HEFFNER: Im AlexanderHeffner, your host on
The Open Mind. Were accelerating into
a future shaped less by countries than
by connectivity. Mankind has a new maxim:
connectivity is destiny. This is the abridged
thesis of my guest today, Parag Khanna,
author of the new book Connectography:
Mapping the Future
of Globalization.
A scholar of contemporary
world affairs, Khanna is senior research
fellow at the Center on Asia and Globalization
at the National
University of Singapore. Hes also the
managing partner of the geostrategic advisory
firm, Hybrid Reality. Parag Khannas recent
New York Times op-ed, A New Map for America,
imagined a reorganization of regional infrastructure
lines and metropolitan clusters, thus
reconsidering political primaries and
elections that ignore
state boundaries. Khanna envisions the
Pacific Coast and Great Lakes, for
example, as well as
an Arizona sun belt and
Atlantic corridor, contending that
American policy makers and making is wedded to
an antiquated political structure of 50 distinct
states, which he argues
must strategically consolidate to ensure
that long-term
economic viability.
Parag, welcome. KHANNA: Thanks
very much, Alexander. HEFFNER: Lets
start there. KHANNA: Yes.
HEFFNER: Uh,
Connectography is destiny. Um, connectivity
is destiny. You, in this op-ed, which
attracted me immediately, defined why we ought to
think about efficiency through a regional lens. Why and, and why is it
imperative to do that now? KHANNA: Mm-hmm.
First of all, thats what
America has always done. The expansion, the
westward expansion of the United States is
a 300-year story, and America would not be
the great civilization, empire, nation, superpower
that it is today, were it not for
continental scale thinking, and thats
not only east to west, its also
actually north to south, in terms of our strong
relationships in North America and
with Latin America. We actually think
hemispherically, and thats what
America has done well. Think about the
Pacific Railroads, the Eerie Canal, the
Louisiana Purchase before those, the
Interstate highway system, the Tennessee
Valley Authority, all of the things
that have made America a united, a physically
United States of America, have been these
regional
mega-infrastructures and plans.
Weve lost our way on
that in the last couple of decades, but
infrastructure is something that has to be
renewed every generation. So its not just one
bridge collapsing here and one big traffic
jam there because a
highway is broken. We know all of that. But to fix those
little things, you also have to
fix the big thing, which is where do those
roads and highways and freight trains and
gas pipelines fit into the bigger picture
of making America
a more dynamic and efficient economy
internally and definitely that will Is what
will make America more competitive
economy globally.
So, yes, regional
plans matter a great deal. I have found, since the
publication of this op-ed, that the, the, the,
a Council of Mayors, the National
Governors Association, all of the infrastructure
planning bodies, the Metropolitan
Plans Association, have all been calling me
and Ive been consulting with them and talking
to them about priority projects and
how to, you know, how to, how to
make this happen, how to make this map real. Everyone except Congress. Not a single
Congressman called me.
You know, as I noticed. Uh, it was sort of
this deafening
silence, right? Because Congress
doesnt do this. Congress
focuses on, you know, local pork
barrel spending, or whatever
the case may be. So theres a, you know, a
punchline in one of the, uh, interviews I did
recently where I said, you know, its a clich
to say that its all Congresss fault, but
its all Congresss
fault.
[LAUGHS} HEFFNER: Well,
right. Theyre not functioning. Its, its a state of
chaos and dysfunction, and inherent in that is
the gridlocked political process in this
country, and I, and I do want you to
contrast that with efficiency and
infrastructure that is not obsolete overseas and
countries that are doing it right, but isnt the
dirty little secret that we dont want to
acknowledge in the corridors of, of
power that is Congress, that is really empowered
on a regional level to thrust itself into this
debate and start funding major programs, this
chasm between cities and rural America. KHANNA: It should
not be a chasm.
The map that we created
for the New York Times, thats derived from the
book, has multiple layers. HEFFNER: Right. KHANNA: You have
the natural economic geographies of
the United States, the areas traditionally
dominated by agriculture, by industry, you
know, by services, by manufacturing
and so forth. Then you have these
growing urban corridors, which you mentioned in
the introduction, right? The new Older ones, like
the Boston to Washington corridor, right? Or New Orleans, like
the Arizona Sun corridor, because the
Southwestern United
States is growing so quickly.
