This is the book I have been waiting years for - it is the clearest picture I have yet seen of the 21st century's nascent Great Game; the Game as played by three Great Powers with very different styles: the United States, the European Union, and China. Khanna has developed an original view of a tripolar world, and effectively balances the force of geopolitics with the complementary trend toward globalisation.
The book has several persistent and gnawing weaknesses. Khanna persistently focuses on traditional land power geopolitics, an easier thing to describe and a well trodden path in International Studies, but perhaps an increasingly less potent matrix with the emergence of new realms of competition in this century: low Earth orbit (mentioned briefly in one paragraph of the book); the emerging Internet culture and electronic world; enduring naval power and new oceanographic frontiers; the growing diasporas and transnational, nomadic elites who owe no geographical national allegiance. In particular, he who rules lower Earth orbit rules the planet, regardless of who predominates upon the "World-Island" of Eurasia.
The author, like many intelligent NRI Indians, seems disillusioned by the failure of Indian democracy to overcome poverty and wealth disparity on the subcontinent (at one point stating, "It could be argued that China is a freer country than democratic India", ignoring some obvious differences in number of political prisoners, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free access to the Internet . . . ). Though often pointing out the environmental and cultural devastation that Chinese dominance has visited on its satellite countries, Khanna as frequently stumbles in his lavish praise of the authoritarian Singapore model that China is now following, hinting that China will allow a free society once it has acquired enough wealth, and understates the potential power of chaotic, creative, "undisciplined" (read: free) India and "Bollystan" (Khanna's term) in this century.
Freedom of speech and protection of a counterculture are more than just abstract features of a Western liberal morality. Freedom of speech and protection of "deviants" comprise essential economic infrastructure in the twenty-first century. As we move into an Information Age, societies that offer strong protection of freedom of speech and individual expression will trump those Confucian societies that emphasize obedience and silent submission to authority. As unlikely a winner as oft-benighted India may seem to be, I would still put good money on India and the individualistic U.S., in collaboration with the European Union, as the future leaders of the non-local sphere of Information and Cyberspace, leaving the Confucian societies not yet visited by glasnost far behind. Freedom of information should be treated by Khanna as one of the most important traits of an economic superpower, far more important than good roads, canals, and oil rigs. Confucianism, as it exists today, is a mimicry engine producing only commodities; free societies such as India have the potential to become creativity engines, producing entirely new economic niches.
Unless we are driven into a new Dark Age by war or resource disasters, the relentless Information Age will reward societies with strong creative classes (Richard Florida's term); reward societies with a protected counterculture and bohemia; and will punish societies ruled by conformity and fear of "deviance"; will punish societies without their equivalent of Mad Magazine; will punish societies that imprison dissidents. Until Chinese glasnost emerges, the United States, Europe and India will rule cyberspace, and hence the future.
India will not be destroyed by wealth disparities. The caste system will provide structural stability for some time to come, giving India a prolonged safety interval in which to grow a strong middle class. India is a nation of jatis, but a nation nonetheless. Its diversity and syncretic ability to adapt and absorb culture is a strength that the Chinese lack.
One final point before I go. Khanna's occasionally obsequious praise of Singapore-style authoritarianism is almost matched by the fault of his dismissive critique of United States foreign policy. As another reviewer has stated, the only reason the European Union can focus on building networks and economic bridges is that the United States is providing all the muscle. Without U.S. military presence, the EU would find itself much constrained and forced to be the "bad cop" more often. This is in no way an endorsement of what I agree is largely clumsy and inappropriate U.S. policy, but how the U.S. got to this point is much the result of an inadequate European security policy.
The book, on balance, is a good start.
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- DWSReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 11, 2008
Indulgent travel book dressed up as geo-political treatise
