Though I’ve often disagreed with Fareed Zakaria on specific policy questions, I’ve always been challenged and interested by his way of thinking about big issues. Like some of my colleagues here at Sepia Mutiny, I found his book The Future of Freedom stimulating, if imperfect. Zakaria seems to be especially good at synthesizing complex issues under the umbrella of a signature “big idea,” without choking off qualifications or complexities. He still may a little too close to the buzzword-philia of Thomas Friedman for some readers, but in my view Zakaria’s book-length arguments are a cut above Friedman’s “gee whiz” bromides. (Zakaria’s weekly Newsweek columns do not always rise to this bar.)
Zakaria’s latest big concept is The Post-American World, a just-released book whose argument he summarizes in a substantial essay in this week’s Newsweek. The basic idea is, the world is becoming a place where the U.S. is not a solo superpower, but rather a complex competitive environment with multiple sites of power and influence. Even as China and India (“Chindia”?) rise, it’s not clear that the U.S. or Europe will fall; rather, everyone can, potentially, rise together — or at least, compete together. Zakaria argues that despite hysterical anxieties figured in the mass media regarding the threat of terrorism and economic crisis, the world has rarely been more peaceful — and that relative peace and stability has created the opportunity for the unprecedented emergence of independent and rapidly expanding market economies in formerly impoverished “Chindia.”
There’s more to it (read the article), but perhaps that is enough summary for now. There are a couple of passages I thought particularly interesting, which I might put out for discussion. First, on India:
During the 1980s, when I would visit India—where I grew up—most Indians were fascinated by the United States. Their interest, I have to confess, was not in the important power players in Washington or the great intellectuals in Cambridge.
People would often ask me about … Donald Trump. He was the very symbol of the United States—brassy, rich, and modern. He symbolized the feeling that if you wanted to find the biggest and largest anything, you had to look to America. Today, outside of entertainment figures, there is no comparable interest in American personalities. If you wonder why, read India’s newspapers or watch its television. There are dozens of Indian businessmen who are now wealthier than the Donald. Indians are obsessed by their own vulgar real estate billionaires. And that newfound interest in their own story is being replicated across much of the world. (link)
This last insight seems dead-on to me, and it’s the kind of thing I think Zakaria appreciates precisely because he was raised in India (no matter how many times he says “we” when talking about American foreign policy, he still carries that with him). This is one of the spaces where Zakaria’s status as an “Indian-American” is a real asset, as it gives him a simultaneous insider-outsider “double consciousness” — he has the ability to see things from the American/European point of view, but also know (remembers?) how the man on the street in Bombay or Shanghai is likely to see the world. [Note: I did an earlier post on Zakaria’s complex perspective here]
(As a side note — for the academics in the house, isn’t the narrative Zakaria is promoting in the passage above a “pop” version of what postcolonial theorists have been talking about for years — what Ngugi called “The Decolonization of the Mind”?)
Secondly, another passage, which I think addresses what might be the biggest hindrance to the multi-nodal global society Zakaria is interested in:
The rise of China and India is really just the most obvious manifestation of a rising world. In dozens of big countries, one can see the same set of forces at work—a growing economy, a resurgent society, a vibrant culture, and a rising sense of national pride. That pride can morph into something uglier. For me, this was vividly illustrated a few years ago when I was chatting with a young Chinese executive in an Internet café in Shanghai. He wore Western clothes, spoke fluent English, and was immersed in global pop culture. He was a product of globalization and spoke its language of bridge building and cosmopolitan values. At least, he did so until we began talking about Taiwan, Japan, and even the United States. (We did not discuss Tibet, but I’m sure had we done so, I could have added it to this list.) His responses were filled with passion, bellicosity, and intolerance. I felt as if I were in Germany in 1910, speaking to a young German professional, who would have been equally modern and yet also a staunch nationalist.
As economic fortunes rise, so inevitably does nationalism. Imagine that your country has been poor and marginal for centuries. Finally, things turn around and it becomes a symbol of economic progress and success. You would be proud, and anxious that your people win recognition and respect throughout the world. (link)
Will resurgent nationalism turn out to be the biggest hindrance to the “smooth” globalization Zakaria is talking about? How might this play out? Will there be a new generation of wars, or will it be expressed in subtler ways (like, for instance, what happened with the nuclear deal within the Indian political system). In the Newsweek article at least, Zakaria doesn’t really explore the downside of emergent (insurgent?) Chindian nationalisms in depth; perhaps we can do so here.
