Literature Review 2

54 I P

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T I V

isions of W ar and P

eace

expansion of the m ilitary strength of C

onfucian and Islam ic states; to m

oder- ate the reduction of W

estern m ilitary capabilities and m

aintain m ilitary supe-

riority in E ast and Southw

est A sia; to exploit differences and conflicts am

ong C

onfucian and Islam ic states; to support in other civilizations groups sym

pa- thetic to W

estern values and interests; to strengthen international institutions

that reflect and legitim ate W

estern interests and values and to prom ote

the involvem

ent of non-W estern states in those institutions.

In the longer term other m

easures w ould be called for. W

estern civilization is both W

estern and m odern. N

on-W estern civilizations have attem

pted to becom e

m odern w

ithout becom ing W

estern. T o date only Japan has fully succeeded in

this quest. N on-W

estern civilizations w

ill continue to attem pt to acquire the

w ealth, technology, skills, m

achines and w eapons that are part of being m

odern. T

hey w ill also attem

pt to reconcile this m odernity w

ith their traditional culture and values. T

heir econom ic and m

ilitary strength relative to the W est w

ill in- crease. H

ence the W est w

ill increasingly have to accom m

odate these non-W est-

ern m odern civilizations w

hose pow er approaches that of the W

est but w hose

values and interests differ significantly from those of the W

est. T his w

ill require the W

est to m aintain the econom

ic and m ilitary pow

er necessary to protect its interests in relation to these civilizations. It w

ill also, how ever, require the W

est to develop a m

ore profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophi- cal assum

ptions underlying other civilizations and the w ays in w

hich people in those civilizations see their interests. It w

ill require an effort to identify elem ents

of com m

onality betw een W

estern and other civilizations. For the relevant future, there. w

ill be no universal civilization, but instead a w orld of different civiliza-

tions, each of w hich w

ill have to learn to coexist w ith the others.

I m

agine that it is January 2000, and you ask a fortune-teller to predict the course of the global econom

y over the next several years. L et's say that you

give him som

e clues, to help him gaze into his crystal ball. T

he U nited States

w ill be hit by the w

orst terrorist attack in history, you explain, and w ill respond

by launching tw o w

ars, one of w hich w

ill go badly aw ry and keep Iraq-the

country w ith the w

orld's third-largest

oil reserves-in chaos for years. Iran

w ill gain strength in the M

iddle E ast and m

ove to acquire a nuclear capabil- ity. N

orth K orea w

ill go further, becom ing the w

orld's eighth declared nuclear pow

er. R ussia w

ill turn hostile _and im perious in its dealings w

ith its neighbors and the W

est. In L atin A

m erica, H

ugo C havez of V

enezuela w ill launch the

m ost spirited anti-W

estern cam paign in a generation, w

inning m any allies and

fans. Israel and H ezbollah w

ill fight a w ar in southern L

ebanon, destabilizing

From The P

ost-A m

erican W orld by Fareed Z

akaria. C opyright©

2008 by Fareed Z

akaria. U sed

by perm ission of W

. W . N

orton and C om

pany, Inc.

FA R

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B eirut's fragile governm

ent, draw ing in Iran and Syria, and rattling the Israelis.

G aza w

ill becom e a failed state ruled by H

am as, and peace talks betw

een Israel and the Palestinians

w ill go now

here. "G

iven these events," you say to the sage, "how

w ill the global econom

y fare over the next six years?" T

his is not really a hypothetical. W

e have the forecasts of experts from

those years. T hey w

ere all w rong. T

he correct prediction w

ould have been that, betw

een 2000 and 2007, the w orld econom

y w ould grow

at its fastest pace in nearly four decades. Incom

e per person across the globe w ould rise at

a faster rate (3.2 percent) than in any other period in history. In the tw

o decades since the end of the C old W

ar, w e have lived through a

paradox, one w e experience every m

orning w hen reading the new

spapers. T he

w orld's politics seem

s deeply troubled, w ith daily reports of bom

bings, terror plots, rogue states, and civil strife. A

nd yet the global econom y forges ahead,

not w ithout significant interruptions and crises, but still vigorously upw

ard on the w

hole. M arkets do panic but over econom

ic not political new s. T

he front page of the new

spaper seem s unconnected to the business section ....

W hat explains this m

ism atch

betw een a politics that spirals dow

nw ard

and an econom y that stays robust? First, it's w

orth looking m ore carefully at

the cascade of bad new s. It seem

s that w e are living in crazily violent tim

es. B

ut don't believe everything you see on television. O ur anecdotal im

pression turns out to be w

rong. W ar and organized violence have declined dram

ati- cally over the last tw

o decades. T ed R

obert G urr and a team

of scholars at the U

niversity of M aryland's

C enter for International

D evelopm

ent and C onflict

M anagem

ent tracked the data carefully and cam e to the follow

ing conclusion: "the general m

agnitude of global w arfare has decreased by over sixty percent

[since the m id-1980s], falling by the end of 2004 to its low

est level since the late 1950s." V

iolence increased steadily throughout the C

old W ar-increasing

sixfold betw een the 1950s and early 1990s-but

the trend peaked just before i,'

the collapse of the Soviet U nion in 1991 and "the extent of w

arfare am

ong I

and w ithin states lessened by nearly half in the first decade after the C

old W

ar." H arvard's

polym ath professor Steven Pinker argues "that today w

e are probably living in the m

ost peaceful tim e in our species' existence ....

