A brief post-9/11 lament

I have been shying away from most of the 9/11 retrospectives, because when I think of what that day wrought in this country, all I feel is grief. Grief, that is, over what we in the United States have done to ourselves in response to the real and perceived threat.

The usually acute FT columnist Philip Stephens argued last week that in the grand scheme of things, 9/11 mattered not much of all. The main story of the last decade is "the rising states of Asia and Latin America"; 9/11 just accelerated the relative "rise of the rest."  That may well be true.  But to add as a corollary that "Bin Laden did not really change very much at all" is reverse myopia of the worst kind.

Byzantium in Brazil? The Pope looks south and east

Philip Stephens, wondering why the arrogant and unrepentant Pope seems content to let the Church in Europe and North America implode, comes up with a hypothesis:

Now, I think I understand. The pontiff is a globaliser. He can feel the world’s geopolitical plates shifting. He grasps as well as any politician or business leader that the west has had its day. The opportunities to spread the gospel lie elsewhere – in societies more respectful of authority and less questioning of past crimes.

Deja vu all over again.  The Roman Empire lingered for a thousand years in Byzantium after the serial sackings of Rome (in sync with that first fruit of schism, the Orthodox Church); its center of gravity had shifted in the century preceding. Perhaps that's what John Allen, Benedict's biographer, has in mind when touts the Pope's long view:

[Allen] recently told the FT’s Rome correspondent that the Holy Father was untroubled by crises of the moment because he had the “great gift of thinking in terms of centuries”.

Mr Allen, as it happens, has also charted the shift in the church’s demographic centre of gravity. Catholicism is booming in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Europeans and North Americans, Mr Allen calculates, now number only 350m in a church of some 1.2bn. About two-thirds of Catholics live in what is the emerging world – about 400m of them in Latin America. Brazil boasts twice as many communicants as Italy. Mexico and the Philippines have larger congregations than Germany or France.

This perhaps is where Pope Benedict’s gaze is fixed. Catholics in the emerging nations, after all, have been largely untroubled by the scandal that has rocked his authority in the west. They are less inclined to challenge the pontiff’s moral absolutism and his demand for unquestioning obedience to Rome.

This long view isn't long enough. Though it doesn't happen overnight, globalization erodes authoritarianism.  As societies get wealthier, they chafe under the old oligarchs --of the intellect and spirit as well as of the purse and police.  The Church will exhaust its new markets quickly if it doesn't change as they change. If the Pope believes that his flock in the developing world will continue to swallow palpable absurdities like Papal infallibility and, more generally, the notion that the word of God can be nailed down definitively, he's thinking in decades, not centuries. The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends not only toward justice but toward freedom and reason as well.


The Church's long lens is facing backwards.

Obama pitches "The End of History" in Shanghai

By now the scene that played out in Shanghai yesterday is familiar: Obama first addressing and then fielding questions from young students in a far-off quarter of the globe.

In these forums, Obama makes a case for values every American president promotes in speeches: freedom of speech, freedom of information, equal rights for all citizens, accountable government. But for those of us who admire the basic architecture of Obama's thinking and rhetoric, these youth forums are balm after the Bush years. Obama doesn't simply promote these values; he exemplifies them, in the complexity and clarity and nuance of the way he presents them. He is an embodiment of American values, not because of the ethnic heritage he always cites, but because of the way his mind works.

In the question period in Shanghai, he was plainly aiming not so much to argue for freedom -- some have hit him for not engaging directly with Chinese human rights absues -- as to waken in his young audience a thirst for it. Here's part of his response to a "how can a student be successful like you" question:

You know, the people who I meet now that I find most inspiring who are successful I think are people who are not only willing to work very hard but are constantly trying to improve themselves and to think in new ways, and not just accept the conventional wisdom...

But I think that whatever field you go into, if you're constantly trying to improve and never satisfied with not having done your best, and constantly asking new questions -- "Are there things that I could be doing differently? Are there new approaches to problems that nobody has thought of before, whether it's in science or technology or in the arts? -- those are usually the people who I think are able to rise about the rest.

That is plainly not a mainstream message in Chinese culture. It's not an explicitly political message. But it connects back to a prior answer in which Obama referred to his own experience to make the case for open criticism of government (when asked whether Chinese should be able to use Twitter freely):

I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity.