And then you have the
connectivity between them. What I call the, the
connectivity that creates the United City
States of America, if you will, in which you
not only have growing, uh, you know,
sort of railways and transportation
that works and
energy corridors, between the
major urban areas, but those go
through the rural areas. This is not a map to
reinforce the dominance of cities in America
and in other parts
of the world. Thats already happening.
When you live near
these corridors, you are uplifted. This is a map that
helps the people of Ohio, Ohio, that helps the
people of Nebraska, that helps the
people of Wyoming. There is a corridor
cutting from Seattle, Washington to
Salt Lake City, Utah, right, that goes
through western states that are rural
and deprived, right? So, this connectivity
is for everyone. This is about,
about counteracting the inequality between
our cities and our rural areas, not about
reinforcing it.
HEFFNER: People will
ask, watching this, what does that
connectivity look like, in terms of providing
resources to those deprived communities? KHANNA: Right, so,
if you just take the, again, the
Boston-Washington Corridor, where we
need a high-speed rail
network, right? One million people ride
Amtrak every single day, but its so hopelessly
inadequate and inefficient and so forth. HEFFNER: Well said.
Well said. KHANNA: If we were
to build a new Yeah, Im sure youve been on
it more than a few
times. [LAUGHS] Um HEFFNER: My
childhood and college.
KHANNA: [OVERLAP]
Yeah, there you go. Um, and, uh, you
know, if we were to, uh, refurbish, create a
high-speed rail network, whatever the case may be,
think about the jobs that would create
in some of the
most deprived communities
along that corridor. And where do
they happen to be? Quite a few of them
are in Connecticut. Connecticut is both
one of the richest and one of the
poorest states in the
United States.
Think about the number
of jobs you would create, and thats an example
in what is w The wealthiest region
of the United States. Now think about the
Midwest, right? The areas where our
agricultural supply is barely meeting
agricultural demand in the state next-door,
because our roads are
so bad, right? And so everyone benefits. Think about people
who live in second tier cities, like maybe
a Dayton, Ohio, if they had a faster
rail network or better highways, they could more
easily commute to cities, where they would
earn higher wages, but come back home
efficiently and live in a lower cost of
living area, right? Their disposable income
would go up, right? So, this is a
map for everyone, to benefit all Americas. HEFFNER: Now, to
what do you attribute, principally, the inaction,
if its If were not talking about
the federal level, do you see the kind of
growth opportunities that have been
implemented by Dayton, by Tulsa, by Albuquerque? Are the mayors and
governors in these localities at
work on this? KHANNA: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: Or not? KHANNA: Mayors
and governors are extraordinarily important
in this equation. Again, every mayor and
every governor gets this. This is a map of their
vision, not mine. This is what
they want to build.
Governors, which live
in and represent their states, right, they
want nothing more than connectivity
across their states. Every major
city in America, and even
second-tier cities, now have their own
investment promotion boards and trade
promotion boards and their infrastructure
planning authorities, and are trying to recruit
investment from near and far, from companies,
through municipal bonds, however they can,
from foreign investors, to upgrade their
infrastructure to be
more connected. Every person, every
city, every governor, every mayor wants this. HEFFNER: Your point
is that these regions, these states,
these localities, have to coalesce, in order
to produce the capital that would actually build
what you are envisioning? KHANNA: Right.