" It feels like a very dangerous w

orld. B ut it isn't. Y

our chances of dying as a consequence of organized violence of any ¼

ind are low and getting low

er. T

he data reveal a broad trend aw ay from

w ars am

ong m ajor countries,

the kind of conflict that produces m

assive casualties ....

T H

E ISL

A M

IC TH

R E

A T

Islam

ic terror, w hich m

akes the headlines daily, is a large and persistent prob- lem

, but one involving sm all num

bers of fanatics. It feeds on the dysfunctions of the M

uslim w

orld, the sense (real and im agined) of hum

iliation at the hands of the W

est, and easy access to technologies of violence. A nd yet, does it rank as

a threat on the order of G erm

any's drive for w orld dom

ination in the first half of the tw

entieth century? O r Soviet expansionism

in the second half? O r M

ao's

561 PA R

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isions of W ar and P

eace

efforts to fom ent w

ar and revolution across the T hird W

orld in the 1950s and 1960s? T

hese w ere all challenges backed by the pow

er and purpose of m

a- jor countries, often w

ith serious allies, and by an ideology that _w as see1:1:

as a plausible alternative to libe:ral dem

ocracy. B y com

parison, consider the Jihad- ist threat. B

efore 9/11, w hen groups like A

l Q aeda operated under the radar,

governm ents treated them

as m inor annoyances, and they roam

ed freely, built som

e strength, and hit sym bolic, often m

ilitary targets, killing A m

ericans and other foreigners. E

ven so, the dam age w

as fairly lim ited. Since 2001, govern-

m ents everyw

here have been aggressive in busting terrorists' netw orks, follow

- ing their m

oney, and tracking their recruits-w ith

alm ost im

m ediate results. In

Indonesia, the largest M uslim

nation in the w orld, t~e governm

ent ~apture? both the chief and the m

ilitary leader of Jem aah Islam

iah, the country s deadli- est jih~dist group and the one that carried out the B

ali bom bings i? 2002: W

ith A

m erican help, the Filipino arm

y battered the Q aeda-style terronst

outfit A bu

Sayyaf. T he group's leader w

as killed by Filipino troops in Janua~y 20?7, and its m

em bership has declined from

as m any as tw

o thousand guernllas six years ago to a few

hundred today. In E gypt and Saudi A

rabia-A l

Q aeda's original

bases and targets of attack-terrorist cells have been rounded

up, and those still at large have been unable to launch any new

attacks in three years. Fi?ance m

inistries-especially the U

.S. D epartm

ent of the T reasury-have

m ade life far

m ore difficult for terrorists. G

lobal organizations cannot thrive w ithout being

able to m ove m

oney around, and so the m ore terrorists' funds are tracked and

targeted, the m

ore they have to resort to sm all-scale and_ hastil_y im

p~ovised operations. T

his struggle, betw een governm

ents and terronsts, w ill persist, but

it is the form er w

ho have the upper hand .... H

ere is the bottom line. In the six years since 9/11, A

l Q aeda C

entral- the group led by O

sam a bin L

aden and A ym

an Z aw

ahiri-has been unable to

launch a m ajor attack anyw

here. It w as a terrorist organization; it has becom

e a com

m unications

com pany, producing the occasional videotape rather than

actual terrorism . Jihad continues, but the jihadists have had to scatter, m

ake do w

ith sm aller targets, and operate on a local level-usually

through groups w ith

alm ost no connection to A

l Q aeda C

entral. A nd this im

provised strategy has a crippling w

eakness: it kills locals, thus alienating ordinar~ M uslim

s-a pro~

cess that is w ell underw

ay in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Iraq, and Saudi A

rabia. O ver the last six years, support for bin L

aden and his goals has fallen , steadily throughout

the M uslim

w orld. B

etw een 2002 and 2007, approval of

suicide bom bing as a tactic-a

figure that w as alw

ays low -has

dropped by

over 50 percent in m ost M

uslim countries that have been tracked. T

here have been m

ore denunciations of violence and fatw

as against bin L aden than ever

·before, including from prom

inent clerics in Saudi A

rabia. M uch m

ore m ust

happen to m odernize the M

uslim w

orld, but the m odernizers are no longer so

scared. T hey have finally realized that, for all the rhetoric of the m

adrassas and m

osques, few people w

ant to live under the w rit of A

l Q aeda. T

hose w ho have,

w hether in A

fghanistan or Iraq, have becom e its m

ost dedicated opponents. In contrast to Soviet socialism

or even fascism in the 1930s, no society looks w

ith adm

iration and envy on the fundam

entalist Islam

ic m odel. O

n an ideological

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level, it presents no com petition to the W

estern-originated m odel of m

odernity that countries across the w

orld are em bracing ....

