India’s Middle Class Competing With The US: Obama

As the middle class from countries like Brazil and India has been rising, owing to economic prosperity in these countries, the US needs to be ready to respond to this new world order, said the US President Barack Obama.

“The world is changing with accelerating speed. This presents opportunity, but also new dangers,” he said in his address to the United States Military Academy in New York.

“From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with our own, and governments seek greater say in global forums. And even as developing nations embrace democracy and market economies, 24-hour news and pervasive social media makes it impossible to ignore sectarian conflicts, failing states, and popular uprisings that might have received only passing notice a generation ago,” said Obama.

“It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world. The question we face – the question you will face – is not whether America will lead, but how we will lead, not just to secure our peace and prosperity, but also to extend peace and prosperity around the globe,” he said.

“As the Syrian Civil War spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened groups to come after us increases. Regional aggression that goes unchecked – in southern Ukraine, the South China Sea, or anywhere else in the world – will ultimately impact our allies and could draw in our military.

“Beyond these narrow rationales, I believe we have a real stake – an abiding self-interest – in making sure our children grow up in a world where schoolgirls are not kidnapped, where individuals aren’t slaughtered because of tribe or faith or political beliefs. “I believe that a world of greater freedom and tolerance is not only a moral imperative – it also helps keep us safe,” the US President said.