The Wilsonian Triad

As part of my promise to share more interesting information from my foreign policy/international studies course, here is an in-class response I had written last week– summarizing the ideals that have dominated U.S. and Western foreign policy.  All of the writing is my own work, but the information is from a variety of sources (all of which I do not claim to own.. etc [insert disclaimer here]).  I wrote this in 1-hr, so if it’s imperfect…well, you’ll know why.

Oh, and thanks to my professor for being an incredible teacher.

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In analyzing the significant political and economic changes in the past 150 years, it is very important to examine the most prevalent shifts in our global system: the rise from agrarian societies to vastly and rapidly industrialized nations, and the deeply and profound impacts of the fall of global capitalism — particularly relating to social stability.

The biggest contribution to the rise of capitalism and free markets was the industrial revolution.  The revolution included the developments of faster transportation (i.e. railroads), which extended communication.  The growth of industries expanded and created a new system where humans became a commodity–machines that were considered assets to the industry.  This rapid growth and automation of humanity led to one of the most destructive wars and the first modern war: World War I.

Fought to the death, WWI was so absurdly devastating that leaders–particularly President Woodrow Wilson–sought to prevent such modern catastrophes to ever occur again.  This led to the “Liberal Theory of History” and the subsequent Bretton Woods Order: theories that both advocated democracy, free markets–which would provide economic and political stability– in order to achieve universal peace (the Wilsonian Triad).

What followed the devastation of WWI and later reaffirmed these ideas was one of the largest financial failures of laissez faire capitalism: The Great Depression.   During the Great Depression, unemployment skyrocketed and severe economic instability fed public unrest.  The insecurity within markets led to people thirsty for change and revolution, and even led to the growth of the German Nazi Party–whose country experienced extreme hyperinflation and economic instability.  As part of his fourteen points of peace, Wilson sought to create the League of Nations and build relationships among the WWI-ravaged European countries, but when WWII broke out, this institution collapsed and Wilson’s dream for the “war to end all wars” collapsed with it.

Nevertheless, as another war waged in Europe and the U.S. “saved the day” by bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima and by helping rebuild Europe via the Marshall Plan, the ideas of maintaining free markets and democracy in the world continued to dominate American policy.  With institutions like the IMF and the World Bank to regulate exchange rates and fund reconstruction efforts, the “New World Order” was pushed upon the 21st century as the best political and economic alternative to achieving prosperity and peace.  The idea was that free markets –with a decent amount of Keynesian reform and some government control–could move forward to yield wealth in places where it can be most beneficial.  When countries traded, had comparative advantage, and reached a theoretical level of “no waste,” everyone would be employed, satisfied, and less likely to cause uproarious events such as revolutions.  Furthermore, a democracy where the political system is created “for the people, by the people” also adds to the idea of socioeconomic stability and that democratic liberal-market nations would not wage wars.

Interestingly enough, as these three main ideas of peace, democracy, and free markets took hold of the modern world, many “new” democracies emerged to challenge these theories.  In the case of Martin Jacques’s book When China Rules the World, Jacques describes an asianized form of democracy yielding prosperity in the Asian Tigers — especially Japan.  The Anglo-American form of democracy, which is supposed to be the only and best form in achieving peace, is not the system that has taken shape in modern Asia.

So, if democracy and free markets lead to both peace and modernity, what makes of the East and Southeast Asian cases? Singapore has survived and prospered under autocratic and free-market ideals, while Japan has prospered under a bureaucratic, “top-to-bottom” system.

Today, as globalization in economics and politics intertwine the East and the West, the ideas of free markets, democracy, and peace are ever more contested.  With a market-socialist periphery country such as China rising to meet the hegemonic standards of Europe and the U.S., the world will need to pay close attention to the developments of the 21st century.  It took the Great Depression, two extremely disconnecting world wars, and rampant political turmoil in the world to yield the modern liberal market, Bretton Woods, and U.N. system that we have today…What will it take for another revolutionary change or reform to occur in the global socioeconomic system?  It appears only time will tell–or the advocates of the Wilsonian Triad will not let that happen.

Dead in the Family

The next Sookie Stackhouse installment is finally here!