T he ideological w

atchdogs have spent so m uch tim

e w ith the docum

ents of jihad that they have lost sight of actual M

uslim societies. W

ere they to step back, they w

ould see a frustration w

ith the fundam entalists,

a desire for m

odernity (w

ith som e dignity and cultural pride for sure), and a search for

practical solutions-not a m

ass quest for im m

ortality through

death. W hen

M uslim

s travel, they flock by the m illions to see the razzle-dazzle of D

ubai, not the sem

inaries of Iran. T he m

inority that w ants jihad is real, but it op-

erates w ithin societies w

here such activities are increasingly unpopular and

irrelevant .... T

he challenges from rogue states are also real, but w

e should consider them

in context. T he G

D P of Iran is 1/68 that of the U

nited States its m

ili- '

tary spending 1/110 that of the Peptagon. If this is 1938, as m any conserva-

tives argue, then Iran is R om

ania, not G

erm any N

orth K

orea is even m ore

bankrupt and dysfunctional.

Its chief threat-the one that keeps the C

hinese governm

ent aw ake at night-is

that it w ill im

plode, flooding the region w ith

refugees. T hat's pow

er? T hese countries can cause trouble in their neighbor-

hood and m ust be checked and contained,

but w e need to keep in m

ind the larger w

orld of w hich they are a relatively sm

all part. L ook at L

atin A m

erica. V

enezuela is a troublem aker,

but w hat has that m

eant on the ground? T he

broad trend in the region-exem plified

by the policies of the m ajor countries

like B razil, M

exico, and C hile-has

been tow ard

open m arkets

trade dem

- '

' ocratic governance,

and an outw ard

orientation. A

nd that trend, not H ugo

C havez's insane rants, represents the direction of history.

TH E

G R

E A

T EX P

A N

S IO

N

T oday's relative calm

has a deep structural basis. A cross the w

orld, econom ics

is trum ping politics. W

hat W all Street analysts call "political risk" has been

alm ost nonexistent. W

ars, coups, and terrorism have lost m

uch of their ability to derail m

arkets m ore than tem

porarily. A

gain, this m ay not last (it has not

historically), but it has been the w orld w

e have lived in for at least a decade. T

his is not the first tim e that political tum

ult and econom ic grow

th have com

e together. T

w o earlier periods

seem m

uch like ours: the turn-of-the- century boom

of the 1890s and 1900s, and the postw ar

boom of the 1950s

and early 1960s. In both, politics w as turbulent

and yet grow th w

as robust. T

hese tw o periods had one feature in com

m on: large countries w

ere entering the w

orld econom y, increasing its size and changing its shape. T

he expansion of the pie w

as so big that it overw helm

ed day-to-day dislocations .... W

e are living through the third such expansion

of the global econom y,

and by far the largest. O

ver the last tw o decades,

about tw

o billion peo- ple have entered

the w orld

of m arkets

and trade-a w

orld that w

as, until recently, the province of a sm

all club of W estern countries.

T he expansion

w as spurred

by the m ovem

ent of W

estern capital'to

A sia and across the

globe. A s a result, betw

een 1990 and 2007, the global econom y grew

from

581 PA R

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isions of W ar and P

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$22.8 trillion

to $53.3 trillion,

and global trade

increased 133 percent.

T he so-called em

erging m arkets have accounted

for over half of this global grow

th, and they now

account for over 40 percent

of the w orld

econom y

m easured at purchasing pow

er parity (or over 30 percent at m arket exchange

rates). Increasingly, the grow th of new

com ers is being pow

ered by their ow n

m arkets, not sim

ply by exports to the W est-w

hich m

eans that this is not an ephem

eral phenom enon.

. Som

e people dism

iss such trends by pointing

to the rise of Japan m

the 1980s, w

hen W esterners

w ere scared that the Japanese

w ould com

e to dom

inate the w orld econom

y. T hat turned out to be a phantom

fear: Japan

in fact w ent into

a fifteen-year slum

p. B

ut the analogy is m

isleading. In

1985, Japan w

as already the second-largest

econom y

in the w orld.

M any

experts believed

it w as on track

to unseat the U

nited States as the larg-

est but because Japan's

econom y,

institutions, and politics

w ere still not

fully m odernized,

the country. could not m ake that

final leap. C

hina, by

contrast, is still a poor country.

It has a per capita G

D P of $2,500.

It w ill

certainly face m

any problem s

as and w hen it becom

es a first-w orld

co~n- try. B

ut, for the foreseeable future, it w ill surely m

anage to double the size of its econom

y just by continuing to m

ake toys and shirts and cell phones. India, starting

at an even low er base incom

e, w ill also be able t?

grow for

several decades before hitting the kinds of challenges that

derailed Japan. E

ven if India and C hina never get past m

iddle-incom e

status, they are likely to be the second-

and third-largest econom

ies in the w orld for m

uch of the tw

enty-first century ....