So, very few cities are
large enough and wealthy enough to, uh, to have
the demographic base, the tax base, to raise
the funds to finance
their own infrastructure. Most places are
dependent, to some degree, on financing
from Congress, on various
allocations, federally, uh, and from
public-private structures, from municipal bonds, a
whole host and layers of financial and, and,
and fiscal structures that we have, all
of which, if you
add it all up, is terribly inadequate,
because as you know, the Army Corps of
Engineers says we need 3.6 Trillion
dollars in infrastructure investment by 2020. Congress is
allocating about, you know, um, a
small fraction, about a, a tenth,
right, to be generous, of, of that, right? And remember, that
with infrastructure, every year that
you under-spend, the bill goes up
the next year, right? Uh, its sort of
like underpaying, uh, uh, interest payments
for something on a, on a debt, because
the infrastructure
erodes and decays. So, again, Congress
is focused so much, obviously, on
short-term thinking, then suddenly every
Everyone becomes a fiscal hawk, right? No one wants to be
responsible for ballooning our deficit or
anything like that.
Meanwhile, as we
know, going back to the Industrial Revolution,
we know centuries of economics and enough
Nobel prizes have been allocated Have been
rewarded for research that shows the catalytic
impact of infrastructure connectivity, of
supply chain connectivity, of all of those
fundamentals that allow people to be more
entrepreneurial and to more effectively
conduct commerce
with each other. The Department of Commerce
did a study at the 40th anniversary of the
Interstate highway system, showing that at least 4
trillion dollars of GDP. Has been added to the U.S. Economy, you know,
during that period, simply as a result of
freeing the flows of commerce
across the country.
So, study after
study, theres just no, no doubt that long-term
investmentand this is what it is; its
not investment, its not
consumption, right? Its investment,
because its a platform and a catalyst for
growth, but Congress
is not allocating the necessary funds. HEFFNER: Do you see this
as an absence of political will, frankly, a whatever
you want to call the opposite of a
profile in courage? I like to think about that
a lot But the absence of courage in imagining
that the payback here would be far
greater, would exceed
the initial investments. I think that the
conservative attitude is one that is
fearful of deficits, is fearful that the
connectivity that you envision would not yield
that long-term economic gain that could sustain
and then pay back all these investments. So, what do you say
to the governors, like a Susana
Martinez in New Mexico.
KHANNA: Mm-hmm. HEFFNER: Who are
deficit hawks? Or, as Elizabeth Warren
says about Donald Trump, a money-grubbing
little man? KHANNA: Mm-hmm. Look, I dont want to
blame only
conservatives for this. The proposals around
what would rectify this problem, like a national
infrastructure bank, have actually been
around for ten years.
Hillary Clinton has seized
on that now and is making it part of her platform,
which is a good thing, but Republicans and
Democrats both have been proposing such an
institution for ten years, and both
parties, both sides, all politicians have
failed to make it a reality. HEFFNER: So, its a
bipartisan problem. KHANNA: Yeah. HEFFNER: And
there has not, no politician has
summoned the
courage as Ike, President
Eisenhower did, uh, and later Nixon in
continuing the highway system and I
wanted to ask you, because of your
versatility and, and your
background being Germany, United Arab
Emirates, and Singapore, where do you see
connectivity working seamlessly with
investments that are not engaging in slave labor,
communities that have a safety net for workers? KHANNA: Right.
HEFFNER: Who are the
ones involved in building KHANNA: Yeah.
Mm-hmm. HEFFNER: But are still
emboldened and enabled to grow their
airports, their bridges. Where do you see the
most illuminating
success stories? KHANNA: Mm-hmm. Well, the
countries that have the highest fixed-capital ratios,
which is to say the quality of their
infrastructure, are obviously
western European
societies, right? You have high quality
public infrastructures for transportation.
You have
high-speed rail networks. You have good
schools, good hospitals. Again, relatively
egalitarian societies that have not been
that have been built, especially in the
post-war years. So, you know, we began our
big infrastructure wave in the late 19th,
early 20th centuries, uh, and now of course,
its a hundred years on, naturally, the New York
City subway that you and I ride is, is not
running all that well.
In European countries,
theyre constantly investing in
renewing these things, and thats why, you know,
that creates a lot of jobs, and, you
know, very efficient, efficient, dense
urban environments. So, we do
need to do that. Yeah. HEFFNER: Because I really
do imagine where the quality of life can meet
the quality of
efficiency, right? You want that synergy.
KHANNA: Yeah. HEFFNER: Youre
striving for that synergy. KHANNA: Well, these
are not opposites. Theyre totally
reinforcing.
