Niall Ferguson needs to take his pipe dream of a return to the 19th century and pop it where the sun don't shine, because it's not going to happen. The old way is gone, and it's not coming back. Either we build something new - something that works for all those who are free and struggling to be free, not just for us - or we give up. I wonder if we're up to it
What Ferguson has seen, (like Barnett), is the connectedness and rule sets the 19th century had in places.
Despite it's many faults the British Empire spawned a lot of democracies (and got pretty close with a few others before it hit the disasters of WW1 and WW2, but that's in the realm of what ifs).
I agree, the 19th century is over. We have a new paradigm now and Barnett's model seems to describe it better than any other I've seen.
It does place the US sensibly in the world and provides a rationale for what it has been doing since 9/11 and it seems to me the US has been edging into operating on the basis of Barnett's description.
After 9/11 the US administration thought it could not wait for the rest of the world to catch up with its thinking and has modified its "exportation of security," as Barnett terms what the US provides the world in exchange for its energy consumption and balance of payments deficit.
Franch, German, Russian, Chinese and Indian leaders are going to be told, or are being told, or have been told scenarios like Barnett's and by sometime next year they'll be discussing it at a staff level with the US.
No doubt the whole thing will be a schmozzle but they'll muddle through.
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