TH E

TH R

E E

FO R

C E

S : PO

LITIC S

, E C

O N

O M

IC S

, A

N D

TE C

H N

O LO

G Y

H

ow did all this com

e to be? T o answ

er that question, w e have to go back a

few decades, to the 1970s, and recall the w

ay m ost countries ran their econo-

m ies at the tim

e. I rem em

ber the atm osphere vividly because I w

as grow ing up

in India a country that really didn't think it w

as playing on the sam e field as

the U ni;ed States. In the m

inds of India's policy and intellectual elites, there w

as a U .S.-led capitalist m

odel on one end of the spectrum and a Soviet-led

socialist m odel on the other. N

ew D

elhi w as trying to carve a m

iddle w ay

betw een

them .

In this respect, India w

as not unusual. B

razil, E gypt,

and Indonesia-and

in fact, the m ajority of the w

orld-w ere

on this m iddle path.

B ut it turned out to be a road to now

here, and this w as becom

ing apparent to m

any people in these countries by the late 1970s. A s they stagnated, Japan

and a few other E

ast A sian econom

ies that

had charted a quasi-capitalist

course succeeded conspicuously, and the lesson started to sink in. B

ut the earthquake that shook everything w

as the collapse of the Soviet U

nion in the late 1980s. W ith central planning

totally discredited

and one end of the political

spectrum

in ruins, the entire debate shifted.

Suddenly there w

as only one basic approach to organizing a country's econom y. T

his is

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w hy A

lan G reenspan has described the fall of the Soviet U

nion as the sem inal

econom ic event of our tim

e. Since then, despite all the unease about various liberalization and m

arketization plans, the general direction has not changed.

A s M

argaret T hatcher fam

ously put it in the years w hen she w

as reviving the B

ritish econom y, "T

here is no alternative." T

he ideological shift in econom ics had been building over the 1970s and

1980s even before the fall of the B erlin W

all. C onventional econom

ic w isdom

em

bodied in organizations

such as the International M

onetary Fund and

the W orld B

ank, had becom e far m

ore critical of the quasi-socialist path of countries like India. A

cadem ic experts like Jeffrey Sachs traveled around the

w orld advising governm

ents to liberalize, liberalize, liberalize. G raduates

of W

estern econom ics program

s, such as C

hile's "C

hicago B

oys," w ent hom

e and im

plem ented m

arket-friendly policies. Som e developing countries w

orried about becom

ing rapacious capitalists,

and Sachs recalls explaining to them

that they should debate long and hard w hether they w

anted to end up m ore

like Sw eden, France, or the U

nited States. B ut, he w

ould add, they didn't have to w

orry about that decision for a w hile: m

ost of them w

ere still m uch closer

to the Soviet U nion.

T he financial force that has pow

ered the new era is the free m

ovem ent of

capital. T his, too, is a relatively recent phenom

enon. T

he post-W orld

W ar II

period w as one of fixed exchange rates. M

ost W estern countries,

including France and Italy, had capital controls restricting the m

ovem ent of currency in

and out of their borders. T he dollar w

as pegged to gold. B ut as global trade

l i ! grew

, fixed rates created frictions and inefficiencies

and prevented capital

from being put to its best use. M

ost W estern countries rem

oved controls dur- ing the 1970s and 1980s. T

he result: a vast and ever-grow ing supply of capital

that could m ove freely from

one place to the next. T oday, w

hen people think about globalization,

they still think of it m ostly in term

s of the huge am ount

of cash-currency traders sw

ap about $2 trillion a day-that sloshes around

the globe, rew arding som

e countries and punishing others. It is globalization's celestial m

echanism for discipline ....

TH E

P R

O B

LE M

S O

F P LE

N TY

I

For the last tw o decades, w

e have spent m uch tim

e, energy, and attention w

orrying about crises and breakdow n

in the global econom y and terrorism

, nuclear blackm

ail, and w ar in geopolitics., T

his is natural-preparing for the

w orst can help avert it. A

nd w e have indeed had bad new

s-from

w ars in the

B alkans and A

frica, to terrorism around the w

orld, to econom ic crises in E

ast A

sia, R ussia, and-m

ost dangerously-the

U nited States. B

ut focusing on the gloom

has also left us unprepared for m

any of the largest problem s w

e face: 7:1hichare the product not of failure but of success. T

he fact that w e are living

m a w

orld of synchronous global grow th is good new

s, for the m ost part, but

it is also raising a series of com plex and potentially lethal dilem

m as ....

