Japan

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's generally successful trip to India, the Financial Times turned to former State Department No. 3 guy Nick Burns for some perspective. Nick, one of the very best the State Department has produced in recent years despite his indefensible love of the Boston Red Sox, said, "If you look at the history of the 21st century, there will be just a handful of great powers and India and the U.S. will be among them." 

Which got me to thinking...

The United States is certainly at the moment a great power by any definition. We are the only country on earth capable of projecting force anywhere at any time. The U.S. GDP is almost three times that of the next biggest country, Japan and is roughly the equivalent of the next four added up (Japan, China, Germany and France.) To get a different perspective on the size of the U.S. economy relative to that of the world, take a look at this two-year old map comparing the size of the economies of U.S. states to those of other countries. 

We have plenty of political juice, are the leading force in the alliance that spends 85 cents of every defense dollar on the planet and helped design the international system in ways that it reinforces our position. We're also protected by two great oceans and our neighbors are fairly easy to get along with. (Mexico is a bit of a concern at the moment but Canada lost its last remaining offensive capability when Wayne Gretzky moved to the United States.)

All that said, the United States may be nearing the peak of its power. With the U.S. public debt around 90 percent of GDP and likely to pass the 100 percent mark in the next year or two, with well over $40 trillion in unfunded retirement health care liabilities that are unlikely to be significantly reduced anytime soon, and with uncertainty about when our addiction to debt will end, we're just going to have less money to spend for everything...including defense. We're also likely to have less of a stomach for spending on the kind of far-flung efforts associated with projecting force. Iraq-fatigue which will soon be joined by AfPak-fatigue will further dampen our appetite for using that big military we have and we may well take a generally more defensive, less-interventive stance than we have seen in the recent past. 

So, what about the other "great" powers? Who are they?

Burns says India will be among them and it's hard to argue with the proposition that India is critically important to world affairs (which is why Clinton's outreach and efforts to institutionalize a stronger relationship were so welcome and timely). But in terms of military capability, although India has a big military (the world's third largest in terms of manpower), it has only the ninth largest defense budget in the world and spends only about a 20th of what the United States spends, it has only one aircraft carrier and while it is expanding its capabilities rapidly as perhaps the largest developing world arms acquirer, it is ultimately constrained by the size and state of its economy. While growing rapidly, it still has a nominal per capita GDP of just over $1,000 a year, ranking it 142nd in the world. Roughly 80 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day and according to some estimates the almost 90 percent who live on less than $2.50 a day on purchasing power parity terms represent a larger chunk of the population than who live on the same meager amount in sub-Saharan Africa. The country is heavily dependent on foreign oil imports, half the children are malnourished...it's growing,  it's a great story,  it's a remarkable achievement in democracy, but it's ability to project force or throw its economic weight around is severely limited. (It's economy is smaller than that of Canada which, as noted earlier, is no one's idea of a great power...even though they're a swell neighbor, a useful ally and could offer great vacation values should global warming continue.)

Ok, then, certainly China is a great power. After all, they have 1.2 billion people. (Although India will soon overtake them as the world's most populous country.) Their economy is growing, according to Morgan Stanley, at a robust 9 percent even in the midst of this nasty "great" recession. They have the world's third largest economy (which is about twice as big as the economy of California) and will soon surpass Japan. They have the world's second largest army and the second largest defense budget...which is about one seventh that of the United States. They are upgrading their capabilities but unlike the United States or other would-be great powers on this list they do have as a significant military consideration maintaining the integrity and stability of their country in the face of restive populations in far-flung regions. Despite China's economic growth it faces the paradox of labor shortages and perhaps as many as 150 million unemployed or under-employed citizens floating unsatisfied through society. It is heavily dependent on foreign imports of food and energy as well as on a faltering U.S. market. Around three-quarters of its reserves in U.S. dollar denominated instruments which shows a heavy dependence on a potential rival (that's a two way street, of course.) And despite astonishing progress in reducing poverty, in terms of per capita income China is still poor, ranked at somewhere between 100 and 110 among all countries worldwide. Finally, China is ill-at-ease on the world stage, uncomfortable throwing around its political weight and still reluctant to intervene far from home except economically (which will lead, of course, over time to growing influence abroad.)

