Background
Published in January of 2017, A World in Disarray is a sobering view of geopolitics from Richard Haass who is an American diplomat and has been president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003. The book outlines the major struggles and players of the world at the time President Trump came into office.
My Thoughts
As the book started, I thought this was very dated material. It is amazing how much has changed since early 2017. I think few people have really been paying attention of how the United States has moved throughout the international community during the Trump administration. There was real fear with Russia, North Korea, and China before he took office. While there are still issues there, we aren’t anywhere close to what existed as he took office.
That said, it is vital we keep looking back to history to instruct our steps forward. In our hyper-connected world, we seem to be so swayed in the thoughts and trends of the moment that we forget these roads have been traveled before. We can watch how they play out and it isn’t pretty.
I’m very interested to see where we go under the Biden administration. Will the world powers took to the United States for guidance? Will they the respect us? Fear us? Perhaps they will simply disregard us as we squabble over the ridiculous and eat ourselves alive with a runaway debt.
Recommendation
A great book and a snapshot of the times