Ian Bremmer

Renowned political scientist Ian Bremmer draws lessons from global challenges of the past 100 years--including the pandemic--to show how we can respond to three great crises unfolding over the next decade.

In this revelatory, unnerving, and ultimately hopeful book, Bremmer details how domestic and international conflicts leave us unprepared for a trio of looming crises--global health emergencies, transformative climate change, and the AI revolution. Today, Americans cannot reach consensus on any significant political issue, and US and Chinese leaders behave as if they're locked in a new Cold War. We are squandering opportunities to meet the challenges that will soon confront us all.

In coming years, humanity will face viruses deadlier and more infectious than Covid. Intensifying climate change will put tens of millions of refugees in flight and require us to reimagine how we live our daily lives. Most dangerous of all, new technologies will reshape the geopolitical order, disrupting our livelihoods and destabilizing our societies faster than we can grasp and address their implications.

The good news? Some farsighted political leaders, business decision-makers, and individual citizens are already collaborating to tackle all these crises. The question that should keep us awake is whether they will work well and quickly enough to limit the fallout--and, most importantly, whether we can use these crises to innovate our way toward a better world.

Drawing on strategies both time-honored and cutting-edge, from the Marshall Plan to the Green New Deal, The Power of Crisis provides a roadmap for surviving--even thriving in--the 21st century. Bremmer shows governments, corporations, and every concerned citizen how we can use these coming crises to create the worldwide prosperity and opportunity that 20th-century globalism promised but failed to deliver.

Posing arguments about growing G-20 restrictions and the inability and unwillingness of powerful governments to mediate global challenges, a portrait of an imminent "G-Zero" world without a single country driving international agendas predicts intensified conflicts that will benefit and victimize specific nations. 

America will remain the world’s only superpower for the foreseeable future. But what sort of superpower? What role should America play in the world? What role do you want America to play?

Ian Bremmer argues that Washington’s directionless foreign policy has become prohibitively expensive and increasingly dangerous. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policymakers have stumbled from crisis to crisis in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine without a clear strategy. Ordinary Americans too often base their foreign policy choices on allegiance or opposition to the party in power. We can no longer afford this complacency, especially now that both parties are deeply divided about America’s role in the world. The next presidential election could easily pit an interventionist Democrat against an isolationist Republican—or the exact opposite. 

As 2016 rapidly approaches, Bremmer urges every American to think more deeply about what sort of country America should be and how it should use its superpower status. He explores three options:

Independent America asserts that it’s time for America to declare independence from the responsibility to solve other people’s problems. Instead, Americans should lead by example—in part, by investing in the country’s vast untapped potential.

Moneyball America acknowledges that Washington can’t meet every international challenge. With a clear-eyed assessment of U.S. strengths and limitations, we must look beyond empty arguments over exceptionalism and American values. The priorities must be to focus on opportunities and to defend U.S. interests where they’re threatened.

Indispensable America argues that only America can defend the values on which global stability increasingly depends. In today’s interdependent, hyperconnected world, a turn inward would undermine America’s own security and prosperity. We will never live in a stable world while others are denied their most basic freedoms—from China to Russia to the Middle East and beyond.

There are sound arguments for and against each of these choices, but we must choose. Washington can no longer improvise a foreign policy without a lasting commitment to a coherent strategy.

As Bremmer notes, “When I began writing this book, I didn’t know which of these three choices I would favor. It’s easy to be swayed by pundits and politicians with a story to sell or an ax to grind. My attempt to make the most honest and forceful case I could make for each of these three arguments helped me understand what I believe and why I believe it. I hope it will do the same for you. I don’t ask you to agree with me. I ask only that you choose.”

From bestselling author and TIME Magazine columnist Ian Bremmer, a definitive guide to understanding the global wave of populist nationalism.

From political upheaval in Europe and the United States to an explosion of anger in the developing world, social and political turmoil has dominated recent headlines. What explains public rejection of the entire political establishment in country after country? What does this mean for the future of the United States? For the European Union? How will rising powers like China, India, and Russia manage the building pressures? How high will this wave rise before it crashes?

Globalism has winners and losers, and today's globalist administrations have failed to listen to the losers. Those who have seen their jobs disappear as a result of increased immigration and relatively open trade are understandably unsympathetic to the claims that globalism is good for everyone. And now that technology gives the losers a glimpse of the winners' slice of the pie, the losers are pushing for a more equal share. Some governments will respond to these pressures with digital-age tools of repression. Others will find creative new ways to rewrite the contract that binds citizens and the state. What does this all mean for democracy, free trade, and the future of the international order?

No one is better suited to explore these questions than Ian Bremmer, who has built his career on assessing global risk and explaining complex political dynamics in accessible terms.

Bremmer argues that the globalists have failed to respond to the real concerns of their critics and that there is no chance for a do-over; Public demand for political transformation is inevitable. Citizens, the state, and the private sector in some parts of the world will invent and adapt. Other nations will fail. This book offers a guide to navigating the shifting political landscape and weathering the growing storm.