It's not just oil that has becom e m

ore expensive. C om

m odity prices are at

a 200-year high. R aw

m aterials of all kinds are increasingly dear. A

gricultural

60 j P

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isions of W ar and P

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produce is now

so expensive that developing countries face a grow

ing po- litical problem

of how to respond to food inflation. T

he cost of construction has exploded

from N

ew Y

ork to D ubai to Shanghai. E

ven the hum ble gas,

helium , w

hich is used not m erely in party balloons but also in M

R I m

achines and m

icrochip factories, is in short supply globally-and it's the second-m

ost- abundant

elem ent in the universe. T

hese pressures w ill surely at som

e point end the era of low

inflation that has undergirded global prosperity. M

eanw hile,

robust grow

th has also produced

a num ber

of anom alies.

W ithin an increasingly globalized and disciplined w

orld, certain countries- those endow

ed w ith natural resources, especially petroleum

and natural gas- are getting free rides. T

hey are surfing the w ave of global grow

th, getting rich w

ithout having to play by m

ost of the rules that govern the global econom y.

T his phenom

enon is the strange but inevitable outgrow

th of the success of

everyone else. T hese countries are the nonm

arket parasites on a m arket w

orld. C

onsider the principal

political challenges to the U

nited States and to W

estern ideas of international order. In the M iddle E

ast they com e from

Iran, in L

atin A m

erica from V

enezuela, and in E urasia from

R ussia. A

ll have new -

found strength built on oil. Sudan's ability to defy the w orld over D

arfur is

difficult to im agine absent its oil reserves. Petroleum

brings in eye-popping am

ounts of cash. Iran's

take from oil in 2006 am

ounted to $50 billion-

enough to dispense patronage to interest groups, bribe the arm y, and stay in

pow er w

hile still having piles left over to fom ent trouble abroad. T

his situa- tion is unlikely to change. R

esource-rich countries w ill thrive as long as the

others are grow ing. It's the yin and yang of today's globalization ....

T he m

ost acute problem of plenty is the im

pact of global grow th on natu-

ral resources and the environm ent.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the

w orld is running

out of clean air, potable w

ater, agricultural

produce, and

m any vital com

m odities. Som

e of these problem s can be fixed-by

im proving

efficiency and developing new sources of supply-but

progress has been far too slow

. A gricultural productivity, for exam

ple, is rising. B ut feeding a global

population of eight billion, w

hich w e w

ill get to by 2025, w ill require crop

yields to reach four tons per hectare from only three tons today. Sim

ilarly, our ability to m

anage and conserve w ater is not grow

ing nearly as fast as our con- sum

ption of it. W orld population

tripled in the tw entieth century, but w

ater consum

ption increased sixfold. A

m ericans use m

ore than four hundred liters of w

ater a day to drink, cook, and clean them selves. People in poorer coun-

tries today are lucky to get forty, but as they g(!t richer, their rising dem ands

w ill cause greater stress. V

iolent clashes over w ater have already broken out

in A frica and the M

iddle E ast. H

istorically, populations

have m oved to find

w ater; if w

ater sources dry up in the future, tens of m illions of people w

ill be forced to start m

oving. O

ver the last decade, m any predictions about the effects of clim

ate change have proven

to be underestim ates

because global grow th

has exceeded all projections.

T he m

ost recent assessm ent of the Intergovernm

ental Panel on

C lim

ate C hange w

as released in m id-2007.

B y the year's end, scientists had

show n that the polar ice caps are m

elting tw ice as fast as the report expected.

FA R

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T he~e is ~reate~ dem

and for electricity, m ore cars, and m

ore planes than any- one _im

agm e~ fifteen years ago. A

nd it keeps grow ing. T

he M cK

insey G lobal

Institute pro1ects that, from 2003 to 2020, the num

ber of vehicles in C hina

w ill rise from

26 m illion to 120 m

illion. A nd then there's India

R ussia

the M

iddle E ast. . .

· '

'

T H

E R

ISE O

F N

A T

IO N

A L

ISM

In a globalized w orld,

alm ost all problem

s spill over borders.

W hether

it's terr~ris~,.

nuclear proliferation,

disease, environm ental

degradation, eco-

nom ic_ cn~is, or w

ater scarcity, no issue can be addressed w ithout significant

coordm at10n and cooperation

am ong m

any countries. B ut w

hile econom ics

inform ation: an1 even culture m

ight have becom e globalized, form

al politicai pow

er rem am

s firm ly tethered to the nation-state, even as the nation-state has

bec?m e less able to solve m

ost of these problem s unilaterally. A

nd increasingly, nat10n-states

are becom ing less w

illing to com e together

to solve com m

on problem

s. A s the num

ber of players-governm ental

and nongovernm ental-

m creases and each one's pow

er and confidence grow s, the prospects for agree-

m ent and com

m on action dim

inish. T his is the central challenge of the rise of

the rest-to stop the forces of global grow

th froi;n turning into the forces of global disorder and disintegration.

