Fareed Zakaria's robust defense of liberalism

Fareed Zakaria's new book, "The Post-American World," shines a bright light on the hand-wringing and defeatist lies about the state of America that are used by neo-conservatives and anti-globalist leftists to support their radical positions by infusing Americans with fear. Indeed, Mr. Zakaria decisively shows that America is the sole ideological superpower in a world that has wholesale adopted our culture and economic values. We are now witnessing a global transformation that is the result of the most dramatic export of culture in the history of the world. We won.

Mr. Zakaria was born in Mumbai, India and attended Yale University, where he was tapped for the elite senior fraternity Scroll and Key, a club whose members included my former boss Bobby Shriver and his father Sargent. He is currently the editor at Newsweek and is considered a moderate realist. His writings promote his vision of a world that moves towards liberal democratic societies with free markets. His latest book makes a persuasive case that the world is moving in the right direction, that the world is less violent than anytime in human history and that United States should utilize its strengths to keep a strong position in the world while realizing that a multi-polar world is at hand in the coming decades.

Mr. Zakaria notes that most nation-states are transforming their societies into relatively open societies that mimic the Anglo-American classical liberal philosophy and are aggressively implemented free market principles. The transformation is paying off and vast swaths of humanity are rising out of poverty and mimicking our consumer oriented economy. America is not declining. The rest of the world is rising.

Instead of pissing our pants in fear, we need to accept the fact that the world is becoming more like us and, as a result, nations like China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia will capture a larger share of the world's economic pie. This transformation is a sign that we won the idealogical war. Mr. Zakaria argues that it is in America's interest to take a collaborative approach to foreign policy that restores a sense of respect (instead of fear) to the growing economic nations. He advises that America should look more to a Bismarkian foreign policy that ensures every nation has better relations with us than any other competitors. Instead, we have spent the last eight years buying into the imperialist mindset of 19th Century Britain that operates by fiat.

Finally, Mr. Zakaria notes that America is not the lost cause that naysayers seem to portray. Our higher education system is the greatest in the world, by many magnitudes. Further, the conventional wisdom is that our elementary and high schools are dismal. In fact, America's educational system produces graduates who are less adept at rote memorization but with creative thinking skills that enable American workers to innovate and adapt far quicker than our Asian and European competitors. The problem is not quality but access for more young Americans. According to Mr. Zakaria, America is a successful economic power. Our weakness lies in our political system that is unable to make relatively minor changes that will strengthen our position of power (e.g., health care and retirement funding).

I hope that thinking Americans will read "The Post-American World" and that right and left-wing fear-mongering will release its hold on our still great nation.