This is a pretty good summary of some main points or issues concerning the US geopolitical actions in recent years.

This IS how the world operates, and how the big boys think. I believe George Bush and Dick Cheney consider themselves as understanding oil like no previous presidents, though of course, their understanding of the best policy to undertake for strategic national economic interests, that will be consistently followed by subsequent US Presidents, shows them (and Donald Rumsfeld) woefuly lacking.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq

Water is the other large concern so far unaddressed. There is a large global push for corporations to have the ability to privatize, and thus gain control over public water rights. China and India may one day fight a war over just water; it may seem as if it is over some other subject but the real goal will be for control of water. Witness the water problem in US states that has just started, and imagine the pain global warming may bring. Agricultural problems I’m not even getting into, other than we may see the blooming of South American economies (Brazil, etc.) as we saw for Asia in the 80’s because of agricultural output.

Many African nations, by the end of this century, will probably be colonized again by foreign powers who seek their mineral resources but need some way to legitimately grab them. The likely excuse will be that the Africans are doing a terrible job at self-rule because of constant wars, brutality and the terrorizing of their own people. There actually is a great deal of truth to this and the fact that many countries, such as France, England and the Netherlands, might actually do an astronomically better job governing various African countries to the greater benefit of the local populations  even if the whole purpose is to   secure vital resources for themselves. Such may be the foundational rationale or logic promoted to justify such actions. In the past few hundred years of European history we saw all sorts of false rationales to promote the opening of markets or control of markets (grabbing of local resources) – mercantilism, industrialization / modernization, Christianization, promoting democracy, etc – when the real reasons were purely capitalistic. No matter how evil or corrupt a king, he needs a mantle of legitimacy for his acts or rebellion is guaranteed rather than just possible.

So think about these things as you watch the slow turn of the world. Twenty years away is not so far far away. It is not so far fetched, for instance, to consider that the US itself may split into two or three countries in the next three or four  decades based on language lines (history shows this event is an extremely common fate, so thank our politicians for stacking the odds in its favor) and in response to the population’s distaste for the super-encroachment of federal powers into their lives where meddling is not due. Compound this with a war brought to American shors, or recognition that Washington leadership  no longer represents the population’s interests in its acts, or some other such now "implausible" (it always is until it happens, such as the mortgage crisis) set of events. That was the cause for the break from England in the first place — taxation without representation, a governing of a people whose welfare or interests seem divorced from leadership actions. So think carefully about these things as we bobble from one extreme to the next.