Who else? The EU would be a great power in economic and military terms...if it actually had a workable means of achieving a common foreign policy and the will to actually project force. Its individual members, notably Germany, France and the U.K., are important powers, 4th, 5th, and 6th respectively in GDP...but France is home to only the 17th largest military in the world, Germany the 20th largest and the U.K. the 32d largest. What's more, Germany is particularly reluctant to project force (much to the relief of anyone with a memory), France does so seldom and the U.K. is developing a pretty bad taste in its mouth in that respect recently. Japan is still legally constrained from projecting force and, while it is the world's second largest economy for the moment (say the next three to five years), that status, is fading and its economy is struggling. While it might be expected that in the next few years Japan will normalize it's military, it is still unlikely it will be useable for much beyond defensive and multilateral actions for the foreseeable future. Russia? Lots of nukes -- perhaps 3,000-5,000 warheads putting it alone on a par with the U.S. (the stockpiles of other would be great powers -- the U.K., France, China and India-range from 10 percent of the low end of this total for France to just over 1 percent of the high end of the total for India.) And Russia's economy? Smaller than that of Brazil (and of course, that economic powerhouse, California). It also may contract at as much as 10 percent this year, which is roughly half what some estimate the bad loans in the Russian banking system. But Russia's biggest problem that it is undergoing one of the greatest peace-time demographic collapses in history, with estimates suggesting the population could shrink from almost 150 million to 80 or 100 million by 2050. That would be a population loss equal to or greater than that associated with the Black Plague of the mid-14th Century in Europe. 

What's more, many of the great powers are further constrained by participation in global regimes that only grant legitimacy to multilateral undertakings...which are very hard to achieve as we have regularly seen. While Gideon Rachman makes the case for a UN army in today's FT (one with which I agree...there will be no effective NPT 2.0 without enforcement mechanisms that include the ability to wield force to require compliance)...we're a long, long way from there. So the rule of international law has effectively weakened those who did the most to craft it (even if it has, as I believe, improved the general quality of civilization). And who knows what the impact will be of another global economic shock if, as I believe is going to be the case, we fail to fix what is broke this time around? On these big economies? On their ideological underpinnings?

Are these "great" powers nonetheless still greater powers than the others of the world? Certainly. Most of the countries of the world are virtually powerless. Only 25 countries have the ability to field active armed services in excess of 200,000. Of these perhaps 17 would be considered very economically constrained and all but a tiny handful would be useless too far beyond their own borders. Only 25 countries have GDP's larger than the annual sales of the each of the world's 3 largest companies. (Not an apples to apples comparison, I know...but I offer it primarily to underscore the relative smallness of the rest of the world's economies. The 100th largest company in the world in sales, Target, has sales that total more than the GDPs of all but the 60 largest.) Most countries have precious little political influence and that influence tends to be diluted when it is channeled through low-functioning multilateral institutions. It is amplified via effective alliances but precious few of these exist on any global scale.

That said, as striking as the weaknesses of great powers may be, a parallel trend is that which gives the weakest access to powerful technologies (of mass destruction or political persuasion) that enable them to gain previously unavailable global stature and leverage. Twenty five countries are reportedly considering or planning nuclear power programs. Some of these will lead to nuclear weapons programs. Some of these will contribute to proliferation and making new threats available to weak states and non-state actors. And some of those big companies I mentioned earlier are now weighing in, using their global economic clout to influence everything from tax codes to trade regimes to who wins or loses big elections. So the ends are converging on the middle and the terms we are used to, great and small, powerful and weak, are coming to mean something entirely new.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

Washington is a city of oxymorons. It is a city of garden variety morons, as well. On the oxymoron side we have old favorites like "military intelligence," "compassionate conservative," and "government organization." On the moron side...well, in U.S. politics we have morons on both sides. 

Now we have something new however, as in Washington the oxymorons and the morons are coming together in the form of America's latest reality television extravaganza (we really needed another): "Real World Washington." This is a unique double oxymoron in that it calls itself real but, like most reality TV, it is not...and because it is suggesting, fancifully, that there is somehow a connection between Washington and the real world. As for the morons, well you need only visit the bars around the DuPont Circle neighborhood location of the Real World set and you can view for yourself the cast in all their beer-soaked glory.

At first I wondered to myself how it was that a show like "The Real World" could have become MTV's longest-running hit, now in its 17th year. After all, it's pretty formulaic. Semi-attractive young adults including at least one or two with deep psychological problems are put together in a house in which they: drink, puke, appear to grope one another in grainy night-vision camera shots, and then fight about who groped whom.

Of course, thinking of it that way, I naturally started to wonder why it took so long for the show to come to the home of American politics which have been featuring all these activities for years. (For those of you who are more insensitive than I, insert Teddy Kennedy joke here. And for those of you who don't have the stomach for such humor but still want a laugh at the expense of all that Kennedy family groping, see this link about a new book on America's zany royal family.)

