Honestly, the acknowledgments section is the best part of writing a book because I finally get to give credit fully to where it is due. On the off chance you’ve made it this far, you’re probably the kind of person who has noted there are very few direct callouts in this book and what footnotes I have are more about add-on thoughts rather than attributions.
That’s not an oversight, but instead the nature of the particular herd of beasts I work with. I am not a journalist. Journalism is about reporting facts and statements and events, so the criticality of citations is burned into the souls of all good reporters.
In contrast, my background is in private intelligence work. Back in the day it was less my job to uncover facts or tell someone’s story, or even to pore over and make sense of a specific region or sector, but instead to weave disparate information flows from every part of the world into a tapestry that demonstrates linkages across systems. I build thought models. I interpret. I bring together topics that on the surface share no connections. I combine and compare and, of course, forecast. None of which is particularly easy, or even appropriate, to source.
Take the example of Dr. Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University in Beijing. Undoubtedly one of the most intelligent people alive today, Pettis regularly uncovers, dissects, and comments upon the intricate inner workings of Chinese finance, both private and public. (He has also ran a punk-rock club, which is delightfully at odds with his denser-than-granite writing style.) I follow literally hundreds of people like Pettis who are masters of their craft; each informs many aspects of many of the topics I examine, often in completely unrelated topics. In the specific instance of Pettis, bottomless Chinese finance contributes to both broadscale Chinese military incompetence as well as higher fertilizer demand in Africa. My job is to distill the world. If I cited every obliquely contributing thought, each page would have a book’s worth of citations.
What this all means is that literally every conversation I have and every question I’m asked goes into a sort of seething cauldron of thoughts and information from which everything I do is forged. If you’ve interacted with me in person, on the phone, at a conference, or via email, you’ve had an impact on my thought process, research goals, and writing. If I’m tapping something into my phone with a concerned look on my face, you’ve given me something to explore—and you’ve just ruined my weekend. Thank you all. You are wonderful! Please keep it up!
But, as they say, some animals are more equal than others.
In no particular order, these extra-wonderful people who have had an outsize impact include Nancy Szigethy of NMS Capital; Milo Hamilton of FirstGrain; Danny Klienfielder and Mark Welch of Texas A&M; Julie Hammond of the CFA Society; Bob Grabill of the Chief Executive Network; Anne Mathias of Guggenheim Partners; Thierry Krier of BUCHER Industries; Rya Hazelwood of the Industrial Asset Management Council; Adam Jones Kelly of Conway Incorporated; Vic Hayslip of Burr Forman; Vince Shiely of Lubar & Company; Carl Sohn of Northwest Farm Credit Services; John Ruffalo of Omers Ventures; Tom Fanning of Southern Company; Rebecca Keller of Stratfor; Lance Lahourcade of South Texas Money Management; Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group; Liam Denning of Bloomberg; Kris Kimmel of the Idea Festival; Guillermo Diaz of Cisco; Don Kuykendall of Commerce Street Capital; pretty much everyone at Rimrock Capital, Knowledge Leaders Capital, and the Society for International Business Fellows; as well as Jen Richmond, Marc Lanthemann, Joe Ricketts, and Mitt Romney, who live in worlds all their own.
Many of you are friends. Many of you are clients. Many of you ask great questions. Many of you are wicked smart. Some of you are insane. Pretty much all of you fall into more than one category, and in my opinion are better people for it.
In this world of hyperpartisanship and manufactured facts, rest assured that there are still American institutions dedicated to providing the sort of unbiased information and data that has been used so rarely in the last four American presidential administrations. Not just this book, but very little that I do could even be attempted without the dedication of the hardworking men and women of the United States Geological Service, and the Bureaus of Labor, Census and Economic Analysis. While their jobs involve lots that will always be classified, I couldn’t have begun to parse global naval forces without assistance from the good folks at the Department of Defense, and there is no better way to understand the backstory of everything than to take a deep dive into the Library of Congress. Particular thanks to the people of the Energy Information Agency and the Department of Agriculture, who are consistently the most friendly, helpful, and underloved folks within the American federal government.
Internationally, the United Nations system continues to provide stellar assistance, with the Development Programme, Comtrade, Conference on Trade and Development, and the Food and Agriculture Organization being particularly valuable. All hail the World Bank’s Data Bank and the independent Our World in Data, both of which are shockingly user-friendly and collectively enable the easy access of pretty much any numbers one might find useful. The International Monetary Fund continues to provide top-notch information on national accounts. Much of my energy work would be impossible without the Joint Oil Data Initiative, nor would parsing global debt levels be doable without the work of the Bureau of International Settlements, nor could I make sense of trade patterns without the International Trade Centre’s Trademap.
RAND remains the best source for tactical details on the Chinese navy. Pew Research for its background and population data. While OPEC definitely has an agenda, their data remains peerless. And the BP Statistical Review of energy is such a regular part of my staff’s day-to-day lives that they commemorate its release every year in song (yes, really).
At the more national level, contrary to popular belief, the various national ministries of Japan, France, Mexico, Brazil, and even China (on most days) are absolutely solid.
There are some exceptions of course—counter-acknowledgments, if you will: Eurostat and Statistics Canada. Such great data. Such horrible interfaces. Why do you make data mining so painful? And, of course, Russia’s Rosstat. I am hugely thankful for your work. Not for your data, of course. Most of it is absolute crap. Fabricated crap to support the Kremlin’s renewed propaganda campaigns. But, wow, you are always good for a laugh!
In the creation of Disunited Nations, my team and I read oh so many books as well. Listing them all here would make your eyes bleed, but there were a few that proved particularly useful:
William Bernstein’s A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World.
Barry Naughton’s The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth.
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz’s Brazil: A Biography.
Jonathan Brown’s A Brief History of Argentina.
Max Brooks’s World War Z. (Don’t knock it—it’s the best geopolitical book I’ve ever read and has nothing to do with that awful movie.)
Finally, there is the team itself that did all the heavy lifting.
To everyone at HarperBusiness who chose to invest their time and reputation on my work and mood swings: Thank you, and I hope you’re enjoying the ride.
To Adam Smith of 713Creative: If you keep making graphics that make me look like I know what I’m talking about, you will continue to have my absolute gratitude.
To Melissa Taylor of Taylor Geopolitical Research: Melissa doesn’t simply regularly dig up bits of information that I find necessary, she doesn’t simply find critical bits of information that I didn’t even realize were critical, sometimes I make up crazy requests just to see if she can pull it off. She does. Always. It’s a little intimidating.
To Susan Copeland: I can’t imagine what my work would be like without your steady, empowering presence. That’s a lie. Yes, I can. I just did. It was awful. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!
To Michael N. Nayebi-Oskoui: You have become my analytical sounding board, chief of staff, and, quite unexpectedly, my fixer. While all of Disunited Nations is far stronger courtesy of your input, the Middle East chapters would have been a particular mess.
To all of you: Do. Not. Leave. Me.
Because we aren’t yet done. Hope all y’all are ready to get moving on book number 4. . . .