CHARLIE ROSE Transcript #2431
Tom Friedman on Globalization
May 28, 1999
CHARLIE ROSE, Host: Welcome to the broadcast. Tonight Tom Friedman.
TOM FRIEDMAN, ``The New York Times'': So we've gone from a world of
division and walls to a world of integration and webs. In the cold
war, we reached for the hotline, which was a symbol that we're all
divided, but at least two people were in charge, the United States and
the Soviet Union. And in globalization, we reach for the Internet,
which is a symbol that we're all connected and nobody's in charge.
CHARLIE ROSE: Tom Friedman from San Francisco when we continue.
Thomas L. Friedman is here. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist. In fact, he's won two of them. He redefined the ``Foreign
Affairs'' column of The New York Times in 1995 by intersecting
economics and foreign policy. As his new book, The Lexus and the Olive
Tree, demonstrates, he continues to be one of the most influential
voices shaping the national conversation about foreign affairs.
He joins me in San Francisco for a conversation about globalization
in the post-cold war world. Once again, I am pleased to have him on
this program, especially with an audience from San Francisco.
Thank you, my friend.
TOM FRIEDMAN, ``The New York Times'': Good to be here, Charlie.
CHARLIE ROSE: Great to have you here.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Thanks.
CHARLIE ROSE: Just because-- even though I know this, and it would
be silly for me not to say otherwise, let's start, for the benefit of
this audience, who may not be familiar with The Lexus and the Olive
Tree-- what kind of title is that for a book?
TOM FRIEDMAN: We did have some debate about it at the publishing
house, Charlie. The title of the book comes from a trip I took to
Japan in 1992. I went to visit the Lexus factory in Toyota City. And
back in 1992, it was the cutting-edge car factory in the world. They
built the Lexus with 66 human beings and 310 robots. And I'd never
seen anything like it. I was just absolutely blown away.
And at the end of the day, I went to the train station to take the
bullet train back from Toyota City to Tokyo. It's about a two-hour
ride. And I bought my sushi bento [sp] box dinner and a copy of that
day's International Herald Tribune.
And I was riding along on the train and reading the paper, and on
the top of page 3, in the upper right-hand corner, was a story that
then State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler had given a very
controversial interpretation to a 1948 U.N. resolution on the
Palestine question. I don't remember what the issue was. All I
remember was that the Arabs and Israelis went nuts.
And the thought occurred to me then, and was the germ of this book,
that these people whose factory I had just visited, whose train I'm
now riding on, whose sushi I'm now eating, are building the greatest
luxury car in the world with robots. And these people up here on page
3, whom I lived with for so long, whom I've known so well and loved so
dearly, are still fighting over who owns which olive tree.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And ain't that the post-cold war world, that half of
us as struggling with all the issues that John Chambers and Andy Grove
talked about -- how to modernize, develop-- you know, keep up with
this new, fast world -- and half of us are still struggling over who
owns which olive tree. And olive trees are really important because
they're what root us and anchor us in the world.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: They provide us the warmth of community and identity,
family, nation. And a tree without roots will never be stable, but a
tree that's only roots will never grow into the world, bear fruit and
provide shade. And the trick in this system is how do you keep your
Lexus and your olive tree in balance?
Now, you pick up a copy of The New York Times almost any day in the
past few weeks, what do you see? You see in column one a story about
1.3 million people in Yugoslavia fighting over who owns which olive
tree, and in column six a story about 1.3 billion people in China
trying to figure out whether to join the World Trade Organization.
And so any day in the paper, whether sometimes it's in column one
and sometimes it's in column six, you can see that struggle going on
right before your eyes. And so that's really what the book is about.
CHARLIE ROSE: I want to switch today, before we move more into the
book, having gotten the title and--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: --understanding it, because it was relevant, there is
a connection-- tell me what you think is happening in Kosovo, and in
terms of where it is likely to end. What is the end game at play?
