Superpower: Three Choices For America’s Role In The World, by Ian Bremmer
This is a thoughtful book on political worldview, and a far better book than a reader has any reason to expect given the subject matter and given the sorry state of contemporary politics. The author is pretty unsparing on the failures of our leaders to decide what kind of country we need to be for the rest of the world, and gives three perspectives on how we should be with regards to the world at large given our economic and military strength and the apparent wishes of our people. Until I got to the end of the book I was in some doubt as to the author’s own thoughts and opinions, and was surprised to hear that they mirrored my own, so well did he disguise his own personal views in the book until that point by seeking to give each of the three views its best possible argument. One may not like to hear what this author has to say about what Americans apparently want from the rest of the world and what they want to be, but this is a book which I can definitely support. If anything, and this is important to note, the author’s use of the trilemma [1] is an inventive one, and it tends to give a far more noble meaning of what it means to support an Independent America than is commonly held either by that worldview’s adherents or detractors. Given the fact that Donald Trump himself appears to be seeking the support that particular group particularly strongly through his views on immigration and trade and so forth, this book has a far greater importance than may appear to be the case given its modest size and obscurity.
In roughly 200 pages, the author gives a discussion that ought to be held in political science courses in undergraduate studies and even American Government classes on the high school level. More than most people, this is an author who seeks to understand the assumptions that drive the thinking people have about foreign policy and domestic politics [2], when they think about it at all, and begins his book with a discussion of his intents and background and a quiz on foreign policy where the answers provided are emblematic of one of the three worldviews he discussed. I found for myself that while taking this test that there were many questions where I thought more than one answer was applicable, which I suppose is part of the point as well. Then the author, in grand commentary style, spends the next three chapters and roughly half of the book discussing each of these views: Independent America, Moneyball America, and Indispensable America. Independent America is portrayed as a place of people who want to make America strong and noble and focus on beginning with ourselves before seeking to reform the world, a classier version of the stereotype of isolationism. Moneyball America is portrayed as a sharp-minded, coldly rational view of the world seeking to serve our own interests as most other nations do. Indispensable America is portrayed as an idealistic nation spreading democracy and freedom to the rest of the world and intervening in the human rights crises of other nations. After discussing how the nation is currently divided and how many of our recent political leaders have refused to choose wisely and consistently with regards to such matters, the author makes his own appeal for America’s leaders to support independent America, not least because that appears to be mood of the general populace, a surprising conclusion but a relatively accurate one.
In reading this book, a certain sense of the malaise of our country can be seen among its political class. There is a divide between the policies that political leaders support and the behaviors they take in office and the clearly expressed will of the people. Moreover, there appears to be a great divide between a public that has an intuitive sense of what it wants or, more often, does not want in the foreign policy of leaders but who lack a strong understanding of the worldview that they belong to or the vision that worldview has and a political class that has a worldview distinct to the American public and therefore not trusted, but lacks understanding in what Americans are willing to support for the long haul, or even a focus on being coherent in their own worldview. This book, by being straightforward and thoughtful, manages to combine instruction with exhortation for Americans and their leaders to choose what they want us to be, and to act accordingly. It is the desire to want to be everything rather than to choose what one is and act accordingly that represents our current state in so many aspects of life.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/on-the-usefulness-of-the-trilemma/
[2] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/a-pox-on-both-of-your-houses/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/book-review-how-to-win-an-election/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/we-are-not-enemies-but-friends/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/book-review-a-nation-of-enemies/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/ice-cream-truck-jingles/
Edge Induced Cohesion 