Once I started thinking about politicians and groping and the real world, however, my thoughts immediately drifted eastward, out over the Atlantic, and in the direction of the world's most famous aging libido, that of the host of this week's G8 Meeting, Silvio Berlusconi. This in turn led to a thunderbolt of inspiration akin to that which struck another famous Italian in the Berlusconi mold, Michael Corleone, when he first saw the ill-fated Apollonia Vitelli. What about the Real World Berlusconi-style? What about Real World L'Aquila? Once we get the G8 leaders to Italy, why don't we lock them in a room until they actually produce something productive? And let's put it all on video! Big Brother for Big Brother! 

And to keep it interesting we can add elements of other reality shows. For example, how about a taste of Real Housewives Berlusconi-style, while we're at it. Just locking Silvio and his really (justifiably) angry, estranged wife Veronica Lario in a house for the enjoyment of tv audiences everywhere would be irresistible.But throw her in with a bunch of other world leaders? See what happens when Silvio shoots an ill-considered glance in the direction of Michelle Obama? Who's wailing on him first? Veronica, Barack or Michelle? (My money is on Michelle.) Sadly, of course, Veronica is passing on the G8 Summit, forcing the Italians to turn the wife of their president to be the hostess for the affair.

We still have plenty of fun cast to choose from, however, given that the meetings in Italy will actually be attended by more than 25 countries, including all the G20. Just think of the potential gang we could feature in the house that meet the Real World formula for diversity and mayhem. 

• Of course, we start with the hard-partying Berlusconi. He may be 72 but he has the judgment and appetites of a 19-year-old frat boy and is certain to end up in the money shots that MTV needs. For example, see the recently released photos of him enjoying two women locked in a girl-on-girl kiss in front of him at a party at his estate in Sardinia. 

• Barack and Michelle Obama add the diversity element. In fact, this week they will actually break the color line at the G8 Summit, making it the first to actually feature a person of color sitting in one of the principal's seats. But they are also fun-loving, party people. Barack danced on the Ellen show and in Dreams from My Father he admitted to the kind of recreational drug use that one has to believe is an off-camera Real World specialty. Michelle would, of course, be the serious one in the house, the good girl who MTV clings to as a sign of the redeeming social content of the series.

• Carla Bruni knows how to party like a rock star from having partied with so many rock stars and because she is so telegenic she will be allowed to bring along her little guy, who will undoubtedly end up being the "Spencer" (to mix reality TV metaphors) of the show, mouthing off to everyone and likely getting into a fight with some of the bigger, more athletic members of Real World L'Aquila.

• One of the more dangerous of "jock" contingent will be former member of the Japanese Olympic team, Taro Aso, who competed in the shooting competition. Perfect for TV, Aso is even more dangerous when shooting off his mouth than when using a weapon. For instance, there was the time that he said sketched out his vision for a better Japan, suggesting that he wanted to help make it a country in which "rich Jews" would like to live.

• Another of the "jocks" with a professed love of weightlifting early in his life is Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. More appealing however to producers at MTV will be his tastes in music which include Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. So, two birds with one stone...he's the muscle (he still swims a mile twice a day) and the requisite head-banger of the crowd. (Perhaps this will create fireworks others in the group who were firebrands in their youth, like former secretary for Agitprop of her chapter of the Free German Youth socialist youth group, Angela Merkel. Maybe after a few beers with vodka chasers they might break out in a Karaoke performance of "99 Luftballons" or, from the Deep Purple songbook, "Smoke on the Water.")

• Sadly, this being television, some thought may have to be given to kicking Canada and Great Britain out of the G8 due to the fact that Stephen Harper and Gordon Brown are so boring. At least, there is nothing in their youths that suggests they would ever indulge in the kind of hijinks that make for good reality television. Harper and Canada even managed to take the drama out of the global financial meltdown by actually properly managing their financial systems (something that can't be said for Brown who manages to achieve a paradoxical blend of boring and yet somehow terrifying at the same time.)

Given the fact that Berlusconi will be joined in Italy by members of the G20, the cast can be expanded to included a diverse enough group of lively characters to make this one version of Real World actually look a lot more like the real world than its many predecessors. South Africa's Jacob Zuma is, for example, a party all by himself with four wives, three other fiancés, perhaps as many as 18 children, and a list of run-ins with the law that would allow him to play the bad boy role. China's Hu Jintao was reportedly fond of singing and dancing in his teen years and therefore might add a little lift to those party nights out. And although Brazil's President Lula and Zuma may only have achieved the fourth and fifth grade in school, respectively, this actually makes them educationally over-qualified by Real World standards. 