As far as India has come in the last decade or two, India still has a lot of structural problems to become a real threat to the US global dominance any time soon. What could undermine the US position is self inflicted damage (see Iraq for example) rather than anything India or China does.
As an ABD, who also spent quite a bit of time in India as a kid, I am able to understand both perspectives. I went to India recently and let me just say that Bush has done a great job destroying our reputation across the world instead of trying to rebuild the country with the money wasted in Iraq and other misadventures.
The dollar purchasing power is down(though that is happy news for our exporters). But the big difference I notice is the aura is gone. Most of the immigration in my family happened until the 90s. This decade, not a single one of my cousins came over to the US with the intent to live here. In fact, one of them asked me why I wouldn’t consider living in India if I could get a cushy job at a multinational company.
The U.S. still has a bit of residual superpowerdom left. But we need to watch out as a country.
I have been reading Zakaria for quite sometime now. I find him brilliant in that he is extremely nuanced and insightful. I have a Zakaria test now – if someone disagrees with Zakaria most of the time then that person is an extremist, either on the left or on the right.
Zakaria on NPR talking about this book.
This guy was for the war in Iraq. He agreed with those neocons, and look what happened. American leaders happened to be listening to Muslims like him, unlike the prototypical Muslim. Look in the Cold War, Reagan work with the typical Soviet (and understood the enemy a tad better than Bush II). Zakaria is a great writer (I read him a lot), but I don’t understand how he was for the war in Iraq.
Resurgent nationalism is indeed going to be a problem (see this “Foreign Affairs” article also) but with increasing stakes in a globalized economy that stresses stability and professionalism, countries, and individuals in that country, who flirt with that idea too much will understand that they risk losing too much. The way I see it, the problem, of having suicidal regimes and/or corrupt ones, in less devloped countries, was because they were denied equal access in the world economy. This was either because of ideological barriers (and the collapse of communism, with its attendant system of economic control by the state of commerce & industry, ended the debate with the free market model, more or less, coming out the victor) or technological/logistical barriers. With the internet and vast improvements in the transportation industries, we might see tens of millions, if not hundreds, drawn into the global economy, reluctant to let it all slip away for demagogic calls, over ethnicities and religious affiliations, from cynical politicians.
If the jihadist in Basra had a regular job, and good economic prospects in the future, would he be so willing to spend his weekends fashioning an IED in his home/garage, or would he rather try and cram for the Series 7 exams (or the local equivalent thereof) so that he could show his ma-in-law that he’s not all that useless?!
Rahul S, well, unfortunately, plenty of people — including some very smart ones — drank the Kool-Aid on the Iraq War in 2003.
Here is what Wikipedia has on Zakaria’s positions on that event: While Zakaria initially supported using military force against Iraq, he argued for a United Nations-sanctioned operation and occupation with a much larger force (approximately 400,000 troops). He also called for a Bosnia or Kosovo-style occupation that was international, rather than American, in nature. He wrote a Newsweek cover-essay the week the Iraq war began entitled “The Arrogant Empire”, which detailed the failures of the Bush foreign policy in the run-up to the war. He was an early and aggressive critic of the occupation, arguing against the disbanding of the Iraqi army and bureaucracy, which the administration accomplished under the guise of “de-Baathification”. He predicted that accelerating the build-up of the Iraqi military would create a Shia and Kurdish army that would exacerbate the sectarian tensions in the country. Four months into the occupation, his columns bore such titles as “Iraq Policy is broken,” and in September of 2003 he wrote a cover story for Newsweek entitled “So What’s Plan B?” In February of 2005, the week before Iraq’s elections, he wrote “…no matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim.” In his October 2006 Newsweek cover essay, Zakaria called for a reduction in American troops in Iraq to 60,000 by the end of 2007.
I do give him credit for recognizing, even at the outset, that the Bush administration was doing it all wrong (see: The Arrogant Empire). If they had gone in with 400,000 troops & handled the post-invasion differently, the story on the Iraq invasion would probably be rather different. (Note: I myself was against it from the start & protested in New York on 2/15/03 along with millions of others.)