I got my book in the mail this weekend… and finished it in 48 hours.  As usual, it was a GREAT read, and I’m depressed all over again that I’ll have to wait a whole other year for the next installment. To deal with my re-withdrawal symptoms, I’ve thought about getting into watching True Blood (the HBO adaption of Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books) but I just can’t bring myself to watch it.  I guess I’m just such a loyalist when it comes to books: if the movie/tv series is not close to the plot of the novel, I have an extremely hard time enjoying it.  Who knows? Maybe one of these days I’ll snap and cave into the HBO pressure.

Anyway, loved it loved it LOVED it!  I might just reread the whole series this summer.

Dragon’s Lair

With time constraints and too much material to narrow-down and compile into short blog posts, I have yet to share with you the many intriguing lectures my foreign policy/international studies professor has given.  However, with recent developments in the attempted Times Square ‘terrorist attack’ and the BP oil spill, I thought sharing this small excerpt from Michael Mandelbaum’s book The Ideas that Conquered the World would be most appropriate and interesting.

Excerpt from chapter 7 – “Dragon’s Lair.”

“The terrible events of September 11, 2001 evoked memories of another deadly assault on the United States sixty years earlier: The Japanese attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.  In the magnitude of their historical impact the two events differed dramatically.  The first was part of the bloodiest and most destructive war in human history, the outcome of which reordered the world and altered America’s place in it.  The consequences of the second were far more modest, but did bear some resemblance to those of the first: The American public rallied in support of a foreign war–this one in Afghanistan.

There is another instructive parallel between December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.  Both attacks shocked the United States and the world, yet forewarnings were abundant in each case. The United States was sharply at odds with Japan over Japanese policies in Asia, and Tokyo had made plain that it regarded the oil embargo that Washington had imposed earlier that year, in response to the continuing Japanese occupation of China, as a severe provocation.

Similarly, the terrorist group responsible for the September 11 attacks, Al Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for three previous attacks on Americans outside the United States: against American soldiers in Somalia in October 1993; against American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998; and against the USS Cole, an American naval vessel anchored outside Aden, the capital of Yemen, on October 12, 2000.

The attacks of September 11 should not have shocked the world as they did for yet another reason.  The personnel, the resources, and the motivation for them all came from a part of the world well recognized as the source of the greatest post-Cold War threats to the world’s core: the largely Muslim part of Eurasia stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

On early European maps, unexplored parts of the world thought to be dangerous were marked by the Latin warning “Cave, hic dragones“–Beware, here are dragons.   At the outset of twenty-first century, the region deserving of that phrase was the Middle East.  But unlike the European mariners of centuries before, the countries of the core knew precisely what dangers lurked there, though they could not easily avoid them.”

[Into the next section, "Oil"]

“…For part of the modern period the Western core had controlled much of the region, through imperial rule or mandates established by international bodies such as the League of Nations.  Borders were often drawn arbitrarily, laying the basis for the familiar kind of post-Cold War instability in which dissatisfied minorities chafe at the political arrangements with which they have been saddled.  But the Middle East was different from the rest of the periphery in one immensely consequential way.  What made it important was its oil….

During the Cold War, oil gave the countries of the Middle East a measure of independence from and indeed leverage against the United States and the Soviet Union, despite the intervention of both superpower s in the political and military affairs of the region.  It gave Middle Eastern rulers the means to appease or repress discontented groups without having to rely on the generosity of the core powers, and it made the Middle East more significant to the core tha nany other region in the world’s periphery, so significant that the core powers were prepared to go to war to protect their interests there.

The signifance of oil was very much a feature of the modern age.  It owed its value to the industrial revolution… Oil came to be known as “black gold” and like gold it was a kind of universal currency…Oil was also known as “the blood of the earth,” and it was almost as vital to the arteries of industrial economies as is blood to the human body.  A better comparison of this kind, however, was with oxygen, something just as important but externally supplied.  Oil, like oxygen, could be cut off, imposing the economic equivalent of suffocation. Economic strangulation, the withholding of supplies of oil from the Persian Gulf region, was the great strategic danger to the Western liberal core during the Cold War; it remained a danger, although a less acute one, after the Cold War’s end.

The West faced two associated dangers: that these reserves would come under the control of people who would place unacceptable conditions on their continued flow to the West, thereby subjecting the West to blackmail, and that those who controlled the oil would accumulate great wealth from its sale that would underwrite political and military power that they would turn against the West itself.”

Very, very interesting book.  I’ll try to share another interesting excerpt soon.  Makes you think though, doesn’t it?

