Fareed Zakaria and "The Post-American World"

For summer vacation-bound executives tired of the detail treadmill, one possible good read is Fareed Zakaria's "The Post American World," published this spring by W.W. Norton & Company.
A guru of global "Big Think" and an Indian by birth, Zakaria is the product of Yale and Harvard and has edited "Foreign Affairs," the tome put out by the influential Council on Foreign Relations. He is now a columnist and the editor of Newsweek International.
Zakaria argues convincingly that the world order is changing quickly in ways that will challenge the unipolar power thrust upon the United States by the unexpected breakup of the Soviet bloc in 1991. The book, however, is not a jeremiad whining about the decline of America. Rather, as Zakaria points out energetically, it is about the rise of new players, including China, India, Brazil and a transforming Russia.

Their influence is largely economic. China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and India are all growing faster than the U.S. Zakaria is at his best describing how the Asians came to prominence, especially his fellow Indians. Of special merit is his description of how East and South Asians think differently than Westerners. This is a product, of course, of their history, culture and religion, which are based more on mysticism and complexity than absolutes.

Zakaria obviously loves and promotes the U.S. but decries its floundering after the Soviet break-up. Washington did eventually come to play its role as honest broker and cop of last resort during the Clinton Administration in places where the Europeans failed, such as Kosovo and Bosnia.

Yet the Bush Administration came on with a hard, unilateral line that has turned off most of the world. To be fair, Bush was responding to the horrific 9-11 attacks and even Zakaria originally backed toppling Saddam Hussein. As wars in Iraq and Afghanistan progressed, however, the Bush people let their arrogance overcome good sense. In international affairs, they haven't bothered to build consensus through outreach and are prone to lecture rather than listen.

Hence, Zakaria argues, they are a lot like General Motors in the 1970s which pursued narrow strategies based on internal issues rather than broad, smart policies. Not all U.S. companies come in for scorn. Zakaria praises General Electric for accepting the new global reality and shedding its policies of insisting on 100 percent buyouts of foreign firms and instead going for more cooperative joint ventures.

Zakaria urges U.S. leaders to become more inclusive and stop issuing diktats from Washington. Despite the incredible growth of places like China, the U.S. still dominates in creative ideas and its superb university system. It must address retrograde issues such as silly and narrow immigration policies and must remember that the U.S. proselytized globalization and now needs to globalize itself.

A lot of this is standard fare from think tanks and the Council on Foreign Relations. I also believe Zakaria is a little too kind to the Bushies. He barely mentions such destructive neo-cons as Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. But the Bushies will be gone soon enough and it is time for fresh thinking. Zakaria outlines some ideas that will help shape the process. At less than 300 pages, his book is a worthy beach-front task for a couple of lazy afternoons.