“Right now,” Khanna notes, “from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, the hero of the second world — including its democracies — is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.” His point is that, contrary to poular belief, Second World countries are not ideologically-driven, as much as driven by their desires to advance their economic self-interests.  Seeing the world from their perspective is helpful to operating more effectively in a multi-polar 21st century.

The Europeans, whom he classifies as a Superpower (with no apologies to conservative Robert Kagan), assume a more expedient stance when it comes to dealing with the Second World.   As a result, they’re getting more traction in those markets.

Khanna’s take will stir controversy.  But, at the very least, it’s helpful to view the world from others’ perspectives in order to understand the forces that are redefining the world.

Khanna’s book is a companion to Fareed Zakaria’s The Post American World mentioned in an earlier post.  Both books describe the profound implications of operating in an increasingly muti-polar world consisting of new relationships and sources of power.   Individuals interested in doing business of any kind on a global stage can benefit from seeing the world through the prism of the other players.

Interested in finding more on these topics? Khanna’s prescriptive NYT Magazine essay and a recent Charlie Rose interview are both illuminating.

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While the U.S. still possesses unique, natural advantages, “the rise of the rest,” including China, India and Brazil, among others, are creating a world through their economic growth that is more multi-focal. Other nations are now catching up to America’s level of economic clout and self-assertion.  What’s next for the U.S. in this new world order remains to be seen.

Zakaria argues that America has assumed that its innate strengths – academic resources, free markets and diversity of talent – can compensate for its anemic savings rate or the absence of a health care system or a cogent, long-term economic strategy.

“That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing,” argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are working hard, saving well and are looking ahead. “They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game”.  He  worries that “the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise.”

According to Zakaria, the U.S. still has significant natural advantages. But the new worry for America is neither the rise of other societies, nor its own diminsihing influence, but Washington’s politics of stagnation and partisanship in recent years.  Zakaria argues that anachronistic systems of government hijacked by vested interests are having a drag on the agility and innovativeness that led to America’s rise in the last century. As David Singh Grewal notes in his new book, Network Power, “Everything is being globalized except politics.”

Zakaria makes his case skillfully. His argument should inspire a broader conversation during this election cycle about how to shift attention to the new challenges and opportunities of a multi-focal world. Rather than engage in the same tired debate about restoring America’s lustre, it makes sense to weigh the options as seen through the prism of a post-American world.

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