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2.42 MB
Extraction Summary
15
People
2
Organizations
11
Locations
2
Events
2
Relationships
8
Quotes
Document Information
Type:
Interview excerpt / article (house oversight evidence)
File Size:
2.42 MB
Summary
This document is an excerpt, likely from an interview or book, featuring former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating's analysis of global leadership and geopolitics. Keating criticizes President Obama and Chancellor Merkel for a lack of decisive leadership while praising China's Deng Xiaoping. He also analyzes the decline of the US 'prosperity compact,' citing wage stagnation between 1990 and 2008 and the radicalization of the Republican party starting with Reagan.
People (15)
| Name | Role | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Keating | Subject/Interviewee |
Paul Keating (former Australian PM), offering geopolitical analysis and criticism of current leaders.
|
| Barack Obama | US President |
Criticized by Keating for acting as a mediator rather than a leader.
|
| Angela Merkel | German Chancellor |
Criticized by Keating as a "worry-wart" who assesses rather than leads.
|
| Deng Xiaoping | Former Chinese Leader |
Praised by Keating as the most influential 20th-century leader for the 21st century.
|
| Mikhail Gorbachev | Former Soviet Leader |
Comparison point for Deng Xiaoping's ideological shifts.
|
| Bill Clinton | Former US President |
Cited as part of the era that "cost US mightily."
|
| George W. Bush | Former US President |
Cited as the zenith of political derailment and cost to the US.
|
| Ronald Reagan | Former US President |
Cited as the beginning of the derailment of American conservatism.
|
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | Former US President |
Cited as representing the abandoned middle ground.
|
| Richard Nixon | Former US President |
Cited as representing the abandoned middle ground.
|
| Bush Sr | Former US President |
Cited as representing the abandoned middle ground.
|
| Roosevelt | Historical Figure |
Mentioned in comparison to Deng.
|
| Churchill | Historical Figure |
Mentioned in comparison to Deng.
|
| Stalin | Historical Figure |
Mentioned in comparison to Deng.
|
| Mao | Historical Figure |
Mentioned in comparison to Deng.
|
Organizations (2)
| Name | Type | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Communist Party (China) | ||
| Soviet Union |
Relationships (2)
Keating criticizes Obama's leadership style as lacking risk-taking.
Keating views Deng as the most influential leader for the 21st century.
Key Quotes (8)
"The leader must locate his own source of higher command and inner belief."Source
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Quote #1
"President Obama conducts himself as an arbitrator or mediator between the competing strands of American economic and political ideology."Source
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Quote #2
"Chancellor Merkel is the archetypal worry-wart. She does not lead; she assesses."Source
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Quote #3
"Because, in the end, everyone in political life gets carried out - the only relevant question is whether the pallbearers will be crying."Source
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Quote #4
"He walked away from the ideology of the Communist Party just as effectively as Mikhail Gorbachev walked away from the essence of the Soviet Union."Source
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Quote #5
"When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried victory and walked off the field."Source
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Quote #6
"The two Clinton terms and the two George W. Bush terms, that's four presidential terms, have cost US mightily."Source
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Quote #7
"The most compelling thing I've seen in years is that in the great burst of American productivity between 1990 and 2008, of that massive increment to national income, none of it went to wages."Source
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Quote #8
Full Extracted Text
Complete text extracted from the document (3,916 characters)
Leaning across the table he says to me that briefing notes and economic texts aren't enough: the leader must locate his own source of higher command and inner belief. He laments the efforts of US President Barak Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the teeth of contemporary challenges.
"There is nothing preordained about American decline any more than the European project is destined to fail," he writes.
"But the portents are not good. Despite the rhetoric, President Obama conducts himself as an arbitrator or mediator between the competing strands of American economic and political ideology. He repeatedly eschews striking out, snatching the naked flame and hanging on. But the cost of this strategy is not simply a cost to him; it is a cost to the whole world.
"On the other hand, Chancellor Merkel is the archetypal worry-wart. She does not lead; she assesses.
"You really wonder why leaders want these jobs when they really do not want to lead. And what is their risk? That Barack Obama will not get a second term? Or that Angela Merkel's coalition might finally end up on the rocks? If they actually made the leap they might astound themselves. Because, in the end, everyone in political life gets carried out - the only relevant question is whether the pallbearers will be crying."
For Keating, the 20th-century leader exerting most influence on the coming century is China's Deng Xiaoping.
"If you look at the other figures of the century, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and Mao, none will leave the legacy in terms of the 21st century that Deng leaves," he says. "He walked away from the ideology of the Communist Party just as effectively as Mikhail Gorbachev walked away from the essence of the Soviet Union."
By 2050 Keating sees a world order with nations in terms of gross domestic product in this hierarchy: (1) China, (2) US, (3) India, (4) Japan, (5) Brazil, (6) Russia, (7) Britain, (8) Germany, (9) France and (10) Italy.
The key, however, is that Japan lags a distant fourth behind the top three.
On America, Keating is dismayed by the pivotal change in its outlook after the end of the Cold War. "When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried victory and walked off the field," he says.
"Yet the end of the Cold War offered the chance for America to develop a new world order. It didn't know what to do with its victory. This at the moment the US should have begun exploiting the opportunity of establishing a new world order to embrace open regionalism and the inclusion of great states like China, India and the then loitering Russia.
"Well, frankly, the US didn't have the wisdom. It just wanted to celebrate its peace dividend. The two Clinton terms and the two George W. Bush terms, that's four presidential terms, have cost US mightily."
For Keating, the malaise in US politics is the problem. He says: "The most compelling thing I've seen in years is that in the great burst of American productivity between 1990 and 2008, of that massive increment to national income, none of it went to wages. By contrast, in Australia real wages over the same period had risen by 30 per cent."
Keating sees this "as the breakdown of America's national compact", the shattering of its prosperity deal. He says American conservatives abandoned the middle ground represented by Republican presidents such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Bush Sr and became radicals. The derailment, he argues, began under Ronald Reagan and reached its zenith under George W. Bush.
Keating sees this "as the breakdown of America's national compact", the shattering of its prosperity deal. He says American conservatives abandoned the middle ground represented by Republican presidents such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Bush Sr and became radicals. The derailment, he argues, began under Ronald Reagan and reached its zenith under George W. Bush.
With the goodwill gone the US "is not able to produce a medium-term credible fiscal trajectory or get agreement on rebuilding its infrastructure". This paralysis "is significant not just for the US but for the world."
Keating links the collapse of this "prosperity compact" to the financial crisis. Too many Americans were unable to sustain themselves from wages and salaries.
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