· T

he rise of pride and confidence am ong other nations,

particularly the

largest and m ost successful ones, is readily apparent. For m

e, it w as vividly il-

lu~trated a few y~ars ago in a~ Internet cafe in Shanghai, w

here I w as chatting

w ith a young C

hm ese executive. H

e w as describing the extraordinary

grow th

that w as taking

place in his country and a future

in w hich

C hina w

ould be m

odern and prosperous.

H e w

as thoroughly W

esternized in dress and

dem eanor, spoke excellent E

nglish, and could com fortably

discuss the latest business trends or gossip about A

m erican pop culture. H

e seem ed the consum

- m

ate product of globalization, the person w ho bridges cultures and m

akes the w

o_rld a sm aller, m

ore cosm opolitan place. B

ut w hen w

e began talking about T

aiw an, Japan, and the U

nited States, his responses w ere filled w

ith bile. H e

explained in furious tones that w ere T

aiw an to dare to declare independence

C hina should instantly invade it. H

e said that Japan w as an aggressor natio~

that could neve~ be trusted. H

e w as sure that the U

nited States deliberately bo1;11-bedthe C

hm ese em

bassy during the K osovo w

ar in 1999, to terrify the C

hm ese people w

ith its m ilitary m

ight. A nd so on. I felt as if I w

ere in B erlin

in 1910, speaking to a young G erm

an profrssional, w

ho in those days w ould

have also been both thoroughly m odern and thoroughly nationalist.

A s econom

ic fortunes rise, so does nationalism .

T his is understandable.

Im ~gine that you lived in a country that had been poor and unstable for cen-

tunes. A nd then, finally, things turn and your nation is on the rise. Y

ou w ould

be P:oud and anxious to be seen. T his desire for re~ognition and respect is

surgm g throughout

the w orld. It m

ay seem paradoxical that globalization and

econom ic m

odernization are breeding political nationalism , but that is so only

621 PA R

T I V

isions of W ar and P

eace

if w e view

nationalism

as a backw ard

ideology, certain to be erased by the onw

ard m arch of progress.

N ationalism

has alw

ays perplexed A

m ericans. W

hen the U nited States

involves itself abroad, it alw

ays believes that it is genuinely trying to help

other countries better them selves. From

the Philippines and H aiti to V

ietnam

and Iraq, the natives' reaction to U .S. efforts has taken A

m ericans by surprise.

A m

ericans take justified pride in their ow n country-w

e call it patriotism

- and yet are genuinely startled w

hen other people are proud and possessive of theirs.

' In the w

aning days of B ritain's rule in India, its last viceroy, L

ord L ouis

M ountbatten,

turned to the great Indian leader M ahatm

a G

andhi and said in exasperation, "If w

e just leave, there w ill be chaos." G

andhi replied, "Y es, but

it w ill be our chaos." T

hat sense of being governed by one's "ow n,"

w ithout

interference, is a pow erful feeling in em

erging countries, especially those that w

ere once colonies or quasi-colonies of the W est.

Z bigniew

B rzezinski recently called attention to w

hat he term s a "global

political aw akening."

H e pointed to rising m

ass passions, fueled by various forces-econom

ic success, national pride, higher levels of education,

greater inform

ation and transparency, and m em

ories of the past. B rzezinski noted the

disruptive aspects of this new force. "T

he population of m uch of the developing

w orld is politically stirring and in m

any places seething w ith unrest," he w

rote. "It is acutely conscious of social injustice to an unprecedented degree ...

[and this] is creating a com

m unity of shared perceptions and envy that can be galva-

nized and channeled by dem agogic political or religious passions. T

hese ener- gies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as w

ell as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of w hich A

m erica still perches."

In m any countries outside the W

estern w orld, there is pent-up frustration

w ith having had to accept an entirely W

estern or A m

erican narrative of w orld

history-one in w

hich they either are m iscast or rem

ain bit players .... Such divergent

national perspectives

have alw ays existed,

but today, thanks

to greater education,

inform ation,

and confidence, they are w

idely dissem

inated on new new

s netw orks, cable channels, and Internet sites of the

em erging w

orld. M any of the "rest" are dissecting the narratives, argum

ents, and assum

ptions of the W

est and countering them

w ith a different view

of the w

orld. "W hen you tell us that w

e support a dictatorship in Sudan to have

access to its oil," a young C hinese official told m

e in 2006, "w hat I w

ant to say is, 'A

nd how is that different from

your support for a m edieval m

onarchy in Saudi A

rabia?' W e see the hypocrisy, w

e just don't say anything, yet." A

fter the C old W

ar ended, there w as a general hope and expectation

that C hina and R

ussia w ould m

ove inexorably into the post-W

orld W

ar II W

estern political and econom ic system

. W hen G

eorge H . W

B ush spoke of

"a new w

orld order," he m

eant sim ply that the old W

estern one w

ould be extended w

orldw ide. Perhaps this view

stem m

ed from the postw

ar experience w

ith Japan and G

erm any,

both of w hich rose to the heights

of econom ic

pow er and yet w

ere accom m

odating, cooperative, and largely silent m em

bers of the existing order. B

ut perhaps those w ere special circum

stances. T he tw

o

FA R

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D Z

A l<A

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/ E conom

ics Trum ps P

olitics 63

countries had unique histories,

having w aged aggressive w

ars and becom e

pariahs as a consequence, and they faced a new

threat from Soviet com

m u-

nism and relied on A

m erican m

ilitary pow er for their protection.