That calculus is also, I think, why so many Democrats in the Senate voted to authorize the war in the fall of 2002. They pretty much knew the WMD was propagranda (at least I hope they could see that for what it was), but presumed that the Bush Administration would handle the invasion at least as well as the first Bush administration had done (i.e., overwhelming force & so on).
Better execution would have changed the political calculus.
If the jihadist in Basra had a regular job, and good economic prospects in the future, would he be so willing to spend his weekends fashioning an IED in his home/garage, or would he rather try and cram for the Series 7 exams (or the local equivalent thereof) so that he could show his ma-in-law that he’s not all that useless?!
One would think the apologists for jihadis would give up economic rationales for the behavior of jihadsts after the million or so articles in journals and newspapers which prove jihadists come from middle class and upper class backgrounds. In fact the process of globalization is the source of anxietes, anxietes about westernization as a threat to their way of life and culture, which drives some people in non-western countries to resort to violence to stop the process of globalization.
When the general consensus was for the Iraq war, this Huntington protege was for all for a great civilizing mission, but soon as things weren’t going so well, he started cataloging all the reasons why it was such a bad idea.
What Zakaria is good at is sensing what the media circuit wants to hear, and then summarizing it with smart words, a photogenic smile, and a pleasant demeanor. Of course, since he is of a certain ethnicity and religion, he gets more attention for saying whatever everybody else is saying, and that (and Huntington’s backing) hasn’t hurt his career one bit.
I cannot recall him ever being insightful, or digesting ideas in a way that sheds new light on situations. Well, whatever pushes paper, I guess.
Word.
I have not read enough of Zakaria to comment on this
But is indeed what I have started feeling too about his view in time.
Which is not to say that he does not know what he is talking about. If he indeed has not come up with great new ideas but done a good job of promoting the ones that need attention, then he is a good journalist/analyst though I guess he is not a top notch intellectual unless he gives some fresh new ideas.
that was an unfortunate choice of words. i do not see how this analysis new or uniquely provocative. the only things which were refreshing about the essay were a conservative who:
Zakaria’s points have been around long enough to approximate truisms for many centrists and left-of-center folks.
I also think Zakaria is overly optimistic about global problems in general (he does a good job of evincing evidence against the common bogeymen), but he glosses over very significant ones. Nothing about how instability in capital and commodity markets can be catastrophic in the very intricate world economy, or about the fact that technological innovation has not yet dealt very well with energy issues. He vastly undermines poverty as a global problem, and fails to ground it historically (does not even call for reducing global military spending which seems to be automatic conclusion given the arguments he makes in this piece). Moreover, he continues to be enthralled by the American fairytale (while admitting himself that many countries (the US included) have built fantasies of grandeur that exaggerate their historical and global significance):
How such an allegedly sophisticated thinker believe in such deterministic accounts of history surprises me, to say the very least.
He is however far less annoying than the other know-it-all TV pundit who pontificates on globalization, Tom Friedman.
9 · Rahul said
Neither the fact that Huntingon’s prophecies (data? assertions?) are never borne out IRL(when subjected to empirical tests). He could be a contemporary Cassandra, but I think, well, he’s an ass. [Dizzzamn, how gutsy am I for trashing a Harvard prof anonymously on the net. But I do think that this particular gentleman has some particularly pernicious ideas, for which he hasn’t received nearly as much flak as he should.]
13 · Yogi said
this is a very low bar you’re setting, my friend. tom friedman is no ordinary chump (nevertheless, i didn’t condone the pie that was thrown at him at brown u).
12 · portmanteau said
its a combination of burke and hegel in a attempt to overthrow marx. free will, or non determinism is embraced but limited by human nature as burke warned, so the extreme social engineering of marx or even Robespierre is frowned upon.
fukiyama’s end of history thesis sums it up best: that liberal democracy and capitalism is the final stop in political evolution. history has a pattern, more like what hegel described than marx, that shows an evolution toward classic liberal freedom. it’s not too far away from lockes state of nature argument, where man is free but still has a nature.
but i don’t blame you lefties for fearing grand unification theories. once burned, twice shy.