[LAUGHS] HEFFNER: But, but,
but when you look and you marvel at
the Emirates or Qatar, you know the
practices underway there are not suitable to
provide an upstanding, um, source of
living for the workers. KHANNA: Right, but I
mean, were talking about our context in the
United States of America. President Obama was
elected in the midst of a financial crisis and
promised shovel-ready jobs, uh, in infrastructure
for American citizens, and eight different
high-speed rail networks in eight different
parts of the country. Hes about to leave office
and we have 0.0 Miles of high-speed rail
in this country and
we have done v Created very few
shovel-ready jobs.
So, thats a
failure of us. This is not the point in
the conversation about what Dubai or the
United Arab Emirates did. I mean, they did, they,
their circumstances are
different. We should not be comparing
ourselves to anyone, quite frankly.
HEFFNER: Mm-hmm. KHANNA: We should just
have the best quality
infrastructure. [LAUGHS] As a great
empire and civilization. HEFFNER: And, and were
the country that ought to have a minimum wage
for those construction workers, whether its 12
dollars or 15 dollars, but a livable wage.
KHANNA: Of course. Theres no question
that we should. We I mean, there, there's
a very important economic debate that, that
youre raising, which, again, is
really about us. We dont need to
look The only
yardstick we should be looking at is
similarly advanced, developed liberal demo
Democratic societies.
Uh, like the, the, the
Germanys and the Japans of the world. How come they have such
great infrastructure? Its not built on the
back of slave labor, by any stretch, right? HEFFNER: Right. Right. KHANNA: So, we
need to do that.
Those countries are, uh,
have lower inequality, uh, and a higher quality
of life than we have, and we need to really
get on the ball and, and wake up to that. HEFFNER: When you think
of the United Nations or other
multilateral entities. KHANNA: Mm-hmm. HEFFNER: You think
of the idea that, as you say, the
outdated model.
KHANNA: Right. HEFFNER: That these
borders or boundaries govern how we do business. KHANNA: Right. HEFFNER: So, I w I
was hoping you could extrapolate for us on
how you take that regional model and make it
work efficiently in a
global scheme.
KHANNA: Mm-hmm. Well, that is actually
where the world is going. Theres nothing
hypothetical or theoretical or futuristic
about this book, even though it has a
neologism for a title. I mean, its about what,
the world that we are building today.
I simply point out that
functional geography, which is the
infrastructure of, again,
transportation, energy, communications, that were
building thats wrapping around the world, is
far greater in length and volume and durability
even than rigid political
boundaries. That is already true. Its not science
fiction, right? But our maps, of
course, are very
antiquated, right? They focus mostly on
political borders, as if theyre
really fixed and rigid, but thats not
really true. If that were true, United
Nations would still have 51 members, the way it
did when it was founded.
Today, it has 200, right? So, borders are
changing all the time. What long outlasts rising
and falling states and nations are these fixed
and durableI call them the iron silk roads
of the 21st century. Now, in every
region of the world, you have this
consolidation and integration going on. You have not Were Our
relations with Canada and Mexico are actually
a lot more like a North
American Union.
If you look at the volume
of resource transfers and investment flows
and trade and
migration of peoples across them, its
not just we are
this and you are that and were these three
different entities and we just trade
with each other. We are actually like a
North American Union. In South America, they
talk about a union of South American nations. In the East
African nations, theyre creating an East
African community of about seven or
eight countries that
are becoming more densely integrated
with each other.
The European Union needs
very little explanation. We know how deeply
integrated they are, even though theyve having
their troubles today, and in Southeast Asia. HEFFNER: But why do
you think theyre having their troubles today? KHANNA: Well, theyre
not having their troubles because theyve
become a region of
geopolitical peace and stability
due to that integration. So, a lot of
people believe that, uh, that you wanna
blame the European
Monetary Union and the process of
integration for the fact that there is, uh, inst...