And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship. This is part of the tradition of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet -- or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.

Now, I should tell you, I should be honest, as President of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely because then I wouldn't have to listen to people criticizing me all the time. I think people naturally are -- when they're in positions of power sometimes thinks, oh, how could that person say that about me, or that's irresponsible, or -- but the truth is that because in the United States information is free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear. It forces me to examine what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis to see, am I really doing the very best that I could be doing for the people of the United States.

And I think the Internet has become an even more powerful tool for that kind of citizen participation. In fact, one of the reasons that I won the presidency was because we were able to mobilize young people like yourself to get involved through the Internet. Initially, nobody thought we could win because we didn't have necessarily the most wealthy supporters; we didn't have the most powerful political brokers. But through the Internet, people became excited about our campaign and they started to organize and meet and set up campaign activities and events and rallies. And it really ended up creating the kind of bottom-up movement that allowed us to do very well.

Now, that's not just true in -- for government and politics. It's also true for business. You think about a company like Google that only 20 years ago was -- less than 20 years ago was the idea of a couple of people not much older than you. It was a science project. And suddenly because of the Internet, they were able to create an industry that has revolutionized commerce all around the world. So if it had not been for the freedom and the openness that the Internet allows, Google wouldn't exist.

Th answer is multilayered. Obama asserts that he's a better President and better thinker for being severely criticized. That the forces that brought him to power are inseparable from the forces that allow him to be excoriated. And that the forces that bring such a leader to the fore also foster companies like Google. As he does more explicitly in his opening speech, Obama connects economic successs to freedom of thought.

Philip Stephens credited Obama early this year for "realising that to understand the extent of US power...a president must also map its limits." That dictum defines the way Obama makes the case for free speech, equality, accountable government. Here is the frame he placed around that advocacy in his opening remarks in Shanghai:

1. Assert mutual dependence and affirm the benefits of partnership.
2. Lay a foundation of respect for the audience's culture and history
3. Articulate the principles expressed in the United States' founding documents
4. Acknowledge American imperfection in pursuit of those principles
5. Catalog the benefits that have accrued to the U.S. by pursuing those principles
6. Acknowledge the shared pedigree of the principles; they are not merely American
7. Assert their universality
8. Connect political/intellectual freedom to free markets
9. Assert that the U.S. can/must learn from China (as well as implicitly 'teach' human rights).

Note how these factors work (and come full circle) in the heart of Obama's speech:

1. It is no coincidence that the relationship between our countries has accompanied a period of positive change. 2. China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty -- an accomplishment unparalleled in human history -- while playing a larger role in global events. 1.And the United States has seen our economy grow along with the standard of living enjoyed by our people, while bringing the Cold War to a successful conclusion.

2. There is a Chinese proverb: "Consider the past, and you shall know the future." Surely, we have known setbacks and challenges over the last 30 years. Our relationship has not been without disagreement and difficulty. 1. But the notion that we must be adversaries is not predestined -- not when we consider the past. Indeed, because of our cooperation, both the United States and China are more prosperous and more secure. We have seen what is possible when we build upon our mutual interests, and engage on the basis of mutual respect.

And yet the success of that engagement depends upon understanding -- on sustaining an open dialogue, and learning about one another and from one another. For just as that American table tennis player pointed out -- we share much in common as human beings, but our countries are different in certain ways.

I believe that each country must chart its own course. 2.China is an ancient nation, with a deeply rooted culture. The United States, by comparison, is a young nation, whose culture is determined by the many different immigrants who have come to our shores, and by the founding documents that guide our democracy.

3. Those documents put forward a simple vision of human affairs, and they enshrine several core principles -- that all men and women are created equal, and possess certain fundamental rights; that government should reflect the will of the people and respond to their wishes; that commerce should be open, information freely accessible; and that laws, and not simply men, should guarantee the administration of justice.

4. Of course, the story of our nation is not without its difficult chapters. In many ways -- over many years -- we have struggled to advance the promise of these principles to all of our people, and to forge a more perfect union. We fought a very painful civil war, and freed a portion of our population from slavery. It took time for women to be extended the right to vote, workers to win the right to organize, and for immigrants from different corners of the globe to be fully embraced. Even after they were freed, African Americans persevered through conditions that were separate and not equal, before winning full and equal rights.

