How to revive Brand America

By Manish Chand

The Post-American World
Author: Fareed Zakaria
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Price-Rs 499

Take a few random examples, Zakaria says, to explain this "great transformation taking place around the world." The tallest building in the world is now in Taipei, the world's richest man is Mexican, its largest publicly traded corporation is Chinese, the biggest plane is built in Russia and Ukraine, its leading refinery is under construction in India, and its largest factories are all in China.

What's more, Zakaria says, "quintessentially American icons have been appropriated by foreigners" with Singapore flaunting the world's largest Ferris wheel and Macao showing off the world's largest casino. "The biggest movie industry, in terms of both movies made and tickets sold, is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Of the top ten malls in the world, only one is in the US; the world's biggest is in Beijing," he writes.

If all this gives the impression that "the most powerful country in the world since ancient Rome," is fading into the sunset, don't be gulled by appearances. In The Post-American World (published by Penguin/Viking), Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International and one of the most influential commentators in Washington, tries to deflate the hype about the "rise of Asia" and and argues forcefully that although the rest may be rising – read India, China, Russia, Brazil and many others – there is no alternative to the centrality of the US in global decision-making.

And American power will be real for many decades to come: the US economy has averaged 20-25 per cent of global GDP for 130 years, it’s economy at $14 trillion is more than four times that of China and at least 14 times that of India and its military spending is equivalent to what the rest of the world spends on defence in dollar terms.

This assertion, coming as it does in the face of a pronounced plunge in America's credibility largely because of its military intervention in Iraq and post-9/11 muscle-flexing, may sound a lot of bravura to some, but Zakaria is not the kind known to indulge in irrational exuberance.

On the contrary, Zakaria's essay on the nature of the new world with multiple powers - India, Russia, China, Brazil and many others - and America's continuing preeminence in this polyphonic multi-polar world is argued passionately and backed by revealing statistics and close reasoning.

The author admits that the US, which has gotten used to unrivalled unipolar dominance after the collapse of the Soviet Union, will now have to accommodate itself “the rise of the rest.” These rising powers will compel the US to adjust to a new world with new global players, but will not necessarily threaten the entrenched hold of the US on the international system. This is the burden of Zakaria’s song as he take a fresh look at the much-touted rise of Asia and pits it against hard facts about American political, economic, military and cultural power and the lasting appeal of the American system – democracy, free market, open society – that will ensure its domination of the world, at least for a few more decades.

But if the US is to play the role of an "honest broker" in the future, the author argues, it has to craft "a new approach for a new era, one that responds to a global system in which power is more diffuse than ever before and in which everyone feels empowered."

In the tone of an incurable optimist - a quintessential American trait - Zakaria offers a roster of suggestions that the future occupant of the White House will do well to listen to if he wishes to reclaim the US' battered legitimacy. “The US has every kind of power in ample supply these days except one: legitimacy. In today’s world, this is a critical deficiency,” he writes.

Instead of giving the impression of behaving like an imperialistic hegemon, the powers-that-be in Washington should learn a thing or two from German strongman Otto von Bismark, the author suggests. “It has the potential to be what Bismarck helped Germany become (briefly) in the late nineteenth century – Europe’s “honest broker,” forging close relationships with each of the major countries, ties that were closer than the ones those countries had with one another,” he argues.

Other suggestions include an exhortation to Washington to “think asymmetrically” to deal with guerrilla terrorism and non-state actors whom he describe as “small groups of people with ingenuity, passion and determination” and returning to old-fashioned sturdy multilateralism and mobilizing coalitions for big-ticket global issues.

Zakaria’s book comes at a time when the image of America has sunk to a new low due to its ill-conceived interventions abroad. This dip in the credibility has coincided with China’s Olympic moment that underscored China’s economic prowess and its nationalistic hunger for global prestige and recognition after centuries of perceived humiliation and neglect. India, too, is rising and while it is still some years away from its Olympic moment, it could be a vital ally with its vibrant democracy and noisy civil society. The nuclear deal the US has offered India is not so much about energy but has the potential to alter the strategic landscape, brining India firmly and irrevocably onto the global stage as a major player, writes Zakaria.

China is a "challenger" in a very real sense, with its economy growing in 7 to 10 per cent range for the last 30 years and its escalating spending on defence. "China today exports in a single day more than it exported in all of 1978," Zakaria writes revealingly. "China operates on so large a scale that it can't help changing the nature of the game," he says.

But there is no Chinese dream to which people aspire, Zakaria quotes a Singaporean scholar as saying. And therein lies the difference. "The US does not have the hand it had in 1945 or even in 2000. Still, it does have a stronger hand than anyone else - the most complete portfolio of economic, political, military and cultural power - and it will not be replaced in the foreseeable future," Zakaria writes with an air of certainty. It's a different matter though that the American dream has turned into a nightmare for many.

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