The Next Decade (35 page)

The application of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to the production of natural gas opens the possibility of dramatic increases in energy availability. What this technology does is to recover natural gas from up to three miles beneath the earth’s surface, where it is contained in rock so compressed that it does not release the gas. Fracturing the rock allows the gas to pool and be recovered, but this method, like all energy production on earth, carries environmental risks. Its virtue for the United States is that there are ample domestic supplies, and thus reliance on this source of energy reduces the chance of war. Natural gas readily substitutes for many uses of petroleum and in many cases at relatively low cost. This reduces the need to import oil, which in turn reduces the possibility that a foreign power will blockade the oil, thus triggering a war.

Fracking technology also makes it possible to get at enough quantities of natural gas in a short enough period of time to control the cost and availability of energy during this decade. We would expect other technologies to become available fifty or sixty years from now, but in the next ten years, the options come down to coal and gas.

This will be a time for addressing problems that have not yet turned into crises and for searching out solutions that do not yet exist. Consider the problem of water availability. Increased industrialization, along with a still-growing population enjoying higher standards of living, is already creating regional water shortages. These depletions have sometimes created political confrontations between nations that might well mature into wars. Add to this the possibility that climate change might alter weather patterns and that those changes might reduce rainfall in populated areas, and the problem could become a crisis.

There is, of course, no water shortage. The water is simply mixed with salt and inconveniently located, but it exists in staggeringly vast quantities. The technology needs improvement, but we do know how to desalinate water. We also know how to transport water in pipelines. The problem is that desalination and water transportation are both hugely expensive and require enormous amounts of energy. That sort of energy will not be found in available solutions. As I said in
The Next 100 Years,
we will need space-based solar generation or other very radical approaches to increase available energy by orders of magnitude.

When we look at the major problems we have to solve, such as aging population, contracting workforce, and lack of water, we find a consistent pattern. First, the problem is emerging in this decade, but it will not become an unbearable burden until later. Second, the technologies to deal with it—from cures for degenerative diseases to robotics to desalination—either exist or can be conceived of, but are not yet fully in place. Third, implementing almost all of them (save the cure for degenerative diseases) requires both a short-term solution for energy and a long-term solution.

The danger is that the problem and the solution will become unbalanced—that the problem will get to the crisis stage before the technical solutions come on line. The task of the president in addressing these issues in the next decade is not dramatic. It will be to facilitate short-term solutions while laying the groundwork for longer-term solutions and, above all, to do both rather than just one. The temptation will be to look at the long-term solution and pretend that the problem will wait or that the solution will arrive faster than it can. Long-term solutions are more attractive and cause much less controversy than short-term solutions, which will affect people who are still alive and voting. The problem that presidents in this decade will have is that the crisis won’t happen on their watch but in the decade that follows. The temptation to punt the issue will be substantial. This is where another drop of wisdom from Machiavelli becomes especially important: successful rulers want to do more than rule, they want to be remembered for all time. John Kennedy didn’t have time to do much, but we all remember his decision to go to the moon.

In the short term, the most crucial problem is to lay the groundwork for the energy requirements of the next decade. To do this, two things must happen. The president must choose the balance between the two available fossil fuels, coal and gas. Then he must tell the people that these are the only choices. If he fails to persuade the public of this, there will not be energy for the technologies that will emerge in the next decade. He must, of course, frame his argument within the context of global warming, climate change, and the desire to protect all species. The environmental movement has supported Obama, and every president must maintain his political base. But while appealing to his green constituents, he must make the case for enhanced natural gas and coal use for the generation of electricity. He may well be able to frame his appeal in terms of more electric cars, but however he makes it, this is his task. Otherwise, he will be seen as having neglected a crisis that he could foresee.

At the same time he must prepare for long-term increases in energy generation from nonhydrocarbon sources—sources that are cheaper and located in areas that the United States will not need to control by sending in armies. In my view, this is space-based solar power. Therefore, what should be under way, and what is under way, is private-sector development of inexpensive booster rockets. Mitsubishi has invested in space-based solar power to the tune of about $21 billion. Europe’s EAB is also investing, and California’s Pacific Gas and Electric has signed a contract to purchase solar energy from space by 2016, although I think fulfillment of that contract on that schedule is unlikely.

However, whether the source is space-based solar power or some other technology, the president must make certain that development along several axes is under way and that the potential for building them is realistic. Enormous amounts of increased energy are needed, and the likely source of the technology, based on history, is the U.S. Department of Defense. Thus the government will absorb the cost of early development and private investment will reap the rewards.

We are in a period in which the state is more powerful than the market, and in which the state has more resources. Markets are superb at exploiting existing science and early technology, but they are not nearly as good in basic research. From aircraft to nuclear power to moon flights to the Internet to global positioning satellites, the state is much better at investing in long-term innovation. The government is inefficient, but that inefficiency and the ability to absorb the cost of inefficiency are at the heart of basic research. When we look at the projects we need to undertake in the coming decade, the organization most likely to execute them successfully is the Department of Defense.

