This book was born in Lexington, Virginia. Just before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, I spent a day at the Virginia Military Institute, the oldest state-supported military college in the United States. It’s a great place to go to have your faith restored in America, because every acre of that campus offers a reminder that no matter how divided the country, when we set our minds to it, Americans are capable of instilling the sort of values in our young men and women that the world can be proud of. I was struck again and again by the school’s emphasis on integrity and stewardship.
I took the tour, got a feel for the place, visited with cadets, and then gave a speech to the student body. I remember one cadet’s question in particular—about trade. I had spoken about the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I argued that if our government backed away from it, China would fill the vacuum, creating longer-term problems for the United States.
The cadet said he was from West Virginia. He said there were no jobs there. Coal mines and factories were shut down. Families were fractured. People felt forgotten. He told me that his family opposed NAFTA and free trade generally. He wanted to know what he should tell them to change their minds on TPP.
I told them he shouldn’t try to change their minds, that while I supported the deal, there was nothing about our system that made me believe that trade would help him, his family, or his community. It made sense for his family to oppose trade until people took the consequences of trade for families like his much more seriously.
That’s not a very satisfying answer, but it’s an honest one. For me, it felt like the beginning of a more ambitious answer about where the world is headed. I hope this book takes that answer a little further.
I’m grateful to a number of deep and provocative thinkers for helping me get my head around these issues. To Carl Bildt, Borge Brende, Vint Cerf, Jared Cohen, Ivo Daalder, Mohamed el-Erian, Catherine Fieschi, Adam Grant, Richard Haass, Wolfgang Ischinger, Bob Kagan, Zach Karabell, Parag Khanna, Sallie Krawcheck, Christine Lagarde, David Lipton, David Miliband, Maziar Minovi, James Murdoch, Niko Pfund, Alec Ross, Kevin Rudd, Nouriel Roubini, Marci Shore, Doug Shuman, Nick Thompson, Enzo Viscusi, Steve Walt, and Fareed Zakaria. And I keep thinking about James Chace and David Fromkin, whose opinions frame so many of my own. I miss them. A lot.
My profound appreciation also to our whip-smart team of political scientists at Eurasia Group. If I’ve had any success as a “global thinker,” whatever that means, it’s because of how much they’ve taught me, the ways in which they bring their disparate backgrounds to their work, how much they’ve challenged me, and how much we’ve learned together when we don’t have the answers (or think we do . . . and find out we don’t). In particular, my thanks to Andrew Bishop, Chris Garman, Ayham Kamel, Alex Kazan, Dan Kerner, Cliff Kupchan, Evan Medeiros, Tsveta Petrova, Mij Rahman, and Karthik Sankaran, who went beyond the call of duty to help with the research that went into Us vs. Them. Anahita Arora offered many important ideas and generous support for this book.
I’d call Willis Sparks my alter ego, but after fourteen years and six books, there’s much more id involved. He’s absolutely brilliant, and I honestly can’t remember what it was like to work without him. Leon Levy, Gabe Lipton, and Edana Ng round out our crack research team, our inner circle on everything global, and they’re a pleasure to work with.
Alex Sanford started off working with me on research, then communications and media, and now runs a whole damned media company. She’s still on point making sure the book gets out there, with the critical support of Erina Aoyama and Alex Gibson, whom we both deeply admire. My warmest thanks to Kim Tran and Ester Bakalli, who keep me sane on a daily basis. And Sarah Henning, my chief of staff, who makes the implausible look effortless. Because she’s damned smart.
I’m grateful for my publishing team. Adrian Zackheim has been my partner in publishing crime for a decade now. Given that nobody reads books anymore, that’s indeed what it feels like, yet we still manage to stay in business. He must know a guy who knows a guy. We both appreciate the work of Will Weisser and Bria Sandford. Four tips of the cap to Tara Gilbride and Stefanie Rosenbloom at Portfolio and to Allison McLean and Liz Hazelton at Amplify Partners, our aptly named publicists. Plus my agent, Rafe Sagalyn. (Having a book agent feels kind of globalist.)
To my chickie, Ann; my brother, Rob; my sister-in-law, Elizabeth; and my adorable new niece, Elisa.
And Moose the dog. For him, it’s been a couple decades since I’ve written a book. Poor little bastard.