Diluting U.S. Power: Obama to Expand G-8 … by 12 Countries?
You can be forgiven for not having heard about it, because the forum where the announcement was made was fairly obscure by global standards. But U.S. President Barack Obama intends to abolish the G-8.
He’s decided that 12 additional countries should be brought into the group, expanding its membership to 20 and significantly diluting America’s voice on the council. American enemies around the world, of course, are cheering. Maybe if they play nice, Iran and Venezuela will get seats at the new big table.
Obama made the announcement during a touchy-feely interview with the RTR television network — which is owned and operated lock, stock, and assassin’s gun barrel by the Kremlin. The network chose journalist Sergey Brilev to conduct the interview, an odd choice as Brilev is ostensibly a Latin America specialist, though he has previously interviewed George Bush and Condi Rice. (Note Brilev’s 2006 interview with CNN — when asked whether he covered the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, and how Russian journalists could do a better job of reporting critical facts about the Kremlin, Brilev responded with classic, incomprehensible Soviet doubletalk.)
Obama set the stage for his announcement regarding the G-8 by offering gratuitous, unqualified praise of his Russian counterpart:
I’ve been very impressed with President [Dmitri] Medvedev. I think he is a strong leader, a good man, very thoughtful. I find it very easy to do business with him, and I think we’ve established a relationship, a real trust that can hopefully be bearing fruit in the negotiations and conversations that we have in the years to come.
This remark sounded eerily like the comment made by George W. Bush about then-president of Russia Vladimir Putin: Bush remarked that he had looked into Putin’s eyes, been able to glimpse his soul, and found him trustworthy. Before long, Russian tanks were rolling into Georgia.
Now, perhaps we can look forward to seeing them in Ukraine as well.
Virtually the entire planet views the Putin regime with extreme distrust, and Putin has just been named one of the world’s worst predators of the press, but apparently Obama believes he alone (save for George Bush) can see the Kremlin’s true soul.
Hello,
The G20 has existed since the end of the 90′s, if I remember, but only gained importance after the financial crisis. And there is a reason for this: the G20 accounts for the largest 19 economies (the EU gets the 20th seat), without regard of political affiliation. Collectively they make up more than 80pct of the world’s GDP. The economic weight of the G8 is much smaller, and includes Russia (economically not so important), but excludes China (now the world’s second economy).
Basically during the crisis, the G8 realized they could not influence the world economy on their own, and they would need to include countries like China, India and Brazil. The G8 just faded into insignificance.
BTW, since the G20 (like the G8) is not an international organization, it has no capacity to create rules. And agreements taken (and they rarely agree) are not in any way biding. Its importance derives from the economic weight of member states (headed by the US), who will discuss policy which will be implemented according to national legislative rules (in the US it has to go through Congress).
So all this is overblown. I would concentrate on actual threats to US security. How come nobody is talking of the collapse of Yemen, for example?
styx
Yes. But has the POTUS stared into Mr. Medvedev’s eyes and peered into his soul and found it to be good. No. Stick with tradition.
Plus… Russia is part of the G8. If the US voice is diluted by leaving the G8 and being part of the G20, so is Russia’s voice. This analysis makes no sense to me.
No particular reason this “analysis” should make sense to you, Keith, because it is tailored to appeal only to like-minded far right whackjobs a la “Kim Zigfeld”. That crowd is only truly happy when the U.S. is slamming somebody up against a wall. Adding other nations only dilutes your power if everyone has an equal voice, which thinking people know is not the case. France has been an active instigator for expanding the G8 since at least 2008, arguing, “…bringing the likes of China, India, and Brazil into the mix — especially if made contingent on playing by certain agreed upon rules — simply makes sense. Unlike the UN Security Council, where the inclusion of additional Permanent Members makes the job harder, expanding the number of players in the G(insert number here) could make it easier to decide upon common goals and create a roadmap for achieving them”.
The author is likely confusing the G-8/G-20 with the UN Security Council, of which Russia is also a member. However, permanent UNSC members have veto power, which gives them disproportionate influence. There is no veto in the G-8/G-20, although those members with the greatest GDP have the most influence. There’s no danger of the USA’s voice being “diluted” there, and if that became the case the likely adversary would be China.
Moreover, the USA has been vocal on the behalf of expanding international organizations when the result would bring advantageous circumstances for the USA, such as seen in its aggressive push to fast-track NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. “Kim Zigfeld” is a political analyst like Homer Simpson is a chess champion.
Diluting what power? the US, and is EURO allies are bankrupt social welfare kleptocracies, with absurd pretensions to greatness .What difference would adding another kleptocracy make?
I felt sick to my stomach reading this. This is exactly what Obama is all about. You as an American are a disease to the rest of the socialism failed countries. You have it too damn good and your wealth needs to go to failed socialistic societies that have been proven unsustainable throughout the history of man.
We are paying a high price, but the people are awake. Boy are they awake. Is zero a conservative plant??
Kim Zigfeld is a Russophobe. WHY? The Russians saved her kind from total extinction. Kim, if it were not for the great Russian Army and their winning the war in Europe , you would be a cinder. Wize up!!
@ 7 “Kim, if it were not for the great Russian Army and their winning the war in Europe , you would be a cinder. Wize up!!”
If Walt is hinting at the fact that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz in January 1945 and thereby might have saved one of Zigfeld’s relatives by destroying Nazism, I would remind all PJM readers that there is simply no evidence that “Kim Zigfeld” is American, speaks Russian or has ever visited Russia, is living in New York City as ‘she’ claims (New York is an expensive place to blog so obsessively from), is Jewish or even female! This person is a coward who hides behind anonymity so ‘she’ can libel real Russian analysts who use their real names.