It only proves that the the world is splat after all.
a special edition (davos?) of newsweek came out soon after 9-11 in which huntington defended his theory, saying that the ‘muslim wars’ were bring us a step closer to the clash, and fukuyama argued that despite 9/11, liberal democracy still did/would prevail. amusing to see both of these men scramble to defend their theories in light of that event.
fareed zakaria nauseates me just a little bit more, esp. in his television appearances. and i do wonder why he appears so often on the daily show…
I think people like Fukuyama and Kristol exist to make people like Zakaria look smart.
18 · ak said
…each time i see him again…
history is not a rangoli your akka makes or an interesting fractal, contrary to what 18th century aphorists (a euphemism for a hack, really) may tell you. fukuyama sounds every bit as determinist as marx (really, his theory seems like marx inverse) , and so will be shown to be as wrong. anyone who claims to find the ‘final stop’ in a any kind of ‘evolution’ is ambitious and grandiose, but misguided as well. she may be half-right, but will definitely be half-wrong as well (cf. marx).
PS: leftist =! marxist i fear unification theories because i care about smart historiography. however, props to burke. discovered a totally new and awesome (nationalist) side of him in uday singh mehta’s liberalism and empire.
OT: Bill Kristol is a partisan hack, couldn’t Times find a conservative columnist with at least a smidgen of intellectual honesty?
Reading FZ, I think he is not coming out enough to make people sit up and take notice. I think each of his articles should be preceded by ” i am a Muslim , from India, arrived in US at the age of twenty something, and I am the editor of NW intl “. I would love to see the reaction to his articles then. Until he lays down his identity in concrete terms, his voice will come across a little muffled.
19 · Rahul said
islamofascism hardly represents a legitimate ideological threat to liberal democracy. and as far as it being a reaction against american-style globalization, that’s mostly leftists projecting their own grievences on the terrorists.
the only issue 9-11 brings up is how to keep wmds out of the hands of the new fascists. but civilization will always have its discontents, as Freud argued.
fuckiyama, friedman, and zakaria are aware of human nature. this is not your fathers (marx) determinism.
oh, rahul didn’t say what i said he said. that was ak.
24 · Manju said
Samuel Huntington would be astonished to lumped with leftists.
Among the big time uber billionaires, the only one who is into real estate is the DLF group. Most others are into resource based industries, and some billionaires lead almost a spartan lifestyle. The flashiest billionaire (?) -Vijay Mallya – isn’t all that wealthy by Indian billionaire standards. What is Fareed talking about? I was business journalist in the ’80s, and Indians weren’t obsessed with Donald Trump, but Reagan’s antics. I know the plural of anecdote isn’t data but anecdotes. And what is all this concern over nationalism in China and India. Isn’t the US nationalistic? France? Russia? Canada?
Zakaria is a brlliant communicator as you say, and please allow me to add that Thomas Friedman and Shashi Tharoor (whose public speeches and writings make him out to be more of a gossip columnist than a 30 year UN veteran) have nothing close to his abilities.
However, as brilliant an intellectual and communicator as he is, I will always remember him for lacking the courage to take a stand on the war – either for or against. His strategy was the argue for it (thus secure his public record for a possibly future candidacy as National Security Advisor) and then lob barbs at the administration as soon as the war began (so that if it turned out to be disastrous, he could always argue how much of a critic he was of the war). At least others, whether for or against, had the courage to stand by their convictions.
Still I wish him well with his new gig at CNN and will look forward to reading his new book.
Amardeep – has the “India After Gandhi”, book group lapsed?
Saw Fareed plugging the book on Charlie Rose and in that interview he didn’t just focus on the emergence of Ch/In, he talks about South America and even S Africa being big in this century. Plus he actually mentions talking to diplomats and policymakers who are involved in deciding what happens next, instead of the cab drivers and college students Friedman prefers to quote. Def FZ is not as rah rah as Friedman and comes off as a more involved and rational student of Asia. I placed a request on the book at my library and am sure it will be an interesting read. India lacks the homogeneity that China has, and that would also explain the collapse of the nuclear deal also. The various pol parties couldn’t even get together to work that one out. India’s resurgence is good and all but what does it hold for the poorest? They should really so something fast before the gap widens even more.