T he next

round of rising pow ers m

ight not be so eager to "fit in." W

e still think of a w orld in w

hich a rising pow er m

ust choose betw een

tw o stark options:

integrate into the W

estern order,

or reject it, becom ing

a rogue nation and facing the penalties of excom

m unication.

In fact, rising pow

ers appear to be follow ing a third w

ay: entering the W estern order but

doing_ so ?n their ow

n term s-thus

reshaping the system itself. A

s the politi- cal sc1ent1sts N

aazneen B arm

a, E ly R

atner, and Steven W eber point out, in a

w orld w

here everyone feels em pow

ered, countries can choose to bypass this W

este_rn "center" entirely and forge their ow n ties w

ith one another. In a post- A

m encan w

orld, there m ay be no center to integrate into. U

.S. Secretary of State Jam

es B aker suggested in 1991 that the w

orld w as m

oving tow ard

a hub-and-spoke system

, w ith every country going through the U

nited States to get to its destination. T

he tw enty-first-century w

orld m ight be better described

as one of point-to-point routes, w

ith new flight patterns

being m apped every

day. (T his is true even in a physical sense: in just ten years, the num

ber of

R ussian visitors to C

hina increased m ore than fourfold, from

489,000 in 1995 to 2.2 m

illion in 2005.) T he focus has shifted. C

ountries are increasingly inter- ested in them

selves-the story of their rise-and

pay less attention to the W est

and the U nited States. A

s a result, the urgent discussions on the presidential cam

paign trail throughout 2007 about the need to lessen anti-A

m ericanism

are som

ew hat off-point. T

he w orld is m

oving from anger to indifference, from

anti-A

m ericanism

to post-A m

ericanism ....

T he traditional

m echanism

s of international

cooperation are relics of

a_nother era. T he U

nited N ations

system represents

an outdated configura-

t10n of pow er. T

he perm anent

m em

bers of the U N

Security C ouncil are the

victors of a w ar that ended sixty years ago. T

he body does not include Ja- pan or G

erm any the w

orld's second-

and third-largest econom

ies (at m

ar- ket exchange rates),

or India, the w orld's

largest dem ocracy,

or any L atin

A m

erican or A frican country.

T he Security C

ouncil exem plifies the antique

structure of global governance m ore broadly. T

he G -8 does not include C

hina, already the w

orld's fourth-largest

econom yt or India and South K

orea, the tw

elfth and thirteenth. B y tradition,

the IM F is alw

ays headed by a E uropean

and the W orld B

ank by an A m

erican. T his "tradition,"

like the custom s of an

old segregated country club, m ay be charm

ing and am using to insiders, but to

outsiders it is bigoted and outrageous. A

further com

plication: w

hen I w ritt; of the rise of nationalism

I am

describing

a broader phenom

enon-the assertion

of identity. T

he n~tion- state is a relatively new

invention, often no m

ore than a hundred years old. M

uch older are the religious, ethnic, and linguistic groups that live w ithin

nation-states. A nd these bonds have stayed strong, in fact grow

n, as econom ic

interdependence has deepened. In E urope, the Flem

ish and French in B elgium

rem

ain as distinct as ever. In B ritain, the Scots have elected a ruling party that

proposes ending the three-hundred-year-old A

cts of U nion that created the

64 I P A

R T I

V isions of W

ar and P eace

U nited K

ingdom of E

ngland, Scotland, and W ales. In India, national

parties are losing ground to regional ones. In K

enya, tribal distinctions are becom ing

m ore im

portant. In m

uch of the w orld, these core identities-deeper

than the nation-state-rem

ain the defining features of life. It is w

hy people vote, and w

hat they die for. In an open w orld econom

y, these groups know that they

need the central governm ent less and less. A

nd in a dem ocratic age, they gain

greater and greater pow er if they stay together as a group. T

his tw in ascen-

dancy of identity m eans that, w

hen relating to the U nited States or the U

nited N

ations or the w

orld at large, C hinese and Indian nationalism

grow

s. B ut

w ithin their ow

n countries, sub-nationalism is also grow

ing. W hat is happen-

ing on the global stage-the rise of identity in the m

idst of econom ic grow

th- is also happening

on the local stage. T he bottom

line: it m

akes purposeful national action far m

ore difficult ....