There is nothing particularly new in this intertwining of technology, geopolitics, and economic well-being. The Philistines dominated the Levantine coast because they were great at making armor. To connect and control their empire, the Roman army built roads and bridges that are still in use. During a war aimed at global domination, the German military created the foundation of modern rocketry; in countering, the British came up with radar. Leading powers and those contending for power constantly find themselves under military and economic pressure. They respond to it by inventing extraordinary new technologies.

The United States is obviously that sort of power. It is currently under economic pressure but declining military pressure. Such a time is not usually when the United States undertakes dramatic new ventures. The government is heavily funding one area we have discussed, finding cures for degenerative diseases. The Department of Defense is funding a great deal of research into robotics. But the fundamental problem, energy, has not had its due. For this decade, the choices are pedestrian. The danger is that the president will fritter away his authority on projects such as conservation, wind power, and terrestrial solar power, which can’t yield the magnitude of results required. The problem with natural gas in particular is that it is pedestrian.

But like so much of what will take place in this decade, accepting the ordinary and obvious is called for first—followed by great dreams quietly expressed.

CHAPTER 14
 

THE EMPIRE, THE REPUBLIC,
AND THE DECADE

I
n discussing American foreign policy, I have examined every continent and numerous countries, but I have by no means been exhaustive. Because of the global nature of the American empire, every country in the world is in some way important to the United States. From Niger’s Islamic threat to the effect that Nepal might have on the Sino-Indian balance to Ecuador’s role in the drug wars, it is difficult to imagine a country to which the United States can afford to be utterly indifferent.

There are many who would argue that the United States is overextended and that these complex international involvements ultimately are not in the American interest. This is not an unpersuasive argument, except that it isn’t clear how the United States might disentangle itself from its global interests. During the next decade, the United States must manage the chaos of the Islamic world, a resurgent Russia, a sullen and divided Europe, and a China both huge and profoundly troubled. In addition it must find the path out of the current economic problems, not only for itself but for the world.

We should also remember that while the American economy might be battered at the moment, it is still almost 25 percent of the world’s economy, and U.S. investments and borrowing swamp the world. Simply being the United States creates the pervasive entanglements we must strive to manage. The United States may indeed be overextended, and it might be preferable if the U.S. had never achieved imperial status, or for it now to retreat. But wishes don’t make policy. Policy is made by reality, and the reality of what has been created, whether intentionally or not, can’t be abandoned without breathtakingly severe consequences. The United States entered the path to global power with the Spanish-American War of 1898. It has been on this trajectory for over a century. Changing course at the velocity the United States is traveling is simply not an option. Calling for it is a fantasy.

The only option is to manage what has been created. That begins with the reconciliation of moral principles with the exercise of power. Starting with moral principles is the most practical beginning. Much of the internal conflict over waging wars is rooted in lack of clarity about the relationship between morality and power. What is needed is a common understanding of reality and morality.

The exercise of power is always morally ambiguous, yet the moral principles of the United States mean nothing if the country is destroyed. The pursuit of universal rights requires more than speeches. It requires power. “Nobody gets hurt” is unrealistic, and the best we can do is to make difficult decisions about who gets hurt and when. Lincoln had to support slavery in Kentucky. It wasn’t right, but it was either that or lose the war, and if he lost the war, then his entire moral project was destroyed.

At the same time, simply pursuing power without any moral purpose leads nowhere. Nixon exercised power without purpose, and it was his lack of moral perspective that led him to Watergate and destruction. It is one thing to justify the means by the end. It is another thing for the means to become the end.

During the next decade, the United States must overcome the desire to simplify, because there is no single phrase or formula that solves the problem. The moral problem at the core of the exercise of power repeats itself in endless and unexpected forms that have to be solved each time they occur. No leader can solve them properly each time. The most that can be said about any leader is that on the whole, he or she did well, given the circumstances.

To reach this point, the American people must mature. We are an adolescent lot, expecting solutions to insoluble problems and perfection in our leaders. Churchill could not be elected president of the United States: he was, by any reasonable measure, an alcoholic, and certainly he was an elitist in the snobbish sense of the term. It is clear that Roosevelt had at least one affair while president and another before he became president. Lincoln appears to some biographers to have been suffering from bipolar disorder, a mental disease. Reagan was probably in the early stages of Alzheimer’s late in his presidency. These were all men who, to say the least, did well, given the circumstances. Unless the American people can reach the maturity to discipline themselves to expect this and no more, the republic will not survive. The demands of an unintended empire and immature expectations of our leaders will bring down the regime long before militarism or corruption might.

Obviously, American society is being torn apart in rancorous discourse. This isn’t new. The things said about Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt were not pleasant. Having endured the clashes over civil rights, Vietnam, and Watergate, we cannot really argue that we have reached new levels of incivility. But Iraq, Afghanistan, and the recent financial crisis have raised significant questions about the global interests of the American elite and whether they have undermined the interests of the general public. Villains and saints are sometimes difficult to distinguish, so there is no simple approach to this discussion. The Tea Party’s vilification of Obama and Obama’s vilification of the Tea Party don’t contribute much to creating a coherent political road map.