world runs through what Hachigian and Sutphen call
the “pivotal powers” — China, the European Union,
India, Japan, Russia and the U.S. — nations that may
seek more influence and respect within the international
system but are not direct military foes and are not trying
to usurp America’s role as a superpower.
Nina Hachigian is a senior vice president at the Center for American Progress and a visiting fellow at Stanford University. Earlier, she was director for the Center
of Asia-Pacific Policy and a senior political scientist at
the RAND Corporation. Mona Sutphen, a managing
director at Stonebridge International, is a former FSO
who served in Bangkok and Sarajevo, where she worked
on implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
Overtaken on the Information
Superhighway: How the U.S.
Lost Internet Leadership and
What to Do About It
Thomas Bleha, BookSurge
Publishing, 2009, $15.95,
paperback, 332 pages.
There is a good chance many
readers are viewing this article over
a screen, perhaps wirelessly on a handheld device in a
moving vehicle. With all the newfangled speed and accessibility of the Internet, it may surprise many to know
that, despite how rapidly American “wiredness” seems to
be advancing, we have fallen since 2000 from the position of global Internet leader to a middle-rung power.
Bleha’s book examines the reasons for America’s fall and
the ways to restore our leadership.
Regaining Internet supremacy, says Bleha, is of vital
importance to America’s global standing. Increased
wiredness could increase productivity, economic growth
and job creation, not to mention helping to provide solutions to such wide-ranging national issues as health
care, education, security and energy conservation. With
so much potential, Bleha’s proposal — that America
seek to extend fiber broadband and ultrafast wireless nationwide by 2016 — seems completely rational. In fact,
Congress has funded a down payment on such networks,
but that is only the beginning of a long process. With the
Federal Communications Commission tasked with producing a new strategy for Internet expansion by early
2010, this book has come along at the right time.
Thomas Bleha is a former Foreign Service officer and
Japan expert. A recipient of the Abe Fellowship, Bleha
spent more than five years researching and writing
Overtaken on the Information Highway. His article,
“Down to the Wire,” published in the May-June 2005
issue of Foreign Affairs, was one of the first to alert pol-icymakers to the decay in America’s Internet power.
Understanding the Americans:
A Handbook for Visitors to
the United States
Yale Richmond, Hippocrene
Books, Inc., 2009, $14.95,
hardcover, 172 pages.
A slim but jam-packed volume,
Understanding the Americans is a
useful tome of cultural and historical information intended to lessen any potentially awkward situation that may arise for foreigners visiting the
United States.
In Richmond’s own words, he intends to “help you
understand America and the Americans, to avoid making mistakes and to make your trip a success.” He includes idioms and expressions, recommended reading,
a brief tutorial on partisan politics and a discourse on the
differences between New York City and Washington,
D.C. He also offers practical information on how to extend your visa and a comprehensive list of national holidays.
Yale Richmond is a retired Foreign Service officer
who served with the U.S. Information Agency in Germany, Laos, Poland, Austria and the Soviet Union, retiring as a deputy assistant director for Europe. He is
the author of numerous books on cross-cultural communications, including From Nyet to Da: Understanding
the New Russians (see p. 22).
World of Faith and Freedom:
Why International Religious
Liberty is Vital to American
National Security
Thomas F. Farr, Oxford
University Press, 2008, $29.95,
hardcover, 384 pages.
By looking deeper into international “trouble spots” that are accompanied by a religious component, Thomas R. Farr
has constructed a cohesive argument discrediting the explicitly secular diplomacy that the U.S. has made it a
point to employ.
“The religious enterprise,” he argues, “could benefit
not only the individual but also the common good. Religion could sanction ideas of ordered liberty, justice and
equality and, in short, become the very engine of a lib-