TH E

LA S

T S U

P E

R P

O W

E R

M

any observers and com m

entators have looked at the vitality of this em

erg- ing w

orld and concluded that the U nited States has had its day. A

ndy G rove,

the founder of Intel, puts it bluntly. "A m

erica is in danger of follow ing E

urope dow

n the tubes," he says, "and the w orst part is that nobody know

s it. T hey're

all in denial, patting them selves on the back as the Titanic heads straight for

the iceberg full speed ahead." T hom

as Friedm an describes w

atching w aves of

young Indian professionals get to w ork for the night shift at Infosys in B

an- galore. "O

h, m y G

od, there are so m any of them

, and they just keep com ing,

w ave after w

ave. H ow

in the w orld can it possibly be good for m

y daughters and m

illions of other A m

ericans that these Indians can do the sam e jobs as

they can for a fraction of the w ages?" "G

lobalization is striking back," w

rites G

abor Steingart, an editor at G erm

any's leading new s m

agazine, D er Spiegel,

in a bestselling book. A s its rivals have prospered, he argues, the U

nited States has lost key industries, its people have stopped saving m

oney, and its govern- m

ent has becom e increasingly indebted to A

sian central banks. W

hat's puzzling, how

ever, is that these trends have been around for a

w hile-and

they have actually helped A m

erica's bottom

line. O ver the past

tw enty years, as globalization and outsourcing have accelerated dram

atically, A

m erica's

grow th

rate has averaged just over 3 percent, a full percentage

point higher than that of G erm

any and France. (Japan averaged 2.3 percent over the sam

e period.) Productivity grow th, the elixir of m

odern econom ics,

has been over 2.5 percent for a decade now

, again a full percentage point

higher than the E uropean average. E

ven A m

erican exports held up, despite a decade-long spike in the value of the dollar that ended recently. In 1980, U

.S. exports

represented 10 percent of the w

orld total; in 2007, that figure w as

still alm ost 9 percent. A

ccording to the W orld E

conom ic Forum

, the U nited

States rem ains the m

ost com petitive econom

y in the w orld and ranks first in

innovation, ninth in technological readiness, second in com pany spending for

research and technology, and second in the quality of its research institutions.

FA R

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/ E conom

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olitics 65

C hina does not com

e w ithin thirty countries

of the U nited States in any of

these, and India breaks the top ten on only one count: m arket size. In virtually

every sector that advanced industrial countries participate in, U

.S. firm s lead

the w orld in productivity and profits.

T he U

nited States'

share of the global econom

y has been rem

arkably steady through

w ars, depressions,

and a slew of other pow

ers rising. W ith

5 percent of the w orld's population,

the U nited States has generated betw

een 20 and 30 percent of w

orld output for 125 years. T here w

ill surely be som e

slippage of A m

erica's position

over the next few decades. T

his is not a po- litical statem

ent but a m

athem atical

one. A s other

countries grow

faster, A

m erica's relative econom

ic w eight w

ill fall. B ut the decline need not be large-

scale, rapid, or consequential, as long as the U

nited States can adapt to new

challenges as w ell as it adapted to those it confronted over the last century. In

the next few decades, the rise of the em

erging nations is likely to com e m

ostly at the expense of W

estern E

urope and Japan,

w hich are locked in a slow

, dem

ographically determ ined decline.

A m

erica w ill face the m

ost intense econom ic com

petition it has ever faced. T

he A m

erican econom ic and social system

know s how

to respond and adjust to such pressures.

T he reform

s needed are obvious but because they m ean

som e pain now

for long-term

gain, the political system

cannot m ake them

. T

he m ore difficult challenge that the U

nited States faces is international. It

w ill confront a global order quite different from

the one it is used to operating in. For now

, the U nited States rem

ains the m ost pow

erful player. B ut every

year the balance shifts. For the roughly tw

o decades since 1989, the pow er of the U

nited States has defined the international

order. A ll roads have led to W

ashington, and

A m

erican ideas about politics, econom ics, and foreign policy have been the

starting points

for global action.

W ashington

has been the m ost pow

er- ful outside actor on every continent

in the w orld,

dom inating

the W estern

H em

isphere, rem aining the crucial outside balancer in E

urope and E ast A

sia, expanding its role in the M

iddle E ast and C

entral and South A sia, and every-

w here rem

aining the only country that can provide the m uscle for any seri-

ous global m ilitary operation.

For every country-from

R ussia and C

hina to South A

frica and India-its m

ost im portant relf;ltionship in the w

orld has been the relationship w

ith the U nited States.

T hat

influence reached

its apogee w ith

Iraq. D

espite the reluctance,

opposition, or active hostility of m uch of the w

orld, the U nited States w

as able to launch an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country and to enlist dozens of countries and international

agencies to assist it during and after the invasion. It is not just the com

plications of Iraq that have unw ound this order. E

ven had Iraq been a glorious success, the m

ethod of its execution w ould have m

ade ut- terly clear the unchallenged pow

er of the U nited States-and

it is this exercise of unipolarity

that has provoked a reaction around the w

orld. T he unipolar

order of the last tw o decades is w

aning not because of Iraq but because of the broader diffusion of pow

er across the w orld. . . .

'

, I

'I !