Abstract :
This article starts from the assumption that both Europe and the Muslim world are facing the
same tendency of a basic and underlying shift in global economic activity away from the West
of the Euro/Asian/African landmass towards the countries of the Pacific, and that the United
States Government’s main interest today is in preserving and intensifying the US Government
global hegemony after the end of the Cold War, and to maximize access to global wealth and
energy resources in a world that looks more and more like the late 19th Century. The conditions
of this political economy of the 21st Century were spelled out by the world system theory school
of thought in the social sciences, pioneered by such scholars as Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi,
Volker Bornschier, Christopher K. Chase-Dunn, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel
Wallerstein.