5. None of this was easy. But we made progress because of our belief in those core principles, which have served as our compass through the darkest of storms. That is why Lincoln could stand up in the midst of civil war and declare it a struggle to see whether any nation, conceived in liberty, and "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" could long endure. That is why Dr. Martin Luther King could stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and ask that our nation live out the true meaning of its creed. That's why immigrants from China to Kenya could find a home on our shores; why opportunity is available to all who would work for it; and why someone like me, who less than 50 years ago would have had trouble voting in some parts of America, is now able to serve as its President.

6., 7. And that is why America will always speak out for these core principles around the world. We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation, but we also don't believe that the principles that we stand for are unique to our nation. These freedoms of expression and worship -- of access to information and political participation -- we believe are universal rights. They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities -- whether they are in the United States, China, or any nation. 8. Indeed, it is that respect for universal rights that guides America's openness to other countries; our respect for different cultures; our commitment to international law; and our faith in the future.

These are all things that you should know about America. 9. I also know that we have much to learn about China. Looking around at this magnificent city -- and looking around this room -- I do believe that our nations hold something important in common, and that is a belief in the future. Neither the United States nor China is content to rest on our achievements. For while China is an ancient nation, you are also clearly looking ahead with confidence, ambition, and a commitment to see that tomorrow's generation can do better than today's.

2. In addition to your growing economy, we admire China's extraordinary commitment to science and research -- a commitment borne out in everything from the infrastructure you build to the technology you use. China is now the world's largest Internet user -- which is why we were so pleased to include the Internet as a part of today's event. This country now has the world's largest mobile phone network, and it is investing in the new forms of energy that can both sustain growth and combat climate change -- and I'm looking forward to deepening the partnership between the United States and China in this critical area tomorrow. But above all, I see China's future in you -- young people whose talent and dedication and dreams will do so much to help shape the 21st century.

1. I've said many times that I believe that our world is now fundamentally interconnected. The jobs we do, the prosperity we build, the environment we protect, the security that we seek -- all of these things are shared. And given that interconnection, power in the 21st century is no longer a zero-sum game; one country's success need not come at the expense of another. And that is why the United States insists we do not seek to contain China's rise. 2. On the contrary, we welcome China as a strong and prosperous and successful member of the community of nations -- a China that draws on the rights, strengths, and creativity of individual Chinese like you.

To return to the proverb -- consider the past. 1.,2. We know that more is to be gained when great powers cooperate than when they collide. That is a lesson that human beings have learned time and again, and that is the example of the history between our nations. And I believe strongly that cooperation must go beyond our government. It must be rooted in our people -- in the studies we share, the business that we do, the knowledge that we gain, and even in the sports that we play. And these bridges must be built by young men and women just like you and your counterparts in America.

It may be an obvious message, but there's power in the simple assertion: "We do not seek to contain China's rise." That statement "contains" the doctrine of containment, which has been the dominant fact of geopolitics since the end of World War II. The message is that "containment" is directed at malignantly aggressive political forces, not at rival powers by simple virtue of their gaining power. It makes explicit Obama's broadest message: that democratic capitalism is not zero sum, that future prosperity must be shared prosperity, and that ultimately, only through universal acknowledgment of rights and principles of government that Obama affirms as universal can shared prosperity be triggered.

There is a Fukuyaman faith here that China's pursuit of prosperity will lead it inevitably to democracy -- not laid down as a challenge, but planted as a seed of desire in the country's young.

Pitch perfect as usual

What else could Obama say about winning the Nobel just 37 weeks into his Presidency?

Mr. Obama said he doesn't view the award "as a recognition of my own accomplishments," but rather as a recognition of goals he has set for the U.S. and the world. Mr. Obama said, "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize."

But, he said, "I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century.''

Actually, the claim that Obama has so far accomplished nothing concrete on the world stage is exaggerated. Under his leadership, the G-20 meeting in March, at the depths of the financial crisis, exceeded expectations, producing a strong financial commitment to cushion the downturn for developing nations. The G-20 in late September also surpassed expectations, effectively establishing the G-20 as successor to the G-8 in real decision-making power and subjecting member nations to regulatory peer review. The meeting of the U.N. Security Council last month exceeded expectations, securing a commitment to revitalize and strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And the highest-level direct negotiation with Iran in 30 years exceeded expectations, yielding Iran's agreement to submit about 75% of its known nuclear stockpile to Russia for enrichment and to open its newly disclosed nuclear facility outside Qom to inspection.

