The State of Global Politics John Swift Has the West Lost It – a Provocation, Kishore Mahbubani (London: Penguin, 2018), 112 pages. Fascism – a Warning, Madeleine Albright (London: William Collins, 2018), 304 pages. Introduction These volumes by two foreign affairs professionals who also have experience of academic life offer unusual and differing perspectives on certain aspects of global politics in the most recent years. Albright is more finely focused, more interesting on Europe and less optimistic regarding the future. Her warning is essentially against President Trump; she notes in detail the similarities between his doctrines and style, the doctrines and style of Mussolini and Hitler, and those of other twentieth and twenty-first century autocrats. Mahbubani is shorter (only 100 pages of text), more broad brush, for me more stimulating in that he has more new things to say, but equally more things to question and disagree with. Both authors draw with benefit from their own official-level/political diplomatic experiences. Albright is Czech by origin. Her birth family were exiled twice, by the Nazis and the Communists. She lost grandparents and relatives to Auschwitz, became a US citizen in 1957 and, after a career as a foreign affairs expert in the Democratic Party, was appointed Permanent Representative to the United Nations by President Clinton, and eventually became the first woman US Secretary of State, 1997–2003. Her book is neither a crude anti-Trump polemic nor a scholarly academic analysis. What it attempts is rather a reflection on the principal elements of Fascism, echoes of similar elements in ‘Trumpism’ and the dangers inherent, therefore, in Trump’s methods and beliefs. She is not at all reassuring about likely transatlantic developments. Mahbubani is more abstract but well buttressed by wide reading and a rich store of statistical material, including surveys of probable future economic and political trends. He is a Singaporean of Pakistani background, who has been Secretary General of his state’s foreign ministry, its representative at Studies • volume 108 • number 431 342 Autumn 2019: Review Articles Studies_layout_AUTUMN-2019.indd 110 21/08/2019 09:14 the UN and twice President of the Security Council. He sees his study as a wake-up call to the West to accept that its era of global dominance is passing, and that its global objectives need therefore to be redefined, reduced and differentiated in its own interest and in the interest of the 10 billion world population which may be reached by about 2050. His second major thesis is that, largely thanks to the West, the position of the majority of human beings in the Rest (his capitalisation), especially in Asia and Africa, has improved immeasurably in the last generation, in the fields of governance, economic development and stability. His optimistic materialism sees little justification for present-day Western doom and gloom, and no benefit at all in the persistent prevalence of such a mindset. The two authors cover much of the same ground, and the similarities and differences in their respective approaches provide food for thought. Mahbubani deals with President Trump rather summarily, and while he does not spell out in detail that Trump represents something close to the polar opposite of what he is advocating for future action by the West, especially as regards multilateralism and minimalist military intervention and political interference, this is clearly his view. Both have interesting points to make, for example, on Putin’s Russia and on Erdoğan’s Turkey. They agree on a lot and where they disagree, there are strong arguments on both sides. One major point of disagreement is in their treatment of the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Mahbubani sees this as a needless provocation to Russia and as an example of Western hubris; Albright regards it as a legitimate response to the justified demands of the newly independent Eastern European states, and as useful in helping to strengthen democracy and to guarantee better treatment of minorities there. Here and elsewhere, she is perhaps interventionist by instinct, less inclined to question US motives and less sensitive to the concerns of states, allies as well as opponents, which do. Mahbubani The West is...
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