Power shift to the East: Is the 'American Century' ending?

I've read several books (the Pentagon's New Map, Blueprint for Action, China Inc., etc.) over the past year or so that deal with the rise of China & India on the world economic/political stage and the impact/changes that will mean for both the US and the world. Here are a few excerpts I saw in the online version of the former USSR news organ, Pravada:

In 20 years time, however, by 2025, America and Europe may both be spending much more time worrying about the rise of Asia than about each other. Even without a collapse of the dollar hegemony, there seems to be satisfactory evidence for a great and rapid shift of wealth and power to China and India. Currently, the economic power of China and India is growing at three to five times the GDP rate of Western states.

Our increasing distracted and inept educational system, burdened as it is with layers of administrators, outdated methodologies, "multicultural diversity and knee-jerk political posturing by its "educators" is one major component causing the US to lose ground ....

One obvious reason to this shift in the balance of power in many technologies is that China and India graduate a combined more than half a million engineers and scientists a year. The United States' educational system is beginning to lag behind in this area. The total number of graduates in America is only 60.000. Together, the labour pool of very skilled professionals, in those two countries, is growing three times faster than the United States. In three years' time, the total number of young researchers will rise to 1.6 million in India and China together.

The world today is too complicated for any single power to dominate it, and the US is trying to maintain its hegemony by relying on diminishing assets. As I mentioned at the start, hegemonic powers come and then eventually go, but the whole process of growth and decline is lengthy. History demonstrates that all global powers experience a long period of growth, followed by an equally long period of contraction. At this latter stage, they tend to become progressively more aggressive and unstable.

This brave new post-Cold War world raises a fundamental question: will the US adapt and recapture its leadership in the world system, or will it follow Eighteenth Century Great Britain into a long and painful economic/ political decline until it is eventually bailout or bought out by its former colonies?

As I indicated at the top, this analysis fits in pretty well with a lot of what I've been reading of late; I wondered if our political/economic/military leaders also read this stuff and, if so, what they think about it. From my perspective down here in the nether reaches of middle America, I sure don't see much going on in Washington that addresses this topic (or, frankly, much else of consequence: immigration, social security, education, etc.) and/or offers any sort of real "vision" for the future. Where and when are we going to find someone with any sort of "leadership?" I, for one, am just about fed up with political demagoguery, sound bites, and posturing.

(Read the entire article here.)