Sadly for the Real World premise...and for the real world...not many of the visiting leaders are women so we will have to rely on host Berlusconi to add a few of his close personal friends to add a little sexual tension to the show.  But what with party credentials of the crowd gathering in L'Aquila and the help of Il Cavaliere it's clear this could make for fine viewing.  If we wanted to make it something more than that...and something more than the bland communiqué machine G8 meetings typically are...we could add a different reality show twist, à la say "Big Brother" or "Survivor," in which participants are voted out after each week. Except in this instance, what we could do is rely on the general odiousness of hanging out with pols around the clock to motivate the cast to want to leave the house, but then not let them out unless they actually get something done in their negotiations. Think how that system would change the nature of summits. Although my fear is that rather than producing more productive meetings of government leaders, the requirement that they get something done would actually lead to the end of summits altogether.

MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images

I wrote this last night. (Actually the day before. It's a long story that involves trains, planes, snow, and an incident in a parking garage with an Eskimo that I just don't have time to go into here.) In any event, after I wrote it, I noticed that my colleague Dan Drezner has written an FP article called "13 Unexpected Consequences of the Crash." What am I supposed to do, shoot myself?

No, we'll just pretend it was all planned and maybe the editors can link them together and have it look like a carefully conceived symphony of in-depth perspectives on what is going to happen to us all at the end of this economic death spiral. 

And in that vein, just to help you with your planning, here are some people and things that won't survive the economic crisis:

1. Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso
   There are items on today's sushi menu that probably will stay fresh longer than he is in office. Nobody had much confidence in him to begin with. But with the Japanese economy dedicated to disproving the theory that things never get as bad as you fear, expect his departure and a parade of successors that will make Japanese voters yearn for the stability of say, post-war Italy. (What does the Japanese market downturn have in common with a bunch of super-models? No bottoms.)


2. Illinois Senator Roland Burris
   Here's my bet: he is convicted of a crime long before Rod Blagojevich's pompadour is in the hands of a prison barber. I know this has nothing to do with the crisis, except perhaps for the fact that the American people are hungry for people to blame and punish -- for anything.


3. Chrysler
   We already know that GM and Chrysler are putting a bunch of lousy brands out of their misery. (Although the Chinese will probably buy Hummer and make a fortune selling them as mobile homes given that they meet Chinese housing standards for a family of 12.) I think the last Pontiac fan died of old age during the Truman Administration. There are probably a few beauticians in Union, New Jersey who still think the PT Cruiser is anything other than the automotive equivalent of a mullet. But for the most part the makes consigned to the scrap heap the other day will not be missed. Neither will Chrysler once it is clear its management is doing too little -- it's too far gone. Congress is tired of bailing out the private equity fat cats that own much of it and everyone realizes that its plan for being saved by Fiat is like having someone throw a drowning man a cinder block. After them, other car brands will go. There are simply too many. The market has spoken. And no White House task force is going to be able to persuade consumers otherwise.


4. My 401-K
   I hope you will all come visit me in the refrigerator box in which I plan to spend my sunset years. I'm thinking of some place nice, maybe under a bridge somewhere in Florida.


5. Retiring at Age 65
   In a more serious vein, while I may be content to live in a refrigerator box by a canal in St. Pete wrestling alligators for scraps of food, other harder-working Americans are going to realize that they've got to keep working. Fortunately, this crisis coincides with the demographic realities of an aging society in which there are just too many old people for the government to support anyway. And older people are still vigorous so why waste the economic value they can produce. Besides, the retirement age of 65 was set by Bismarck back in the day when few people lived that long. (And you think politicians are cynical today. How about those social security programs that don't begin until you're dead?)


6. The Career of Gordon Brown
   He was on the ropes but then as the crisis deepened, he stepped up and the U.K.was comforted by his competence (which is really all he has to offer because personality he ain't got.) But now that the crisis has further unfolded and precious little the government has done has seemed to work, you can hear the sounds of electoral blades being sharpened. The problem for the U.K. is that his likely Tory successor David Cameron would be the least original thinker at a convention of insurance salesmen.


7. Citibank
   Of course it is too big to fail. So was the Soviet Union. But the brand is so damaged and worse damage is almost certainly on the way when the consumer credit crisis hits that it'll be further broken into bits and pieces. And it won't be the only bank to tank. In fact, in an ironic twist, it's entirely possible that before this is over the government may start giving away one of the banks it owns with every toaster you buy.


