{"id":97,"date":"2003-06-03T15:36:29","date_gmt":"2003-06-03T15:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:07:44","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:07:44","slug":"tom_friedman_wants_you_to_tell_him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=97","title":{"rendered":"Tom Friedman Wants You to Tell Him…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Friedman, who frustratingly cycles between brilliance and incoherence (hey, who am I to talk…I manage the incoherence part pretty well) has an interesting ‘theory of everything’ column<\/a> up (hat tip to Atrios<\/a>):<\/p>\n

During the 1990’s, America became exponentially more powerful … economically, militarily and technologically … than any other country in the world, if not in history. Broadly speaking, this was because the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the alternative to free-market capitalism, coincided with the Internet-technology revolution in America. The net effect was that U.S. power, culture and economic ideas about how society should be organized became so dominant (a dominance magnified through globalization) that America began to touch people’s lives around the planet … “more than their own governments,” as a Pakistani diplomat once said to me. Yes, we began to touch people’s lives … directly or indirectly … more than their own governments.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continued…<\/b><\/p>\n

…<\/b><\/p>\n

Why didn’t nations organize militarily against the U.S.? Michael Mandelbaum, author of “The Ideas That Conquered the World,” answers: “One prominent international relations school … the realists … argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it. But because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. … and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used.”<\/p>\n

…<\/b><\/p>\n

Hence, 9\/11. This is where the story really gets interesting. Because suddenly, Puff the Magic Dragon … a benign U.S. hegemon touching everyone economically and culturally … turns into Godzilla, a wounded, angry, raging beast touching people militarily. Now, people become really frightened of us, a mood reinforced by the Bush team’s unilateralism. With one swipe of our paw we smash the Taliban. Then we turn to Iraq. Then the rest of the world says, “Holy cow! Now we really want a vote over how your power is used.” <\/p>\n

…<\/b><\/p>\n

“Where we are now,” says Nayan Chanda, publications director at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization (whose Web site http:\/\/yaleglobal.yale.edu is full of valuable nuggets), “is that you have this sullen anger out in the world at America. Because people realize they are not going to get a vote over American power, they cannot do anything about it, but they will be affected by it.”<\/p>\n

Finding a stable way to manage this situation will be critical to managing America’s relations with the rest of the globe. Any ideas? Let’s hear ’em: thfrie@nytimes.com.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m working on my response, but I’ll open by suggesting that there’s more than a thread of truth in this.<\/p>\n

The imbalance of power he mentions is a key part of the dynamic that’s driving foreign relations. Our inability to get people to understand that Puff The Magic Dragon had teeth is one of the other. One thing you learn in martial arts is that you can cause fights by being both too belligerent and too meek; the art is finding a middle path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Friedman, who frustratingly cycles between brilliance and incoherence (hey, who am I to talk…I manage the incoherence part pretty well) has an interesting ‘theory of everything’ column up (hat tip to Atrios): During the 1990’s, America became exponentially more powerful … economically, militarily and technologically … than any other country in the world, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}