Age 10 and Divorced

Over a month ago, I stumbled upon an article online that mentioned a little 10-year-old Yemeni girl named Nujood Ali who–at such an young age–had already lived through an arranged marriage and a divorce.  Amazed at the courage and strength of such a young girl and curious to learn more, I scribbled her name onto a post-it and kept it with me.

On this lazy and beautifully sunny weekend, I finally downloaded her book I Am Nujood: Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui and lied down to read.  The autobiography was instantly un-put-downable, and I found myself captivated by this incredibly mature girl and her story of bravery.  Women and girls like Nujood who constantly kick down “closed doors” inspire and “Wow!” me in ways I can’t explain.  Good for you, Nujood!

Nujood with her lawyer, Shada

To share some of my favorite excerpts from the book, which I hope will move you to read her wonderful story:

“I’m a simple village girl whose family had to move to the capital, and I have always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers.  Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything.  Today I have decided to say no.” – Nujood Ali

“I’m shaking–if they see me, they might arrest me.  A little girl running away from home, that just isn’t done.  Trembling, I discreetly latch on to the first passing veil, hoping to get the attention of the unkown women it conceals.  A tiny voice inside me whispers, Go on, Nujood! It’s true you’re only a girl, but you’re also a woman, and a real one, even though you’re still having trouble accepting that..” – Nujood Ali

“‘I’ll be by the candy vendor,’ she had told me, betraying the sweet tooth of children her age.  Almond-shaped eyes, a baby face, an angelic smile.  Seemingly a girl like any other, who likes candy, dreams of having a big TV, and plays blindman’s buff with her brothers and sisters.  Depp down, however, she is a real little lady, matured by her ordeal, who smiles today to hear the congratulatory cries of ‘Mabrouk!‘ called out to her by the women of Sana’a [Yemen] when they recognize her as she passes by.” – Delphine Minoui

“Perhaps Nujood does not realize this yet, but she has shattered a taboo.  The news of her divorce traveled around the world… bringing an end to the silence enshrouding a practice that is unfortuntely all too widespread… If her story touches us so deeply, however, it’s also because it impels us to take a good look at ourselves.  In the West, it’s fashionable to instinctively bemoaan the fate of Muslim women, yet conjugal violence and the practice o child marriage are hardly restricted to the Islamic world.” – Delphine Minoui

“Whenever I travel to Sana’a, she asks me to bring her colored pencils.  Crouching on the floor of the same modest living room, she always draws the same colourful building with plenty of windows.  One day, I asked her if it was a house, a school, or a boarding school.  ‘It’s the house of joy,’ she replied with a big smile. ‘The house of happy little girls.’” – Delphine Minoui

Inspiration

As always, my inspiration for posts comes and goes as it pleases.  It left for a while…

..and now it’s back agian.

I’m unsure why I’ve chosen one of the most busiest academic quarters in my life to start this up again, but a new encounter as moved me to start writing again.   This time around, I have a foreign policy course–my first–and it is taught by one of the most articulate and mesmerizing professors I’ve had in college.   With the course’s title being: “America and East Asia in a Globalized World: Transformation, Accommodation, and Confrontation,” I expect there will be many fascinating topics and discussions, which would undoubtedly motive me to share them with you– my reader. 

In the course’s next session, we will delve deeper into the “Bretton Woods World Economic Order” and discuss the beginnings of modern foreign policy in the U.S. and the Western world.  Stay tuned!

Last week at NCCU

It’s my last week at NCCU and Taipei, and I’m currently scrambling to get all of my papers, projects, and exams done early this week.  I’ll still have to write a 5-page term paper when I get home (since my professor hasn’t assigned the prompt yet), but other than that, everything’s almost done.

These past 4.5 months abroad has been an amazing eye-opening experience.  As my second time studying abroad, my experience in East Asia has really solidified some of the epiphanies I had during my abroad year in Spain, while also opening my eyes to brand new perspectives on myself, my priorities, and the world surrounding me.

Unlike my first experience, which gave me sights into a future I hadn’t really considered, my exchange at National Chengchi University gave me the opportunity to delve back into my past and take the much-need time to reflect on myself and the path I’ve taken.   I’ve reunited with old friends and made lasting relationships with new ones.  I’ve surpassed all of the expectations I had in coming here and have also ended up with more questions.

With everything I’ve learned, what will I do now and who will I become?