Financial, economic
instability in southern European countries, but
we know that their banking crises have origins as
much or more perhaps in local corruption, in
their exposure and, and over-indebtedness
and some of their cheating around their national
accounting and reporting, than it does with the fact
that they became members of the European
Monetary Union. I find it preposterous
that people believe that integration into
Europe for Greece, which is the force that
basically made Greece an actually a modern
country, which it
really wasnt as much, uh, through its,
uh, the post-war period and its dictatorship, that
that is somehow to blame for the fact that
theyre in a financial
crisis today, uh HEFFNER:
How do you think, and I know this is a
bit of a diversion, but how do you
think the EU KHANNA: Mm-hmm. HEFFNER: If it
stays united, is accountable for
those local governments that have gone awry? Because that really is
the dilemma that
youre describing. KHANNA: Well, I mean HEFFNER: And if their,
if their own houses If
these countries own houses are not in order,
then the EU cant
possibly function.
KHANNA: Well, the EU
helps to get those countries houses in order. When a country, if you
think about when the Berlin Wall fell
and the, and the, and the Warsaw Pact
collapsed and the Soviet Union crumbled and
Think about all the
Eastern European countries that have
joined the EU today, places that we think of as
emerging market champions and stalwarts and
high-growth economies like Poland and so
forth, and the future
bread baskets, uh, like Romania and the
countries that are already fully integrated
into the EU, like the Czech
Republic and Slovakia, in a way in which the EU
membership spreading now into the Balkans. The EU has absolutely
been the driving force and uplifting every one
of these countries. Along the way,
yes, there is, there is political,
uh, you know, um, some kinds of unrest
or backlash or populism, like were seeing
in some countries.
Theres
anti-immigrant movements. Theres the, the
financial crisis. Of course these
countries have problems. Theyre very
small, uh, countries, but imagine If you
can only imagine, I spent the, the mid-1990s
as a high school student in Germany,
backpacking around, so I saw what, you know,
broken post-communist, uh, you know,
sort of, uh, uh, countries look like, and
then you go back to these countries where you and
all of your and my friends have been backpackers
after graduating college.
Do you really think youd
want to be backpacking there if it
werent for the EU? So, take these
things in context. HEFFNER: Sure. KHANNA: The EU is easily
the most civilizing force in the history of the
world and we need to appreciate that. HEFFNER: Even more so
than the Declaration
of Independence? I, I kid.
KHANNA: [LAUGHS] HEFFNER: But But KHANNA: International,
uh, scale. Yeah. HEFFNER: On the
international scale. But, but, but I
really meant, uh, do you think that that
corruption that persists Did that pre-date the EU? KHANNA: Of course.
HEFFNER: You
know, the source So, but does it continue
within the EU confines? Within the EU mandate? KHANNA: Look, the
Yeah, the EU doesnt suffer from what a
lot of people call a
democratic deficit. It has many,
many layers of, um, of sort of
democratic procedures. Its the only region
of the world where you actually have elections
from a local district in country X to a European
parliament thats located somewhere else, in a
multinational con Multilateral context. Theres no place in
the world that has that.
It Obviously, theres a
lot of misunderstandings at the citizen level,
about the EU and how it works and how it
functions and so forth, and there could They
could do a lot more with communication
and public education. Its a very
complex beast, right? Uh, its like
Washington Beltway. HEFFNER: Right. KHANNA: [LAUGHS] HEFFNER: Right.
KHANNA: Right. They have
their problems, but what
they also have, though, is again a, a
decent quality of life. They have the
welfare state. All of the things that
we wanna do with more infrastructure spending.
With Obamacare, you
know, is just to get, get us up to the minimum
level that most
Europeans, uh, enjoy. HEFFNER: Right. I guess what Im
getting at is this idea that those countries,
do they engage in
behavior that backfires and, and, besides
threatening to pull out of the EU, but thats a
large portion of it. KHANNA: Right.
HEFFNER: That negates
the unifying economic functionality of the EU. Are Do you think
countries that are part of the formation, the
founding nations of the EU, do Behave on
their own in a way that is
inconsistent with KHANNA: Right. HEFFNER: The
EUs mandate? KHANNA: In some ways,
yes. In some ways, no.
