The Failure of the American Perspective

World War III may well be underway just as surely as it was on 26 November 1941 when Japanese Admiral Yamamoto set sail for Pearl Harbor two weeks before the formal attack. Then, like now, Americans seemed blissfully unaware that their lives were about to change forever.

Now, it is even worse, as American arrogance assumes we will always be the world’s sole superpower. We tend to look at the world exclusively from our own perspective and that can be very dangerous. A variety of headlines demonstrate this, all of which assume American supremacy. One example, now obvious in hindsight, is when the President’s spokesman Jay Carney warned against buying and actually suggested shorting Russian stocks in light of U.S. sanctions on March 18. From the time of his comments until the end of the month, Russian stocks increased over 6%, far ahead of the U.S. stock market over the same period. Even as the Administration was warning against buying Russian shares, some very successful investors have recommended them.