Parag Khanna: Embrace the Post-American Age

Parag Khanna opened our eyes to higher education in the "Second World" at SCUP–43 last summer. (Seems like so long ago!) Now he's one of the 15 smart people who Wired magazine believes the next American president needs to listen to. Note to the world: SCUPers listened to him first! If you didn't take good notes at his plenary session in Montreal, you now have the choice of his book or this briefer article in Wired.

Here's one view of America circa 2008: The US is a modern-day Roman Empire — overstretched, underperforming, slowly crumbling into history's dustbin. Here's Parag Khanna's view: Nonsense. The geopolitical wooziness Americans are feeling isn't decline. It's realignment.

In his book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Khanna, 31, describes a planet dominated by a trio of superpowers: the US, China, and Europe. In this tripolar era, America's fate depends on tough national choices, not lame historical analogies. If the US wises up — by tightening trade and energy ties to the rest of the hemisphere, pursuing economic innovation at home, and establishing a "diplomatic-industrial complex" — it can grow stronger even as the globe becomes less red, white, and blue.