You know, each country has
a certain amount of room to maneuver, if you will. I mean, you know,
some of them are, are definitely fudging on
maintaining their fiscal, uh, balance the way
theyre supposed to,
for example. Thats called the
convergence criteria, some of these things. You obviously have
countries that pursue their own separate
foreign policies, even though theyre
supposed to be
coordinating them.
These kinds of things
happen all the time within alliances,
basically. Its a super-national
institution, but its not a, a
hegemonic yolk, uh, on these, on
these countries. But, you know, if it
werent for the financial crisis there, they
wouldnt be talking about things like the
banking union and, uh, and the, uh, fiscal
union and these kinds of things that theyre
starting to try and negotiate now, after
the fact of the
financial crisis. So, it
actually shows that, even though our headlines
are nominated by the Brexit and so So
forth, and Grexit.
The Grexit didnt happen
and isn't gonna happen. The Brexit
probably wont happen, although theyre
entitled to make their own mistakes, if thats
what they choose to do. That said, you know,
there are signs of more integration, rather
than less, in Europe. And, and the point of
this book was to say that thats actually
happening around the world, because most of the
worlds population are these small, weak,
frail, often land-locked, post-colonial countries,
that are realizing, three generations
after independence, that they need to
overcome their narrow
political borders.
They need to focus on
functional geography of infrastructure and
connectivity with their neighbors, if they ever
wanna be visible in the world economy
and marketplace, and thats why the
East African countries are coming together. The Southeast Asia
countries are
coming together. HEFFNER: It occurs to me
that the only way we might be able to pull off
what you imagined, which is
ambitious but true, truly important, is if we
have regional primaries and caucuses, as
opposed to state by state. This whole 2016 campaign
reveals that the folks in Wisconsin totally
disapprove of the behavior and temperament
of Donald Trump, but on the other hand,
Florida admires what Trump brings to the
international scene.
So, do you think
really, in effect, the only way to guarantee
the kind of spending on the regional level
that will bring the connectivity to America in
these regions is to hold regional primaries rather
than an Iowa caucus and a New Hampshire
primary in the 2020
presidential context? KHANNA: Look, its
a great question, but I want to completely
separate the conversation about how we elect our
president and whether we have state level or
regional primaries and caucuses to determine
whos the president of the United States
from what is a
national conversation and national
priority, a federal, state, and local vision,
integrated vision, of how we build our
future economy, right? Our 50-state structure
is great for winning delegates and campaigning
and getting elected, uh, to, to the White
House or to Congress. Thats what its for. It is simply not useful,
and whether you are talking about regional
caucuses and primaries, those are not
funding mechanisms. Those are not
institutions, right? Those are just
political practices, and there is a huge
gap in importance, right, between just the
political practices we use to get
someone elected to
the White House, and what needs to be
a national long-term strategy of
institutions and, and fiscal outlays
and actual construction projects of the future
of the United States, and in that conversation,
our utilities and our port authorities
and our railroads and our telecoms become
way more important than a local versus a,
a regional caucus.
HEFFNER: So, you dont
see those practices, those procedures, as
being consequential in determining whether
or not we can forge those regional alliances? KHANNA: Well, remember
that just because you would have a
regional caucus, it doesnt mean that, uh,
that all those people in the region [LAUGHS] HEFFNER: Thats true. KHANNA: You know,
neighboring states dont even elect the same
Obviously dont Theyre not the same,
uh, people across
different states. So, you cant actually
assume that just because you would regionalize
things that you would have consensus
within them. Thats actually
not going to happen.
HEFFNER: Well, the
alternative is concession
and succession. KHANNA: [LAUGHS] HEFFNER: And, uh,
I certainly hope that we can stay
united as a union. KHANNA: We have to
build that map if we want to
stay united. HEFFNER: Parag,
thank you.
KHANNA: Thank you. HEFFNER: And thanks to
you in the audience. I hope you join us
again next time for a thoughtful
excursion into the
world of ideas. Until then,
keep an open mind.
Please visit The
Open Mind website at Thirteen.Org/openmind to
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