Reddit reviews The System Worked: How the World Stopped Another Great Depression
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Willing to take bets that there will not be a "World War III" in my lifetime, or in the lifetime of anyone living under the present international order.
Throughout the Great Recession, China dutifully abided by global trade standards. The US and WTO effectively cowed China into ending its currency manipulation. When Pakistan came to China asking for bailouts China refused, telling Pakistan's leaders to work through the IMF instead. China is not an aggressive rising hegemon. It is a regional power that began the 20th century low on the marginal growth curve. America's continued dominance of global financial institutions easily dictated terms to China. Drezner has a good book on that.
The President who effectively wiped out a generation of al Qaeda leadership, put boots on the ground throughout central Africa, began training guerrilla groups in Syria, ended nuclear hostilities with Iran and effectively drove a wedge between North Korea and China (a wedge to which Chinese leadership handily acquiesced) can hardly be accused of "making America weak." America outperformed the rest of the world in its economic recovery and clearly still projects force across the world. The Taliban's unusually weak fighting season this past year and the successful negotiations between Afghanistan's competing electoral parties indicates that the US may indeed have succeeded where the Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan. America has no effective military challengers and is at least as strong as it has ever been. This is despite the clearly foolish decision to invade Iraq.
Having leadership momentarily projecting hegomonic rhetoric seems to be pretty much where the similarities between Germany-1914, Germany-1936 and Russia-2014 end. Putin is not a smart leader and his country's economic output is suffering from his party's foolish decisions. Russia is not an industrial juggernaut. Its economic status quo survives by dint of eastern Europe's fading need for cheap energy. Russia does not pose a threat to the international order.
The international alliance system is not secret. Financial institutions responded to the Great Recession by becoming more receptive to the demands of BRICs and the third world, ensuring their longevity. The crisis did not see a closing of international trade or of national borders, in general. Had this author written five years ago he probably would've fixated on Ahmadinejad or Chavez. Now Putin is the tinpot du jour. It will be someone else in five years. Whoever one trots out as an example of a potential catalyst of global war, the underlying premises and assumptions are wrong. The international order strengthened as a result of the Great Recession, China did not spoil it, America's enemies are weaker while America is stronger, and Russia is suffering from its bad leaders.
The problem is it was averted. Crisis is inevitable, but because of extreme efficiency, all crisis is now containable in a reasonable time period, although ti won't comfort those who will be affected by it.
The economy is now in a better shape than ever for sectors which do matter (i.e. tech).
QE and ZIRP worked.
https://www.amazon.com/System-Worked-Stopped-Another-Depression/dp/0195373847
For the people who mattered, it worked.