27 · jyotsana said
well, you have that guy who’s building his own private skyscraper in mumbai. mittal bought the most expensive house in london, and had the worlds flashiest wedding. wealthy biz-men are all over indian society pages, as opposed to the celeb and movie star exclusive amaerican gossip pages. so maybe that’s what zakaria was getting at.
I am delighted to see that many agree with me here on Zakaria.
I find him a bit too slick, in the sense that I never see him take a controversial stance, he is always on the (so-called) foreign policy shows always saying some little trite litte tit-bit so that his face is always invited back again on the tube (or LCD today). It always sounds so right when he says it :-), he is a fabulous communicator an a lightweight intellectual.
On the other hand, I respect the ambition of a fellow mumbai-kar (I guess he would say “bombay-ite” :-)) and his uncanny ability to negotiate his way in that grey land of politics where the truth is hostage to the useful.
I haven’t read anything by Fareed Zakaria. I’ve seen him on TV tho a few times. I’m unmoved by his talk. He goes whichever way the wind blows. He’s IMO a self promoter and a social climber.
Desiriksha —
“Islamized” societies, for want of a better word, are perhaps different because, for reasons explicated by various commentators/journalists, Islam seems to rend itself quite easily to extremist interpretation, stuck in medieval thought-processes. Even then, if the US hadn’t invaded and/or screwed up this invasion of Iraq, we could have, perhaps, seen a peaceful evolution of Iraq (amongst the most educated of the Middle Eastern nations) towards a model like Bahrain, Qatar, UAE — secular Islamic societies, with dynamic economies and relatively freer political systems and peaceful intentions (Saddam’s rule notwithstanding, which is not a cop out by me but is more an indictment of the UN’s impotent role in the pre-9/11 world).
The “anxieties” of globalization certainly don’t seem to stop the peaceful rise of China, India, Vietnam, the above Middle Eastern countries…there are problems, yes, in all these nations that have adopted the liberal, free market system (in varying degrees) but they don’t seem too eager to rock the boat of globalization as they, and their citizens, easily see the vast advantages offered in their lives, materially and even emotionally, by being players in the globalized world as compared to whatever vestigial atavistic feelings they may get satisfied by retreating into communal/nationalistic ghettos.
24 · Manju said
ah, the tired conservative tactic of reductio et marxum. friedman is not even aware of econ 101, leave alone an authority on human nature.
Jyotsana, DLF, Reliance, and Unitech (and various local regional players; on the order of Rahejas and lower) are aggressively buying land. There is a shortage of trained site supervisors, civil engineers, (I am talking about North India, and wherever some huge construction project like a flyover is happening) and skilled construction workers. These groups of skilled professionals are experiencing salary growth @ rates greater than average economic growth, I hear. So there is a lot of heat in the real estate sector (constructing malls, shopping centers, homes in metro satellites seems to be quite lucrative). i don’t know what the scene is with the private sector and other more public infrastructure (like roads, ports etc).
I have no clue about the 80s whatsoever, except Duran Duran.
Nice! 🙂
If Fukuyama had lived in ancient Rome, he would have concluded that autocracy was the natural state of man, if he had been in medieval Europe instead, he would have argued that hereditary monarchies and feudalistic traditions would be the eventual state of the world. Of course, he makes his claims unfalsifiable by insisting that it is history that has ended, not actual episodes, and that even if there are periods of time where events happen contradictory to his theories, the world will eventually be the way he sees it, and musters a scant 300 years of conveniently viewed history as his evidence for his hypotheses. Since none of us will be around “eventually”, I guess his claims are quite safe.
I must say that I nurse a perverse admiration for his ability to periodically and prolifically churn out 600 page chunks of horseshit with so much ease, and almost on demand. He would perform a much greater service to the world, though, if his books were printed on soft two-ply.
This has been said before, but can never be said often enough.To Quote Yogi -Word.
A former Catherdralite told me: If you need a good anecdote to make a point in a debate, just make the quote up — no one’s gonna call you on it. It’s nice to see that Zakaria has not forgotten his roots
Anyone remembers Bombayites/ Mumbaikars obsessing about Donald trump in the 80s?