Of the G-20 meeting in March, Philip Stephens wrote, "Mr Obama shows wisdom beyond his years in realising that to understand the extent of US power – and it is still unrivalled – a president must also map its limits" That's true of all four of the meetings referenced above. That's why each yielded something concrete.

Not the stuff of a Nobel by established standards, perhaps. But Obama has done far more than deliver a handful of uplifting speeches on the world stage. Though those speeches themselves were a key part of the paradigm shift that Stephens articulated.

Fuykuyama, whipping boy

Here we go again: another pundit taking a gratuitous swipe at Francis Fukuyama. This time it's Philip Stephens:

Then, of course, there was the famous claim that the collapse of communism marked the end of history. To my mind, recent times have felt rather more like the beginning of history, but Francis Fukuyama’s career has not suffered for predicting otherwise.

Fukuyama never said "the end of history" -- the universal triumph of democratic capitalism -- was upon us. He suggested that the world is trending toward it, because competitive pressures drive countries first to open their markets and then their political systems; the "end" was at hand only in the sense that with the collapse of communism there were no viable ideological alternatives.

Indeed, Stephens' own diagnosis of China's current conundrum is pure Fukuyama. Policymakers in Beijing, he writes,

are also aware that the autocracy and corruption on which the present system rests will not withstand the pressures of economic and social change.

Only the other day Mr Hu called for a “vigorous improvement” in democratic decision-making to help fight corruption within the ruling Communist party.

Read The End of History again, Mr. Stephens. The title may "shout a single message," as you complain serious books must do these days. But the content still provides a road map for the difficult course humanity is steering.

Wielding power by mapping its limits

More wisdom from the FT's Philip Stephens today:

By contrast, the US president has grasped that if America is to hold on to its pre-eminent role in the world it will be within a system in which others have a stake. Mr Obama shows wisdom beyond his years in realising that to understand the extent of US power – and it is still unrivalled – a president must also map its limits.

and more:

The so-called Group of 20 – I counted 29 delegation heads round the dining table in 10 Downing Street – is a cumbersome grouping. Its reach gives it legitimacy, but at the price of operational efficiency. A smaller grouping – say, of 15 – might yet be a better answer.

Whatever the imperfections, the process promises to embed the habit of multilateralism in a multipolar world. History reminds us that big shifts in global power, such as we are witnessing, often end in war as rising states challenge the status quo. A few arguments about tax havens or bank regulation are a small price to pay for a peaceful transition.

The FT columnists, in their long collective struggle to take the measure of the economic meltdown, have been haunted by the specter of war following economic upheaval. Here's Martin Wolf:

Now think what will happen if, after two or more years of monstrous fiscal deficits, the US is still mired in unemployment and slow growth. People will ask why the country is exporting so much of its demand to sustain jobs abroad. They will want their demand back. The last time this sort of thing happened – in the 1930s – the outcome was a devastating round of beggar-my-neighbour devaluations, plus protectionism. Can we be confident we can avoid such dangers? On the contrary, the danger is extreme. Once the integration of the world economy starts to reverse and unemployment soars, the demons of our past – above all, nationalism – will return. Achievements of decades may collapse almost overnight.

Gideon Rachman:

If Europe starts rolling back the four freedoms, the implications will stretch well beyond economics. Protectionism and nationalism are close cousins. The principles of consultation, co-operation and open borders within the EU have helped to repress the old, nationalist demons.

Nice to see a glimmer of optimism from Stephens.

P.S. My one beef with Stephens is that he's fond of straw men:

Those who view politics as an event rather than a process will have been disappointed. So also will those expecting, or pretending to expect, that the summit would fix the global economy. The world is too complex for the instant gratification demanded by 24-hour rolling news channels.

I read a lot of predictions that the summit would be a disaster - none that it would "fix" much of anything. Pleasant surprise, a la Stephens, seems to be a hear-universal reaction. Someone did a nice job lowering expectations. Or was that a broad-based defense mechanism?

P.P.S. Strobe Talbott makes much the same point about Obama's core message to the world as Stephens:

“President Obama embraced, and made his own, a shift in attitude towards a much more pluralistic world order in which the United States is still uniquely influential by virtue of its ability to persuade,” says Mr Talbott. “In essence, President Obama managed to identify himself with a form of American statesmanship that recognises the difference between being a leader and being a boss.”

