The Unintended Empire
The Unintended Empire
John Mauldin
December 22, 2011
~~~
A new year is almost upon us, so now seems like a perfect time to step back from the (many) crises at hand and take stock of the big picture. According to my friend & fellow thinker George Friedman, the big picture of the next 10 years is this: America will dominate, and the American president will have to figure out how to act as global emperor without admitting that’s what he is.George’s newest book, The Next Decade, comes out in paperback in January; and he’s graciously agreed to let me send you the first chapter, which backs up the bold statements above. We don’t always agree, but I have to give George credit. He’s an expert at constructing an argument.
If the first chapter whets your appetite, you can <<get a free copy of the book>> when you subscribe to STRATFOR, a geopolitical intelligence company founded and led by George. It is the publication to read if you’re interested in foreign affairs. Plus, OTB readers can get a hefty discount.
Your really glad I’m not a global emperor analyst,
John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box
The Unintended Empire
By George Friedman, STRATFOR
The American president is the most important political leader in the world. The reason is simple: he governs a nation whose economic and military policies shape the lives of people in every country on every continent. The president can and does order invasions, embargos, and sanctions. The economic policies he shapes will resonate in billions of lives, perhaps over many generations. During the next decade, who the president is and what he (or she) chooses to do will often affect the lives of non-Americans more than the decisions of their own governments.
This was driven home to me on the night of the most recent U.S. presidential election, when I tried to phone one of my staff in Brussels and reached her at a bar filled with Belgians celebrating Barack Obama’s victory. I later found that such Obama parties had taken place in dozens of cities around the world. People everywhere seemed to feel that the outcome of the American election mattered greatly to them, and many appeared personally moved by Obama’s rise to power.
Before the end of Obama’s first year in office, five Norwegian politicians awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize, to the consternation of many who thought that he had not yet done anything to earn it. But according to the committee’s chair, Obama had immediately and dramatically changed the world’s perception of the United States, and this change alone merited the prize. George W. Bush had been hated because he was seen as an imperialist bully. Obama was being celebrated because he signaled that he would not be an imperialist bully.
From the Nobel Prize committee to the bars of Singapore and São Paolo, what was being unintentionally acknowledged was the uniqueness of the American presidency itself, as well as a new reality that Americans are reluctant to admit. The new American regime mattered so much to the Norwegians and to the Belgians and to the Poles and to the Chileans and to the billions of other people around the globe because the American president is now in the sometimes awkward (and never explicitly stated) role of global emperor, a reality that the world—and the president—will struggle with in the decade to come.
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