The Post-American World

"I had to choose one book about the current state of the world, what American foreign policy is facing right now. This book is the best survey that I know of, and also the best description of what is likely to happen in the next few years. What Zakaria describes is a world in which much of what American foreign policy sought to achieve over the last half century has been successfully accomplished. It’s provided order for the world at large, and a global free trade system underpinned by American economic policy. That has allowed other nations to make their way forward, and progress within the American liberal world order. He argues that American power may be declining in relative terms, but not necessarily in absolute terms. It’s also not something that the United States should be upset about, because it’s less to do with American decline than with the success of others – which is exactly what the United States claimed it wanted to see. A good example of this is the Marshall Plan. When the United States helped Western Europe get back on its feet after World War II, it sent a lot of money and aid over. But when German unification occurred half a century later, West Germany gave East Germany vastly more money and help than it had ever received in the Marshall Plan. The Federal Republic of Germany had been so successful that it was able to give the former East Germany vastly more money to get up to speed and be incorporated into the West. That exemplifies the idea that if you are successful in foreign policy, you can have investments that double/treble/quadruple and essentially pay for themselves. The United States didn’t have to pay for eastern Germany because West Germany in the interim had become so strong. American policy towards post-war Europe was a dramatic success story that has helped create an incredible, wonderful, democratic, peaceful, economically successful Europe, under the aegis of the American security umbrella. Zakaria says that this has now begun to replicate itself elsewhere. He talks about the “rise of the rest”. You have an India that has finally shed some of its sillier ideas about economic policy and is growing by leaps and bounds. You have a China that is gradually liberalising and becoming not just an economic powerhouse, but hopefully, over time, will have a more liberal political system. There is even progress in Latin America and some parts of Africa. The United States is still the dominant player in the world at large. It’s still the provider of ultimate economic security for the system and, more importantly, military security and political order. But in this framework the US maintains, you’re now having other powers and other actors come to the fore, and, in effect, the United States will have to learn – is having to learn – how to share power and authority with them. We wanted a world in which others could be strong and successful and vibrant, and now that world is actually appearing, we have to learn to live within it. Of all the treatments of American decline, of all the treatments of the rise of Asia, of all the treatments of the supposed craziness in the post-Cold War world, I think Zakaria’s The Post-American World is the most sensible, fair-minded even-handed, panoramic view of the world we’re currently living in and what the major challenges of global governance are in that world. Most people would be wrong in that regard. First of all because China’s economic rise in the last few decades has lifted more people out of poverty in so short a time than ever before. So anybody who thinks that China’s rise is fundamentally a bad thing, or a threat, isn’t looking at the situation properly. Hundreds of millions of people are living dramatically better lives and anybody who cares about people should be pleased about that. Secondly, since capitalism is a positive-sum game rather than a zero-sum game, the involvement of those people in a world economic system is a major boon to the world at large. It will benefit us as well as them, in a whole variety of ways. “China’s economic rise in the last few decades has lifted more people out of poverty in so short a time than ever before.” So the question is, that’s all well and good for the Chinese on the economic front, but hasn’t the political system remained rigid and isn’t China going to dominate the world and be a major threat to everything in the future? What I would say here is that there is a long history of modernisation theory and debates about the connection between economic, social and political development. These are all very complex debates. But the fact is that there is no major economic success story which has not had a liberalised political system tagging along. In the end, the good things do tend to go together. It takes a while to get there – it’s difficult, it’s rocky, things don’t always work out exactly as people expect or want. But, by and large, economic progress, social progress and political progress are linked and correlate with each other. At the end of the day, I am confident that if China remains authoritarian, it won’t ultimately progress economically, or if it continues to progress economically it will not ultimately remain authoritarian. For me, the challenge of China is how to get past the next generation or two of a transition period in which it’s still a quasi-authoritarian country that is ever stronger, but not yet fully absorbed into the liberal system in which it can and should be a major player. It’s certainly true that if China becomes democratic, it may think differently about various things from the United States. But free thinking is the whole point of democracy. It would be ridiculously churlish of the United States to prefer the predictable conformity of client autocracies, or friendly dictatorships, to the roiling, rambunctious free-for-all that is a true democracy. I am a firm believer that true liberal democracies are by their very genetic make-up friendly with and allied to each other. The democratic peace is a strong finding in international relations, at least as it applies to mature liberal democracies. And though no one cares what I think, personally I look forward to the next iPhone developed in China, and the next technological, cultural, and other kinds of advances that will come from a billion Chinese having the same opportunities that we in the advanced industrial world have to lead their individual lives to their fullest potential."

"Zakaria is Indian by origin and he went to America in his youth. He is now a very prominent journalist in America. His thesis is that America, while still being a superpower, has got to contend with the rise of other countries. It can no longer call the shots in the new world that is developing. This is not a new thesis, but he puts it forward very powerfully and very well. He also looks at the question of whether America can continue to succeed in a world where other countries are catching up in terms of markets and economic progress. Because other countries are rising, America is falling relatively. He is asking the question rather than answering it. You can’t be sure. I think it is a very difficult and painful thing for a country that was the unchallenged top dog to come to terms with a situation where there are some other dogs around – which may not be quite as big and powerful as it is but are still, in the aggregate, not a threat necessarily but too powerful for the top dog to control the kennels. It is not easy and British history shows it is not easy. We were the top dog in the middle of the 19th century, and we lost our top dog position in the course of the second half of that century and the early part of the 20th century. We were challenged by the United States and by Germany, and it was very tough to come to terms with it. We did in the end but we had perhaps more time to deal with it than the US has now. I don’t know whether the US will come to terms with it or not. I think the present Obama administration is doing so, and thank goodness we have in Obama an extraordinarily adept American president who I think understands this shift in the global balance, not just intellectually but in his gut. Partly because this is the world that he lives in – he is existentially part of this world in a sense that no American president before has ever been. This is a man whose father was a black Kenyan who started life as a goat herder, and who himself spent a very considerable part of his life in Indonesia. It is an extraordinary career trajectory for an American president, so I think he does get it. He doesn’t always deduce perfect solutions from it, but he is in tune with it emotionally. I think Obama represents hope, but you can easily imagine a different response, a surly inward-looking kind of response – common, it seemed, amongst the neo-cons who were clustering around George W Bush at the start of the 21st century. It is by no means certain that they will find a benign way out. Maybe because I am an incorrigible optimist I think the odds are that they will, but one can’t count on it."

"Zakaria is one of the best American commentators on world politics and foreign policy. He has the unique perspective of having been born in India and then doing his graduate degree in the US. He’s a keen observer of the US but with a great knowledge of the rest of the world. Zakaria looks at the issue of whether the US is in decline, and decides that the problem with the term “decline” is that if it means absolute decline, like ancient Rome, then it’s not a very good description of what’s happening in the US. The US is not like Rome, which was an agrarian economy. What the US is facing is not absolute decline but relative decline, in that the gap between the US and other countries is diminishing with the rise of China, India, Brazil and others. Zakaria chose a happy term which is better than relative decline – “the rise of the rest”. I think that is a good description of what’s going on. You’re seeing, particularly in Asia, a return to normal. Normal was the period before the industrial revolution when Asia represented half the world’s population and half the world’s product. That declined dramatically because of the industrial revolution in North America, Britain and Europe. So by 1900, Asia produced only 20% of the world’s product. What we’re seeing now, in this century, is the return of Asia to normal proportions where it will represent half the world’s product and half the world’s population. This started with Japan and went on through South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia; it is now focused very much on China, but has an increasing emphasis on India as it approaches a 9% growth rate. I think Zakaria is quite accurate in his description of what is going on."