Create a 2 page essay paper that discusses Parag Khanna. The Second World ISBN 0-812979842.This overarching narrative drew me into the book, as Khanna laid out his view of a 21st century world no long

Create a 2 page essay paper that discusses Parag Khanna. The Second World ISBN 0-812979842.

This overarching narrative drew me into the book, as Khanna laid out his view of a 21st century world no longer dominated by one nation. He asserts that the 21st century world order will no longer have the USA at the top of the heap, but have three dominant superpowers essentially sharing a delicate balance of power: the United States, China, and the European Union (the “big three”).

The driving force behind this reorganization of world power is the struggle for control of energy and natural resources in regions of the world like the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. The three superpowers are continuously in conflict over control of these resources, and geo-politics, combined with how the powers treat and deal with the nations who possess those natural resources. Khanna gives the reader much information about the political value of such nations as Algeria, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Indonesia and Tajikstan, and the role they have to play in the geo-political game of chess.

These periphery players, or “second world” countries, as Khanna calls them, are second-tier in global power, but first-tier in strategic importance (Khanna, 121). These countries are growing, and growing fast, have a variety of natural resources important to the “big three,” and control a growing percentage of the world’s oil reserves and other natural resources, and are major players in who controls the world’s global economy. These countries are just as independent as the big three, and have their own social, economic and political agendas. They present an often difficult minefield of diplomacy, economic and cultural relationships, geographic proximity, and reciprocity for the big three, especially the United States.

Khanna talks a lot about how the US has been accustomed to getting its own way in international relations, as the main superpower after WWII and especially after the collapse of the USSR. The US uses its international monetary and