Alan

Great story with many takeaways

Revisado: 12-01-22

This is an important read on the future of globalization. There’s a great deal of important information and perspective in here, but that doesn’t mean the premise is accurate. This is a book about the end of globalization leading to a Mad Max style dystopia (ok, hyperbole) without credibly explaining why that would happen.

In the realm of realism (despite my dismissive description, it’s a serious and sophisticated book) it’s talking about the US choosing to stop providing Freedom of Navigation of the Seas to the rest of the globe, causing a collapse of global trade, and well, civilization. As a Global Affairs and US politics sophisticate, I’m well aware that there are dangerously large and naive numbers of people on the Right and Left who oppose America’s continuing global leadership and want America to “come home.” But Peter Zeihan never explains what that looks like or why. Why would we chose to stop maintaining global peace and security when it accrues to our benefit.

I never understood the panic over possible civilizational collapse over Y2K, but COVID has shown us how fragile societies can be. Two years later and we’re still recovering from supply chain collapses, but civilization didn’t collapse. Logic holds that when we see societies starting to collapse among friendly and/or non-adversarial nations, we would resume providing the world’s security and be able to extract greater contributions from other nations to continue doing so; before we watched billions starve.

The bulk of the book is taken up with global changes, mainly by the U.S. pulling back, but also climate change and predictable global clashes (like China attacking Taiwan) and how patterns of life around the globe would change from the inability to sustain any activity that requires a global supply chain of Just In Time inputs.

I DO agree that the U.S. will prosper either way because we alone (North America) are self-sustainable and that our main adversaries from China and Russia to Iran are in deep deep trouble. But other conclusions are utterly insane, like Turkey and Israel turning to Global Piracy to maintain their domestic supplies of necessities because of their sea control of trade bottlenecks.

Don’t get me wrong, I highly recommend the book, and it’s in the realm of realism but it’s an illustration of the breakdown of global trade patterns in a deglobalized world, not a perfectly accurate prediction of the worlds future. Or maybe it’s what they call a cautionary tale. But definitely read/listen to it.

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More about Denigrating the US than about China relationship

Revisado: 06-12-22

I’ve met Kishore Mahbunani when he was still campaigning to be UN Secretary General, an ambition he didn’t achieve. He was nicer at that time than his is in this book.

This book is more about denigrating the US than about the great-power competition with China. For a man who lived in the US (Manhattan) for more than a decade, he seems to have a poor understanding of America. Maybe he needs to read D’Tocqueville? He complains that the US hasn’t developed a comprehensive national strategy (he means the civilization not the national security council) to compete with a rapidly changing Chinese civilization.

But that’s because he comes from an authoritarian country (Singapore) and advocates for another (China) and misses that the US’s great strength has been that we’re a bottom-up democracy that evolves in an unplanned nature to meet the challenges of any day, by having the best ideas rise to the top, rather than a top-down plan by the Communist Central Committee.

He doesn’t deny the Chinese genocides in the Great Leap Forward or today against the Uyghurs, he just dismisses them as part of the process of China becoming a responsible nation, while the US is evil because we dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, and many civilians died in the Global War on Terror.

He suggests the Chinese are content with their own oppression at the hands of the government they have no say in, but the US is a failed democracy because we’re not a paradise of equality. He delves far too deeply into American domestic affairs for a man who doesn’t understand our country well, and fiercely advocates for China, complaining that they have no Bad intent towards anyone, including Taiwan.

It’s not a prescription for America to compete against China, rather it’s an advocacy piece for Americans to stop seeing China as having hostile intent towards anyone and to open up more to China. It’s hard not to imagine that he was asked to write this book by his friends in the Chinese leadership.

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Very good if looking for comprehensive survey of Chinese History

Revisado: 02-28-22

This course is very good if you are looking for a comprehensive survey of Chinese History. It is of University Length and thoroughness. If you are looking for a shorter overview, the detail and length of this course may overwhelm and bore you until you give up. I don’t encourage that, but know what you’re getting yourself into and look for an alternative if you don’t want the detailed version.

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Excellent Biography From an Unparalleled Source

Revisado: 03-23-12

I actually will listen to it again because Ariel Sharon's life paralleled the entire span of Israeli history and from a young age he became a major figure. He had fought in, commanded in, saved, lead or ordered every war in Israeli history up until his stroke. He is the father of the settlements and of the pullout from Gaza.

His son Gilad, the author, had unparalleled access since he had all of his father's meticulous notes and records, was among his father's most trusted advisors and was actually in the room for a great deal of the stories he recounts

It is an excellent book and due to the importance of Ariel Sharon to Israeli history and the closeness of the author to his subject, I would strongly recommend it, regardless of your level of knowledge about broader Israeli history.

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