8. Thousands More Afghans
   Civilian death tolls in Afghanistan are mounting. Escalating the war won't bring this number down. Sadly, one thing that is almost certain to survive the crisis is the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.


9. Stability in Mexico
   For more on this, see the Axis of Upheaval series elsewhere on this site. More on that in a day ortwo.
   
   (In which I will focus on the Axis of Instability -- the coalition of the unhinged that is the most direct link between Kim Jong Il and Joaquin Phoenix.)


10. Unilateralism
    While The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is maintaining many of the draconian anti-terror policies of the Darth Vader Administration, some old favorites will have to be scrapped. Unilateralism will be the first to go. Not necessarily as a matter of principle. Rather, we simply can't afford it any more.


11. The Strong Dollar
    Face it, we may talk of a stimulus package today, but within a few years and after a few sequels, we may become known as the stimulus generation. The problem with stimulae is that they are like crack. Once you get a taste, it's hard to live without. What politician is going to take a weak economy that is has grown dependent on a few trill a year from the great money pot on the Potomac and put it at risk by turning off the spigot? So we either borrow or we print money. Other currencies step up. They won't replace us, but it will bea long, long time if ever before the dollar is what it once was.


12. The Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press and...
    So here's how the course will be taught in business schools: once upon a time, the newspaper industry decided to give away for free what they once sold. They went out ofbusiness. Get it? If not, check the home page of FP's parent company in a few years and see if the newspaper isn't being primarily used as a promotional give away to sell pimply-faced teenagers SAT prep classes. (Kaplan is the profitable part of the Washington Post empire.)


13. $11 Billion Helicopters for the President Seriously? 
    $11billion for foreign built helicopters for a president who has made a signature issue taking corporate jets away from supposedly profligate CEOs? Not.


14. Barack Obama's Haircut
    Look at it closely. It is simply not presidential. We're not going to be able to make it through this crisis with something that looks like a six year old's first buzz cut. Remember Mr. President, it's not just your head anymore, it's a head of state.


15. John Boehner's Reputation as a Statesman
    Ahahaha. Just kidding. Boehner would need a reputation transplant just to have one. I suspect he is able to wander anonymously at his own family reunions. But other congressional reputations will surely falter as those wonderful folks on the Hill reassert their claim to being the least branch of the government. And if future stimulus packages contain any more pork than the last one, Nancy Pelosi is going to have to hand over her gavel to Jimmy Dean.


16. A Navy Built Around Carrier Battle Groups...
    ...and the current Army-Marine Corps contest to see which is really our expeditionary force of choice, and all the other obsolete or redundant military spending philosophies that are a vestige of America's Era of Deep Pockets. Welcome to the Era of Limits. It's not just an issue for defense spenders, either. It's everybody's new reality.


17. The Bail Out Reflex
    If the recent report that the top 20 bank recipients of Federal aid actually reduced their lending levels in the fourth quarter of 2008 doesn't do it for you, wait until the auto companies come back a third and a fourth time, or until you start looking at individual deals a little more closely. For example...where did the $150 billion we have pumped into AIG go?


18. The Idea That Green Was the Color of Expensive Oil
    To all those who says low oil prices and the recession would kill the green revolution before it arrived, I hope you are paying attention. The president made green energy the center piece of his stimulus signing ceremony, the bill contains more money for greener more efficient energy than any in American history, another energy bill is promised this year and, significantly, the decision this week by the EPA to reopen whether or not to go after carbon under the Clean Air Act is a clear signal that before the next Congressional election, America will have started to set a price for carbon and create permanent legal incentives to embrace a new energy paradigm. This isthe one area of stimulus on which both parties agree, and its quite possibly a game-changer for the U.S. economy and for U.S. national security.


19. California
    Not really. But it's a little scary that it has gotten this close. Scarier still when you consider that California is the seventh or eighth largest economy in the world (bigger than Canada). And they can't figure out how to generate enough revenue to run the government? Come on, it doesn't seem like they are really trying then, does it.


20. The Idea That You Can Change the Entire Mission of the U.S. Government Without Changing Its Structure
    You get it, right? We now own banks, run auto companies, manage a fairly complex national industrial policy, will have to reinvent the international system, etc... and we don't have the people or the structures to handle these developments. We will try to do it without adding new phalanxes of officials of course, which will only screw things up. And then, gradually, we will reshape the government to meet these new needs thus (in some cases unfortunately) institutionalizing them. 

Ok, that's 20. Now, over to you. Global changes? Careers that won't make it? Institutions that won't survive it? Don't leave me hanging here.

Images from Getty