Fareed Zakaria

The U.S.

is viewed as on its own weird track.

Everyone has to deal with it because it's too important.

And that is a sign of a certain kind of decline.

And the other one is...

this obsession to have enormous geopolitical control.

One of the haunting parallels for me is to think about the British Empire in its last 30, 40 years.

People forget, but after World War I, the British Empire expanded to its largest state ever, to its largest size ever.

only 20 or 30 years before it collapsed.

And the reason was that the British elites got very engaged and enamored with the idea of controlling Iraq and controlling Afghanistan and controlling, you know, they would find these, there was this wonderful book called Africa and the Victorians by Robinson and Gallagher, in which they talk about how, why the British annexed Fashoda in the south of Sudan.

Well, because they thought you needed to control the Suez Canal to control the route to India.

Well, if you needed to control the Suez Canal, you needed to control Egypt.

But if you needed to control Egypt, you needed to control Upper Sudan.

But to control Upper Sudan, you needed to control Lower Sudan.

So, boing, there you were, sending troops to Fashoda, which nobody anywhere in Britain would have any idea where it was and why were they doing that.

Meanwhile...

What they were neglecting was the reality that Germany was becoming much more productive.

America was becoming much more productive.

And I look at what we're doing today.

I mean, you think about it, right?