elsewhere. Little wonder that Russia found an opportunity to demonstrate the hollowness of the Bush administration’s plan for expanding NATO to Russia’s borders by scoring a quick and decisive military victory over Georgia that America was helpless to prevent. If a large-scale conventional war between China and Taiwan broke out in the near future, one must wonder whether America would significantly shift air and naval power away from its ongoing wars in the Middle East in order to live up to its global commitments. If the United States could not readily manage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, could it really wage a protracted struggle in Asia as well? And as the gap between America’s productive resources and global commitments grows, why will others pass up opportunities to take advantage of America’s overstretched grand strategy?

Since the end of the cold war, American leaders have consistently claimed the ability to maintain a significant forward-leaning military presence in the three major regions of the globe and, if necessary, to wage two major regional wars at the same time. The harsh reality is that the United States no longer has the economic capacity for such an ambitious grand strategy. With 30 percent of the world’s product, the United States could imagine maintaining this hope. Nearing 20 percent, it cannot.

Yet, just withdrawing American troops from Iraq is not enough to put America’s grand strategy into balance. Even assuming a fairly quick and problem-free drawdown, the risks of instability in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region are likely to remain for many years to come. Further, even under the most optimistic scenarios, America is likely to remain dependent on imported oil for decades. Together, these factors point toward the Persian Gulf remaining the most important region in American grand strategy.

So, as Europe and Asia continue to be low-order priorities, Washington must think creatively and look for opportunities to make strategic trades. America needs to share the burden of regional security with its allies and continue to draw down our troop levels in Europe and Asia, even considering the attendant risks. The days when the United States could effectively solve the security problems of its allies in these regions almost on its own are coming to an end. True, spreading defense burdens more equally will not be easy and will be fraught with its own costs and risks. However, this is simply part of the price of America’s declining relative power.

The key principle is for America to gain international support among regional powers like Russia and China for its vital national-security objectives by adjusting less important U.S. policies. For instance, Russia may well do more to discourage Iran’s nuclear program in return for less U.S. pressure to expand NATO to its borders.

And of course America needs to develop a plan to reinvigorate the competitiveness of its economy. Recently, Harvard’s Michael Porter issued an economic blueprint to renew America’s environment for innovation. The heart of his plan is to remove the obstacles to increasing investment in science and technology. A combination of targeted tax, fiscal and education policies to stimulate more productive investment over the long haul is a sensible domestic component to America’s new grand strategy. But it would be misguided to assume that the United States could easily regain its previously dominant economic position, since the world will likely remain globally competitive.

To justify postponing this restructuring of its grand strategy, America would need a firm expectation of high rates of economic growth over the next several years. There is no sign of such a burst on the horizon. Misguided efforts to extract more security from a declining economic base only divert potential resources from investment in the economy, trapping the state in an ever-worsening strategic dilemma. This approach has done little for great powers in the past, and America will likely be no exception when it comes to the inevitable costs of desperate policy making.

The United States is not just declining. Unipolarity is becoming obsolete, other states are rising to counter American power and the United States is losing much of its strategic freedom. Washington must adopt more realistic foreign commitments.

SINCE 2000, a systemic change has been occurring in the economic foundations of America’s relative power, and it may fall even further in the foreseeable future. None of the dramatic consequences for U.S. grand strategy is likely to be immediate, but neither are those effects easily avoidable. For nearly two decades, the United States has experienced tremendous latitude in how it chooses to conduct itself in the world. But that latitude is now shrinking, and American policy makers must face facts. With the right grand strategy, however, America can mitigate the consequences of its relative decline, and possibly even reverse it.

Robert A. Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

The author would like to thank Felicity Bloom, Daragh Grant, Jacob Homan, Chaim Kaufmann, Nuno Monteiro and especially Ken Feldman.
1 For excellent discussions of the concept of power, see John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), ch. 3; and Edward Vose Gulick, Europe’s Classical Balance of Power (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955), ch 1.
2 Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 32.
3 For explanations of different measures of gross domestic product, see glossaries for the International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database (October 2008) and World Bank, World Development Indicators (2008), both available online.
4 For a classic study of the diffusion of technology in past eras, see David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
5 See the Global Market Information Database; CIA World Factbook for the above dates; the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2008; Nationmaster.com; and International Telecommunication Union’s International Communication Statistics, 2007.All were accessed online from August to October 2008.
6 This counterfactual calculation and the one in the next paragraph rely on the current-dollar method preferred by the unipolar-dominance school.
7 Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1987).
8 For instance, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).