Two emerging, authoritarian world powers were on display Friday. China launched the Olympics games with an acrobatic, running-on-air torch lighting stunt. Russia launched an overly aggressive counter-attack on its small foe, Georgia. Hello world, let me introduce the new world order. India can kill the Doha trade talks. China can veto UN action in Zimbabwe. And dogs might rule the world!

With all the talk of a post-American world, the discussion seems to miss an obvious new contender for power on the world stage: dogs. As the Earth’s economic globalization process creates a ballooning middle class, it buys dogs, and their food and accessories, in massive quantity.

In 2006, it was estimated there were 61 million dogs in America and over 62 million more in the Brazil, China and Russia. That’s an army that someone — the dogs’ Chengis Khan — will raise if Americans don’t listen to Cesar Milan and keep their pups in line.

What humans can count on for now is that there’s no political unity between dogs. The thrice pregnant street bitch of Mexico City has little in common with the the suburban golden retriever of the Ozzie and Harriet set. Try cobbling them into a political alliance.

Dogs are delicately riding a peaceful ascension in the world order, like the Chinese. However, there are frays at the edges: breed-specific legislation, the ridicule of gay marriage as a slippery slope to man-dog marriage, massive ownerlessness in third world countries, the Tibetan terrier problem.

Most dogs want a peaceful ascension into the world order (call them the “silent majority”). We want to keep our doggie pedicures, our “Obama Dog” scarfs and our dog bakery delicacies. We can tolerate the Cesar Milan authoritarianism and the constant tug at the “gentle” leader in exchange for the trappings of modern dog life. But let’s be clear: we should strive to eliminate the street dog culture of the third world, lest their be a doggie Che Guevara biding his time.