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Wars, terrorism, and civil strife cause disruptions temporarily but eventually they are overwhelmed by the waves of globalization.

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There will be lots of problems, crisis, and tensions, but they will occur against a backdrop of systemic stability.

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A Tale of Two Lists

I think it's a close-run thing as to which list is more unpersuasive: Fareed Zakaria's leading indicators of American decline (we no longer have the world's biggest casino, the world's largest shopping mall, or the world's tallest Ferris Wheel, among other portents of doom), or Newt Gingrich's "nine acts of real change" that could save the GOP from disaster in '08, which include making campaigns against card-check and earmarks central to the GOP agenda, overhauling the census (now there's a game-changer), and implementing "a space-based, GPS-style air traffic control system."

I suppose I have to give the nod to Newt, since Zakaria at least admits that his list is "arbitrary and a bit silly." And to be fair, both pieces have something to recommend them: The Gingrich recommendations are absurd, but the Gingrich analysis of the GOP's predicament should be required reading for Pollyanish conservatives, while Zakaria, as usual, has various sane and measured things to say about the state of the world. But that makes it all the more disappointing to see him lapse into Friedmanesque blather about the casino and ferris wheel gap, and the necessity of demonstrating our commitment to the global order by joining the metric system, and the risk that having succeeded in our "great, historical mission—globalizing the world," the U.S. might forget "to globalize ourselves." (I'm not sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure I'm against it.) Maybe he's making a bid for Friedmanesque book sales - but if so, he should remember that it profits a pundit nothing to gain the whole world if he ends up stuck arguing that it's flat.

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U.S. share of global economic output (on a purchasing power parity basis) has declined very slightly over the past twenty years – from about 21% to about 20%. But what has really happened over this period has been the rise of China and the rest of non-Japan Asia at the relative expense of Western Europe and Japan.

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Indeed, what is most striking about the rise of Asia is a silence on the big questions. This is clearly the case with China, which has been quietly working with and within existing frameworks of global cooperation. Arguably, over the last seven years, it is the United States - not China - that has been most "revisionist" in its global orientation. China is more worried that the United States will abandon its commitment to the old, Western-oriented global rules and institutions than it is eager to advance a new set of Asian-generated rules and institutions.

So the idea of an "Asian century" is misleading. The notion behind this sort of grand thinking borrows from the old great power image of world politics. Great powers rise and fall. In this old fashion vision, America had its moment and now it is giving way to China.

But this misses my big argument: that the United States was not just a powerful state, it also built an international order. That order still exists - and indeed it has expanded to encompass much of the world. China - and Greater Asia - is rising in power but it is also integrating into this international order.

The order that America helped produce is unlike orders produced by earlier great powers. Compared with earlier orders, the American-led order is "easy to join and hard to overturn." Today this order is not really an American order or even a Western order. It is an international order with deep and encompassing economic and political rules and institutions that are both durable and functional.

The key point is that there is no alternative "Asian international order" that China and the rest of Asia are attempting to call forth - doing so if only the West would, as Kishore urges, gracefully make way for it. In my view, Asian countries want to join and help run the existing global system not overturn it.

It is here that I make a series of arguments about how the United States should think about the rise of China and the future of the West. I laid out my thesis in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs.

Essentially, I make three points.

One is that the best way to shape the terms of China's - and Asia's - rise is to reaffirm and rebuild the Western-led postwar rules and institutions that define the current world order and through which the U.S. has exercised leadership all these years. This order has been -- in contrast to past international orders -- relatively easy to join. It is an international order that has - in contrast to past international orders - spread wealth and economic growth relatively widely. This international order has also been one - in contrast to past international orders - where political voice and influence has been widely shared among states. This Western system is America's greatest asset and we should strengthen it and by so doing strengthen the incentives China will have to integrate and join rather than oppose and seek to overturn it.

A second point is that, ironically, China may well be tomorrow's greatest supporter of the American-led postwar system. That system provides rules and institutions for openness and nondiscrimination. These are features of order that China will want going forward as its growing economic weight will be greeted by efforts by others (including some governments in the West) to close and discriminate. Rule-based international order is not a Western fixation. It is a system of governance that all states - East and West - have some interest in maintaining, China not least. China joined the WTO. Is the WTO a Western institution? I am not sure this is a useful question to debate. It is a functional institution that states - East or West - have incentives to join.

Finally, I argue that America's unipolar position will slowly wane. And so, today, the United States should be asking itself: what sort of international order do we want to have in place in 2040 or 2050 when we are relatively less powerful?

I call this the neo-Rawlsian question of our time!

It was the famous political philosopher John Rawls who suggested that political institutions should be designed behind a "vale of ignorance" - that is, under conditions where the architects of the institutions did not know precisely where they would be within the resulting socio-economic system. This thought experiment forced the institution builders to design institutions that would safeguard his interests regardless of where he or she ended up - weak or strong, rich or poor.

The United States needs to engage in a similar thought experiment. We should try to lay down rules and institutions today -- or reaffirm the old ones -- so that we can protect our interests when we are less commanding in our global presence. I don't know if John Rawls would approve, but I borrow his inspiration!

My answer is that the United States should want to invest today in renewing and expanding a global system what will give it the best opportunities to be safe and prosperous when the rest of the world looms larger.

In the age of rising Asian power, reports of the death of the West are greatly exaggerated. It is the grand liberal ascendancy of the last hundred years - and the quiet revolution of postwar liberal international order - that define the logic and choices of global order in the 21st century.

This is true regardless of whether Asia and the West are rising or declining or just standing still.

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Originally posted by Aloysius:
True, Steve.

But what Ikenberry is saying is that we can build strong international institutions so that we won't be abused by the next superpower fifty to one-hundred years down the line.

I think that's a pretty good idea.