This project began in 2011, when Michael was writing a short piece on the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union with the counterintuitive argument that the world is actually far safer now than it was then. He called Micah to talk about that thesis, and a friendship and book idea were born.
Over the next several years, we found ourselves repeatedly asking why the world was so overwhelmingly characterized by U.S. politicians, pundits, military officials, think tankers, and the media as one of perpetually greater dangers, darkness, and chaos. Correspondingly, we recognized that these same voices portrayed the United States as facing ever-graver and growing foreign threats, while ignoring the real threats and harms that Americans face every day. Our in-boxes are still filled with emails we have sent to each other over the years of “can you believe he/she said that” statements from threat-mongering politicians and pundits, tales of amazing and unreported global development progress, and chronicles of challenges yet unmet.
This book represents the culmination of our exploration into this subject, and like most books that cover multiple disciplines, it was only possible with the original analysis, guiding insights, and feedback from many scholars, analysts, and colleagues. These include Steven Pinker, John Mueller, Chris Preble, Christopher Fettweis, Rebecca Friedman Lissner, Sean Kay, Michael Hanna, Peter Krause, John Schuessler, Fredrik Logevall, John Glaser, Heather Hurlburt, Adam Zenko, Barry Posen, Paul Miler, Steve Walt, Elizabeth Economy, Adam Segal, Amelia Mae Wolf, and Courtney Lobel. We are also particularly thankful to Justin Vogt and Gideon Rose at Foreign Affairs, who agreed with us that an article examining why the world is actually safer than we have been led to believe would make for a provocative and important argument. They helped us turn that idea into the article that became the inspiration for this book.
A special thanks is also extended to Jenn Wilson of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) for contributing invaluable research, critical recommendations, and editing. We could not have completed this book without her assistance. Several CFR interns, including Dan Alles, Susanna Kalaris, Caroline O’Leary, and Max Friedman, also provided research support throughout the writing process. Of course, all errors of fact or analysis are our own.
We also are grateful for the institutional backing that we received throughout the past seven years, including from Foreign Policy, CFR, and as the Whitehead Senior Fellow in Chatham House’s U.S. and the Americas Program for Micah. Over the years, Michael was able to preview some of the research for this book in his regular column for the Boston Globe, which his editor, Marjorie Pritchard, affectionately and jokingly called his “good news” pieces. Michael is indebted to the Globe and to Marjorie, in particular, for her steadfast support of his work over the past four years.
We also must thank our outstanding agent, Geri Thoma, for helping us find a publisher, and Jaya Aninda Chatterjee at Yale University Press and Andrew Katz for bringing the manuscript to print.
On a more personal note, as we put together the final edits for the aforementioned article in Foreign Affairs, Michael’s daughter Isadora was born. In fact, in late December 2011, the two of us sat in a hospital room on New York’s Upper East Side with Michael holding his new baby in one arm and the final edits of that article in the other. Michael now has two children, Izzy and her younger sister, Scarlett. He dedicates this book to them—as a reminder of the extraordinarily hopeful world in which they will come of age but also the vigilance that they must maintain in order to ensure that it remains that way for them, for their children, and for their children’s children.
Micah dedicates the book to his parents, Michael and Denise, who have provided a lifetime of love and support, for which he will always be grateful.