In his blog, Eric posted a set of links about ‘New World vs. New Europe’ that made me scratch my non-existent goatee. In recent days, i’ve been having increasingly more conversations about gendered behavior concerning power management, or more precisely, about how marginalized individuals have different schemes for acquiring and maintaining power through subtle and subversive ways. The articles on Europe made me think about a previous article that i posted and about the differences in power between Europe and the US. But more fundamentally, in combination, they made think about how my thoughts on power management don’t just apply to individuals, but to systems. Europe, having been dwarfted in power by the US in recent years has to be much more subversive, subtle and organized in how it acquires power; brute force no longer works. Conversely, the US continues to just simply carry a big stick in world politics. Of course, this beckons the question: are such alternate forms of negotiation destined to be far more successful or will they always be marginalized by brute force?