Time Magazine has declared Vladmir Putin to be Man of the Year for 2007, saying he is the single person with the most power in the world to influence global events. Time calls Putin “the new Tsar,” saying that although he doesn’t care about civil liberties he has brought stability (Capricorn) to a country that desperately needed it after the fall of Communism resulted in a chaotic political and economic system. (See my astrological articles about Putin here and here.)

This could be a harbinger of what we can expect with Pluto in Capricorn: a shift in power (Pluto) structures (Capricorn). Pluto’s last venture into Capricorn marked the beginning of a new loci of world power in the New World. Ever since then, the United States has grown in the kind of power that Pluto traffics in: military power, economic power, the power to influence endings and new beginnings for all other nations.

There is little doubt that now, as we enter the current Pluto in Capricorn period, the US is losing much of that influence in the global arena and thanks to the war in Iraq has lost the respect it once commanded. Russia has a long history of a strong alliance with China, the most powerful developing nation in the world, that continues to this day and I wonder whether the shift in power over the next thirteen years of Pluto in Cap could lead to the ascendancy of the Russian/China alliance. If Russia and China become more powerful, it would bring about a total global shift towards Asia as their other allies such as Tehran and Sudan get a ride on the coattails. India has expressed an interest in strengthening its alliance with China and Russia in order to exploit the tremendous untapped reserves in all three countries, something which would tip the scales to an Asian domination of the world economy. Add to that the large percentage of ownership of US debt by the Chinese, and we have a significant sea change in the established power structures (Capricorn) that have been familiar to us.