I agree with Jyotsana about her observation on Trump. Although the Ansals, Hiranandani, Rahejas and Lokhandwalas are primarly Real Estate businessmen they are no where as huge as DLF.
Dizzy,
May be Cathedral people had special place in their hearts for The Donald.
There is a lot of big time real estate happening in India, but the flashy tycoons don’t come from here. And, yes, Mukesh is building the world’s most expensive home, but he isn’t a real estate magnate, and Lakshmi Mittal was flashy way before he became a multi-billionaire.
Fareed for all his claims/affections to insider knowledge of India is very poorly read on the subject. He knows no Indian language, knows next to nothing of its history, culture etc., except what he has gleaned from the popular press – Nussbaum, Sen, here in the US. Even his knowledge of events around the world lacks the depth you would associate with a scholar of international relations. For a start he should read every report written by Saeed Naqvi, and then quickly browse through Gurcharan Das, Jerry Rao, Tavleen Singh, and Chandrabhan Prasad. And of course before he does that he should read his late father Dr.Rafiq Zakaria, and Syed Shahabuddin.
24 · Manju said
i agree. my only point was that people like huntington, fukuyama, and zakaria have to maintain their position (in the media, academic etc. spotlight) and so come up with ways to twist their own words so as not to appear ‘wrong’ – even if they end up being contradictory, redundant, illogical, and, well, wrong. my problem with somebody like zakaria, though, is that he’s not wedded to any one theory and consistently contradicts himself, yet still wants us to trust his judgment and theories at every turn. at least huntington and fukuyama are duking it out old-school (journals, magazines etc) and limiting their exposure (and to some degree, not backtracking as much as zakaria). but zakaria (and e.g. friedman) wants to be all over the place in the hopes of making us believe that he is always right. i would really respect the guy much more if he just stuck to his editorials in newsweek and academic fora – but his need to be in even the popular fora (e.g. daily show) irks me to no end. i don’t know, maybe he likes to hear himself talk more than write – but i do not at all enjoy his television appearances…
Anyone remembers Bombayites/ Mumbaikars obsessing about Donald trump in the 80s? Duck yes, Trump no.
How can I believe you when you say you heard this from a former Cathedralite?
39 · jyotsana said
uh, clearly, i’m not talking about ambani personally, of course, but reliance and its aggressive pursuit of land/construction/real estate projects.
About Indian tycoons, probably the two most flashy ones in recent times, were the Sahara guy, Subroto Roy, and Chatwal, both of them had extremely grand weddings for their scions within the last 10 years or so. Subroto also had Christian Aguilera, Beyonce etc. over to promote his exclusive Amby valley development a couple of years ago, if I recall correctly. News about him seems to have died down now as suddenly as his mysterious rise to fame, has he had a falling out with some important politicians?
I meant extremely grand weddings in India.
this article had a decent lay of the land about desi real estate players. seriously, if i had money and the inclination, this is where i would be speculating.
I think there was also the wedding of someone related to Bharat Shah which was similar in scale. Subroto Roy was close to Amar Singh/Mulayam and Amitabh Bachchan, the last I heard was when his airline was bought over by Jet and he made serious bank. I think he has a development called Amby Valley close to Bombay. I think there were also rumors that he was suffering from a life threatning illness sometime back.
Portmanteau,
I wish had the money to put in real estate in India three years back, I am not sure how much scope is still left to make money. An aside, a 3,000 sq. ft. apartment was recently sold on Altamount Road (Where Mukesh Ambani is building his residence) in Bombay for INR 90,000 per square feet.
39 · jyotsana said
taveleen singh and gurcharan das are not insightful. tavleen singh’s india roday columns in the late 1990s were written in the same zakaria-esque polemical style, with very little depth. i still recall her annoying profile shot in her column 🙂 i haven’t read rao or prasad. saeed naqvi is an above-average journalist and especially un-insightful when he used to be on the telly but it didn’t take that much back in the day to distinguish yourself in indian journalism. this might be changing. do people here follow any contemporary commentators on india (esp. desi journalists who don’t happen to be somini sengupta)?
19 · Rahul said
At least Fuckiyama isn’t a neocon, unlike Kristol. By the way, Kristol thinks McCain’s camp is very interested in Jindal.