It doesn’t take much to realize that only time will answer these questions. However, with everything I’ve experienced here, at least I know I’ll have the heart and state-of-mind to accept whatever answers life decides to give me.

I’ll miss my friends and the little life I’ve built here, but it’s safe to say that..

I’m ready to go home.

Shanghai Sunset

9:00pm Shanghai, China.

So here I am. 

Sitting at my younger aunt’s computer.  

Skimming through various news articles, since my usual forms of entertainment (Facebook, Youtube, etc) are blocked here. 

Considering I had skipped out on sharing my week-long trip to Sydney, Australia, I figured it was about time I posted something a bit more personal on my blog.  As I had mentioned in my earlier posts, my initial goal in coming to Southeast and East Asia was to answer some questions I had about myself.  Looking back over this exhilarating rollercoaster ride,  I’ve realized that as long as I’m moving, growing…changing, I’ll always want to know more and more about me and everything else.

Last Saturday, I flew over to Shanghai to spend some time with my 小阿姨 –  literally “little aunt”, my mom’s younger sister.  Originally I was only planning on spending a long weekend here with her and her family, but I had so much fun within the first couple days that I decided to change my ticket for a week later.  I’ve been fascinated with the rapid development of China for years, and I find Shanghai to be a particuarly curious and intriguing city/microsm of it all.  The skyline is impressive and particularly breathtaking in the evening — it could be the Chinese New York City– and you can easily spend forever exploring everything.  Within the nooks and crannies of this 21st century metropolitan, you can still stumble upon small traditional Chinese neighborhoods and streets, mingling amongst the people, buildings, and narrow streets that seem to date back a hundred years. 

My particularly favorite experience has been the time I’ve spent shoppnig and learning from my aunt, the 杀价, or haggling, pro.   In one week, I’ve gone iceskating with my cousin, taken

A Canal in Suzhou, China

pictures with the Oriental Pearl Tower and the beautiful PuDong skyline, ridden the bullet train to Suzhou, walked within the beautiful Master of Nets Garden (constructed over 800 years ago), and spent lots of quality time with extended family that I hadn’t seen in over ten years.   Much different from my usual adventures abroad, this one was tranquil, simple, and fulfilling in a heartfelt way.  To my surprise, my brief and relaxing time in Shanghai has actually made  me feel quite… whole.

I call this entry Shanghai Sunset because it is what I consider the most perfect way to end my East Asian experience.  No matter how far I go, how long I’m away, or how Americanized I am, there will always be a part of me that has and always will be part of this eastern sun.  Asia will always be within me, even if I’m not within it.

Although I’m still asking questions, this is my best answer for now.  And I’m satisfied with it.

“Swanson’s Unwritten Rules”

As a follow up on the last post, these are a few of “swanson’s unwritten rules” that I found on the article.  I actually find them to be very, very helpful — I wish I had read a few of these much sooner.  A new item on my to-do list: buy Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management.

1: Learn to say, “I don’t know.” If used when appropriate, it will be used often. 2: It is easier to get into something than to get out of it. 3: If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much 4: Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what’s there; few can see what isn’t there. 5: Presentation rule: When something appears on a slide presentation, assume the world knows about it and deal with it accordingly. 6. Work for a boss to whom you can tell it like it is. Remember, you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your boss. 7: Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what they were supposed to be. Avoid Newton’s Law. 8: However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best effort. 9: Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement or indifference. Don’t be known as a good starter but a poor finisher! 10: In doing your project, don’t wait for others; go after them and make sure it gets done. 11: Confirm the instructions you give others, and their commitments, in writing. Don’t assume it will get done. 12: Don’t be timid: Speak up, express yourself and promote your ideas. 13: Practice shows that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up with the assignment to get the job done. 14: Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports. 15: Be extremely careful in the accuracy of your statements. 16: Don’t overlook the fact that you are working for a boss. Keep him or her informed. Whatever the boss wants, within the bounds of integrity, takes top priority. 17: Promises, schedules and estimates are important instruments in a well-run business. You must make promises — don’t lean on the often-used phrase: “I can’t estimate it because it depends on many uncertain factors.” 18: Never direct a complaint to the top; a serious offense is to “cc” a person’s boss on a copy of a complaint before the person has a chance to respond to the complaint. 19: When interacting with people outside the company, remember that you are always representing the company. Be especially careful of your commitments. 20: Cultivate the habit of boiling matters down to the simplest terms: the proverbial “elevator speech” is the best way. 21: Don’t get excited in engineering emergencies: Keep your feet on the ground. 22: Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions. 23: When making decisions, the “pros” are much easier to deal with than the “cons.” Your boss wants to see both. 24: Don’t ever lose your sense of humor. 25: Have fun at what you do. It will be reflected in you work. No one likes a grump except another grump! 26: Treat the name of your company as if it were your own. 27: Beg for the bad news. 28: You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100% of what you feel. 29: You can’t polish a sneaker. 30: When facing issues or problems that are becoming drawn-out, “short them to the ground.” 31: When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one level up in the organization. Your perspective will change quickly. 32: A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person. (This rule never fails). 33: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, an amateur built an ark that survived a flood while a large group of professionals built the Titanic! Postscript: The qualities of leadership boil down to confidence, dedication, integrity and love.