And from the horse's mouth:

“There has been a lot of comparison here about Bretton Woods [the 1944 conference that set up the postwar economic order],” [Obama] said. “Well, if it is just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy – you know, well, that’s an easier negotiation. But that’s not the world we live in. And it shouldn’t be the world that we live in. It’s not a loss for America. It’s an appreciation that Europe is now rebuilt and a powerhouse. Japan is rebuilt, is a powerhouse. China, India, these are all countries on the move. And that’s good.”

Yes, it's good. And it's good to hear an American President say it.

Son of Bush Sr., cont.

Philip Stephens nicely captures a paradox in Obama's choice of well-established figures for his foreign policy team:

Mr Obama’s choice of foreign policy heavyweights is significant for its ambition rather than its caution. If he really does want to recast America’s relationship with the world, surrounding himself with seasoned players will make the task easier rather than harder. Why would a president who wanted to change things put the task in the hands of inexperienced acolytes?

To get there, however, I argued in today's FT that Stephens sets up a false dichotomy between change and continuity in U.S. foreign policy:

With regard to policy, Mr Obama has long signalled his admiration for the coalition-building skills and multilateralism of George Bush Sr. He has always framed his call for revitalised diplomacy and reinvestment in the tools of soft power as a restoration of the pre-George W. Bush foreign policy consensus, retooled to tackle urgent challenges such as global warming, nuclear weapons containment, and the murderous fury bred by widespread poverty.

Economics, Post-American Style

Fareed Zakaria has devoted a book to sketching in the portrait of a Post-American World. In today's Financial Times, columnist Philip Stephens --the first non-eponymous winner of a Wolf-Munch-Rock award -- gets across the economic reality of the coming multipolarity in 1200 words. "Globalisation," Stephens begins, "belonged to us; financial crises happened to them." No more:

the boot is now on the other foot. The IMF is forecasting that the advanced economies will just about keep their heads above water. With luck, growth this year and next will come in at a touch above 1 per cent. If they do avoid recession - and most of my American friends think it unlikely as far as the US is concerned - they will have to thank robust growth rates in Asia and Latin America. The forecast for China is growth of about 9 per cent in both years, for India 8 per cent and for emerging and developing economies as a whole something more than 6 per cent.

The old powers have not grasped this new reality. There are nods, of course, to a need to restructure international institutions. The rising nations, you hear western politicians aver, must be given more of a voice. More seats, maybe, at the World Bank, the United Nations and, yes, on the board of the IMF. But the assumption is that the rising powers will simply be accommodated within the existing system - a small adjustment here, a tweak there and everything will be fine again. Missing is a willingness to see that this is a transformational moment that demands we look at the world entirely afresh.

Like Zakaria, Stephens sees the world at the end of a 200 year cycle of Western dominance. Also like Zakaria, he does not regard 'decline' as a foregone conclusion. But coming changes will be wrenching:

The response of governments thus far has lain somewhere between despair and denial: there is nothing to be done in the face of global market forces; or the benefits of globalisation will eventually trickle down. The active education and welfare policies necessary to ease the adjustment have been conspicuous by their absence. How do you tell your electorates that all the old assumptions about welfare capitalism must be rethought?

Difficult. But these two sets of pressures - between nations and within them - cannot indefinitely be ignored. That way lies an inexorable slide into the beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism that would make the recent financial storm seem like a summer squall. However it is handled, the adjustment process to the new world order will be wrenching. The US and Europe, after all, have between them have enjoyed the best part of two centuries of effortless political and economic hegemony.

There is no reason they should not continue to prosper in a world where power is more evenly spread. Globalisation need not be a zero-sum game. But if the west is going to adapt, it must recognise that it can no longer expect to write the rules.

League of Democracies, anyone?

The FT columnists, collectively, are unmatched in their ability to compress broad economic and geopolitical trends into the confines of a column. They wear whatever ideological framework they subscribe to lightly, cram their columns with facts, often explore multiple points of view, and sometimes seem to be thinking their way toward a conclusion as they write. When you get tired of the bloviosphere, try parking your eyeballs at ft.com for a space. You're alloted a few articles without a login.