My "Stunning Prediction" That America Will "Annex" Much Of Latin America In The Next 50 Years!
Here I reference the Amazon.com review of my book, which was posted yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I loved the review, which was very complimentary (it certainly beats the Kirkus review found at Barnes and Noble page; which called me "Strangelovean" for similar reasons), and the bit about me predicting a Teddy Roosevelt-like grab for new states will be just fine in terms of getting media attention for the book, but it's a misread of what I said.
Now, first off, you have to understand that Amazon.com, like every other reviewer, is working off the "bound manuscript" version of the book, which is nothing more than the first polished draft that Mark Warren and I turned into Putnam (on timeóa first in publishing history I was told) in mid-November of last year. We then spent the next four months editing the text, but Putnam, due to the tight production schedule (they moved the book's release up a month after reading the first draftónice!) rushed that "uncorrected proof" (as it says on the cover) into print so as to be able to give reviewers and media people something to chew on before the release date of 26 April. Point being: Mark and I went over the text, smoothing out a lot of material, including the (apparently) soon-to-be-infamous paragraph on "annexing" (I never used that word!) in the last, concluding chapter.
Here is what I really meant by introducing the concept that America would add new states in the next several decades: I think that not only does the Core as a whole need to be open about bringing new members into the fold from the Gap, but that the United States itself has to rethink the notion that somehow, these "united states" are/is a closed club. I mean, we added states for about 170 years, and then stopped during the height of the Cold War because doing anything like that during those decades would be like pursuing some American version of what later became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.
But I honestly believe this country needs to open its mind up to the possibility that we can and should admit new "member states" in coming years. We're doing this on an economic basis with a NAFTA, and hope to do it with a CAFTA and a FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). On a very profound level, we've done it in the past in terms of security rule sets by creating a NATO and then saying in effect, "attack any of them and you attack the U.S." If that isn't making a foreign state one of your own security-wise, then what the hell is?
All I am suggesting by throwing out this bold prediction that the U.S. will grow in size and membership in the future is that we need to move beyond this sort of piecemeal integration. Mexico, for all practical purposes, is a collection of member states belonging (some more than others) to a U.S.-centric economic union, as are the Canadian provinces (again, some more than others). I say we need to move beyond this partial membership and open up the doors for states, especially in our hemisphere, to join the United States for real. When states in the region entertain the notion of "dollarizing" their economies (using the U.S. dollar as their own and foregoing any national currency), they are asking to be let in economically. Panama has done this for years, and BTW, is the only Latin American economy to feature an active 30-year fixed home mortgage market as a result. Argentina and others have considered this move in recent years, all of which only speaks to the attraction of membership in U.S.-led economic unions of all sorts, because belonging to our "club" means access to our markets.
I know bringing up these ideas strikes many as radical (primarily in terms of giving any small state two senators, but Rhode Island's duo only do so much damage, so how bad could Haiti's be?), but my goal in doing so is simply to open up the minds of Americans about what "shrinking the Gap," as I call it, will ultimately entail. There is so much anti-globalization feeling brewing around the world and in the U.S. right now, when in reality we need to be going in the other direction: not closing our doors by enlarging our definition of "who's in" and "who's us" (more on that later when I talk to Sam Huntington's new book). The Census Bureau predicts that two-thirds of U.S. population growth by 2050 will come in the form of Latinos immigrating into our nation. With that Latinization of the U.S. proceeding apace, is it so bizarre to think that the U.S. could expand in membership to include partsóor allóof Mexico (itself a collection of "united states"), or other small countries in Latin America?
I mean, the European Union admits new members by the boat load and no one there finds it so bizarre (although notice how they stop when they reach the Muslims in Turkey and the Slavs in the former Soviet republics), so why can't the U.S. get back into the business of being open for new members? What is so sacred about 50 stars in our flag?
Here is why I bring it up with regard to Haiti: we should simply be done with these periodic interventions that have been going on for a good century and simply invite Haiti into the United States. Tell me Haitians wouldn't jump at the chance. It's like going from playing with the Milwaukee Brewers to joining the roster of the New York Yankees with the stroke of a pen! Imagine what a stunner that would be! What a system perturbation! What a fluxing of the global rule set!
Just think about what a shock it would be for Fidel's Cuba, or any Latino Gap state suffering from some terrible dictator, if America put that option on the table. Imagine the sort of change we could trigger in our hemisphere atówhat I could argueówould be reasonably low cost (again, Rhode Island is only so corrupt, so how bad could adding Haiti be?).
Of course, you might see a few other statesólike toddlersóflop themselves down on the floor immediately, demanding to be picked up and held by "mommy" U.S., but I think it would nonetheless be worth it. Such a dramatic move would shout out to the world, "We are open for new member states!" And nothing would better signal an America that is not withdrawing from the world.
Yes, I know this is a fanciful vision right now, but I wrote that paragraph in the book (tease, tease) so as to shock the reader into thinking something new and different about how this country defines itself in the era of globalization. Anyway, it's such a "revolutionary" idea only because it's such a retro idea. Admitting new states is not about some 19th-century Niall Ferguson-definition of American "empire," but a 21st century notion of broadband integration. America has stood, for well over two centuries, as the world's first multinational economic, political and security union of member states. We not only have a great product, we have long served as the original source code for globalization's increasingly mature expression and growth over the past several decades. If all we ever do with such states as Haiti is send the troops and nothing else, that does smack of imperial order. But inviting such states into our very exclusive fold (we last admitted a new state, poor island chain Hawaii, in 1959óalmost a half century ago) says something very different about these United States. It says we really believe in a future worth creating not just for ourselves, but for all who would join us.
Remember this: our government's official name is the "United States." Not America, not the United States of America, not USA. We are the only country in the world without a place name. Where is the United States found? Wherever there are states united. We are the only nation in the world build solely around a conceptónot any "sacred land," not any "chosen race." We need to remember that. Everyone is welcome here.
Well, almost everyone . . .
Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 6:48PM 