The Walter Rule

I thought it should be pick up where I last left off with an interesting article I read on USA Today.  It says that, interestingly, the way a person treats a waiter says a lot about him or her — whether they are nice person or not.

Read on..

CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character

By Del Jones, USA TODAY

Office Depot CEO Steve Odland remembers like it was yesterday working in an upscale French restaurant in Denver.

The purple sorbet in cut glass he was serving tumbled onto the expensive white gown of an obviously rich and important woman. “I watched in slow motion ruining her dress for the evening,” Odland says. “I thought I would be shot on sight.”

Thirty years have passed, but Odland can’t get the stain out of his mind, nor the woman’s kind reaction. She was startled, regained composure and, in a reassuring voice, told the teenage Odland, “It’s OK. It wasn’t your fault.” When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson: You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter.

Odland isn’t the only CEO to have made this discovery. Rather, it seems to be one of those rare laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up. It’s hard to get a dozen CEOs to agree about anything, but all interviewed agree with the Waiter Rule.

They acknowledge that CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference. How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul.

And beware of anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like, “I could buy this place and fire you,” or “I know the owner and I could have you fired.” Those who say such things have revealed more about their character than about their wealth and power.

Whoever came up with the waiter observation “is bang spot on,” says BMW North America President Tom Purves, a native of Scotland, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, who lives in New York City with his Norwegian wife, Hilde, and works for a German company. That makes him qualified to speak on different cultures, and he says the waiter theory is true everywhere.

The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. He wrote a booklet of 33 short leadership observations called Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management. Raytheon has given away 250,000 of the books.

Among those 33 rules is only one that Swanson says never fails: “A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person.”

Swanson says he first noticed this in the 1970s when he was eating with a man who became “absolutely obnoxious” to a waiter because the restaurant did not stock a particular wine.

“Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with,” Swanson writes. “Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles.”

The Waiter Rule also applies to the way people treat hotel maids, mailroom clerks, bellmen and security guards. Au Bon Pain co-founder Ron Shaich, now CEO of Panera Bread, says he was interviewing a candidate for general counsel in St. Louis. She was “sweet” to Shaich but turned “amazingly rude” to someone cleaning the tables, Shaich says. She didn’t get the job.

Shaich says any time candidates are being considered for executive positions at Panera Bread, he asks his assistant, Laura Parisi, how they treated her, because some applicants are “pushy, self-absorbed and rude” to her before she transfers the call to him.

Just about every CEO has a waiter story to tell. Dave Gould, CEO of Witness Systems, experienced the rule firsthand when a waitress dumped a full glass of red wine on the expensive suit of another CEO during a contract negotiation. The victim CEO put her at ease with a joke about not having had time to shower that morning. A few days later, when there was an apparent impasse during negotiations, Gould trusted that CEO to have the character to work out any differences.

CEOs who blow up at waiters have an ego out of control, Gould says. “They’re saying, ‘I’m better. I’m smarter.’ Those people tend not to be collaborative.”

“To some people, speaking in a condescending manner makes them feel important, which to me is a total turnoff,” says Seymour Holtzman, chairman of Casual Male Retail Group, which operates big-and-tall men’s clothing stores including Casual Male XL.

How people were raised

Such behavior is an accurate predictor of character because it isn’t easily learned or unlearned but rather speaks to how people were raised, says Siki Giunta, CEO of U.S. technology company Managed Objects, a native of Rome who once worked as a London bartender.

Sky Angel Cowboy

This sweet little boy brought tears to my eyes.  Very touching.