Fareed Zakaria said:
- Terrorism is rising around the globe, but nothing to panic over.
- The genius of America is alive – Washington may be paralyzed and polarized, but mayors and governors are ignoring party lines and partnering with the private sector to make reforms and investments for future growth.
- The US is 75% more globally popular under Obama than Bush.
- Policing and political power sharing will end terrorism, even in Iraq and Syria.
- An American is 64 times more likely to die by homicide than from a terrorist attack – 40 times for a global citizen in 2012.
- The number of people between aged 10 to 24 is the highest in history – 1.8 billion or a quarter of the global population.
Peter Zeihan says:
- America is the world’s largest consumer market because of its rivers. Transporting goods by water is 12 times cheaper than by land, which is why civilizations have always flourished around rivers.
- America has more navigable waterways than the rest of the world combined – 17,600 miles versus 2,000 miles in China and Germany and 120 miles in the entire Arab world.
- The American Midwest is the world’s largest area of arable land.
- America is rich with deep water ports – Chesapeake Bay has longer stretches of prime port property than the entire continental coast of Asia from Vladivostok to Lahore.
- America is self-sufficient: imports were 17% of GDP in 2012, versus 46% for Germany and 25% for China.
- America’s energy revolution has insulated it from the rest of the world, and as the world gets messier, there are fewer and fewer compelling reasons for America to pay blood and treasure to stabilize it.
Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal said:
- America is not in decline and will do fine. This is still an American world, not a post-American one. Fracking, social media, possibly the apps revolution, are all American-made.
- When you shrink American influence, the rest of the world doesn’t just stay still. Policy decisions account for many of the global disorders.
Peter Beinart at City University of New York said:
- Khomeini considers himself a revolutionary, not a compromiser. Iran’s Cold War with the West helps keep him and the hardliners in power.
- The retreat of America’s military footprint is not the same as a retreat of American power. We have seen a regeneration of American power, partly because the US responded better to the financial crisis than did Europe, and partly because health care and immigration reforms will help America become more dynamic.
- America is much more popular under Obama.
The Institute for Economics and Peace said:
- Since 2000, terrorism fatalities have increased 5 times; up 61% in 2013 over 2012.
- 5% of terrorism deaths since 2000 happened in advanced industrialized countries.
- 4 groups accounted for 2/3 of terror deaths in 2013 – ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban and al Qaeda.
- Rand Corporation found that between 1968 and 2006, only 7% of terrorist organizations have been defeated through military action alone, the rest by local intelligence and police and political engagement.
Ernesto Zedillo at Yale said drug policies in the US, Europe, Latin America, and everywhere are making Mexico’s drug fight much harder.
Ethan Nadelmann at Drug Policy Alliance said:
- Marijuana is a far less dangerous drug than alcohol for most people.
- The use of marijuana does not lead to other drugs.
Andrew Roberts said:
- Napoleon is becoming much more popular in China – it was Napoleon who called China a sleeping giant that will shake the world when it awakes.
- Napoleon’s legacy for the world was meritocracy – the dominating concept of all successful modern countries.
Watch the video at http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/category/gps-episodes/ or read the full transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1411/23/fzgps.01.html