Tom's latest piece for Esquire

Obama's New Map of the World

As he assumes leadership of this freaked-out world, the success of our new president's foreign policy -- and presidency -- will depend on the thinking he does inside the box.

For roughly the past quarter century, America has run the world using the following two levers: its massive consumption rate and its willingness to deploy military forces around the planet. Together these two drivers facilitated the rise of many new great powers by enabling their export-fueled growth and obviating any need for them to engage in distracting military buildups or overseas interventions.

That U. S. grand strategy has essentially run its course, having proven both amazingly successful (the death of great-power war in East Asia) and extremely exhausting (our crippling debt overhang).

As President Obama renegotiates America's role in this world that we created, four potential flash-cum-bang points stand out for the year ahead.

Read on at Esquire

Comments

[Elmer Humes]

Good article. Another postscript to Great Powers. Delighted to see you continuing to explain the major world-wide parameters as they evolve in the context of the perspective you have established in Great Powers.

[Matt]

The comment about economic role reversals wrt the US and UK after 1929 and WWII is sobering in light of recent Chinese brow beating over USD concerns and calls for a global currency. The discussion of Chinese and American military intent is an almost daily topic at the US Army's Command and General Staff College. It seems like the discussion always ends in a stalemate as everyone remembers that China holds over 1$ trillion in US debt and the Chinese economy would collapse without access to Wal-Mart shelves. Unfortunately the concern over an economic role reversal is real as we look to solve our own short term financial problems. There is other recent precedent for similar calls to move away from the USD for global commodities. I consider this national security threat number one, even more than China emerging as a military peer competitor in the next 5-10 yrs. Losing the ability to manipulate (ah better word is shape) the global economy is far more damanging to US interests than a country building its first aircraft carrier and unable to project power beyond its immediate region for a sustained period of time.