TOM FRIEDMAN: You know, the end game at play, I would say, is this,
Charlie. And we've been talking about this now for a while. I would
say the serious air war has finally begun. I believe the serious air
war only began after the NATO summit three weeks ago, when NATO
basically, at that summit in Washington, ruled out ground troops.
And once they ruled out ground troops, they basically said it's
going to be an air war designed to bring Milosevic to a negotiated
settlement, but it's got to be a real air war. And a real air war
means we are not just fighting Milosevic, we are fighting the Serb
nation.
Whether you like it or not, that was the declaration that came out
of the NATO summit, in my mind. That means we're going to turn off the
water. We're going to turn off the electricity. We're going to go
after the economy. We are at war with the Serb people. So the real air
war only began, in my opinion, three weeks ago, so we're now in about
week three of that. We're in actual, you know, week eight or nine of
the war.
What we're now in the middle of an uneasy debate about within NATO
and within our own country is what if this air war doesn't work? And
what you're now seeing, with Tony Blair coming from one side and the
Germans from another-- the Germans saying, ``Well, if it doesn't work,
make it work because we're not going to ground troops,'' and Tony
Blair saying, ``If it doesn't work, then we've got to go to ground
troops,' and in effect, the United States and President Clinton kind
of trying to split the difference by saying, ``Well, we'll build up
the ground troops around Yugoslavia to use them in the event of a
negotiated settlement and also threaten Milosevic,'' because, you
know, capabilities create intentions.
Once those ground troops are there, who knows what'll happen if
this goes badly.
CHARLIE ROSE: If we decide to go, we're prepared.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly. And so now I would say we're in that
transition point. We've got the Russians working on the diplomatic
front. I personally am very uncomfortable with Viktor Chernomyrdin,
the Russian prime minister [sic], as our lawyer here. I feel like I'm
negotiating a divorce, and my-- the negotiator is my wife's next
husband, you know? I mean, it's-- you know, it's--
CHARLIE ROSE: It's not smart.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah, that's right. It's not like he wants me to win,
you know? I mean, everything I win is going to come out of his pocket,
you know, so-- you know, I believe we're the ones at war in
Yugoslavia--
CHARLIE ROSE: So we--
TOM FRIEDMAN: --and we should do--
CHARLIE ROSE: And we should be doing the negotiating.
TOM FRIEDMAN: We should be doing the talking because we're the ones
that are going to have to be sending the troops. We're going to have
to live with the settlement. So we're in a real transition point. I
think one of the--
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me just interrupt you. But part of the operative
idea, though--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --is that the Russians have some influence with
Milosevic--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --so it'll get him-- get somebody that can talk to
him in there, and maybe they can avoid--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --you know, having to send ground troops. And maybe
they can say to him--
TOM FRIEDMAN: And that may be--
CHARLIE ROSE: --``Don't you get it?''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right. Yeah. That may be the case, and we will see.
One thing that worries me--
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, that's the operative idea as to why they're
using the Russians, I assume.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah. Well, that's why they're using them.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly. I guess what worries me, Charlie, about this
moment is that when I look at the punditry about the war, when I look
at the news coverage about the war, it's as though people are covering
it as though it were a political campaign. ``Oh, we had a bad week.
Let's go to ground troops,'' okay? ``Oh, we had a bad week. Let's
cave,'' okay? This is not-- ``We had a bad week. Let's change
generals. Bring Carville in, send Shrum out.''
This is not a political campaign. This is a war. And you know, wars
have good weeks and bad weeks. They have weeks where you hit the
targets and weeks where, unfortunately, you don't always hit all the
targets. But you've got to keep your eye on the prize. And I'm still
in the school -- maybe it's a dwindling school -- that believes that a
sustained air war against Yugoslavia can produce the limited political
objective which it seems to me NATO is trying to achieve, which is to
bring the refugees back.
CHARLIE ROSE: But are you sure that with different voices in NATO,
there won't be some pressure to build up on our side, ``Let's get a
settlement because of the bombing,'' and Milosevic, on the other hand,
saying, ``Okay, all I need is some little face-saving device, and
I'm-- I'll sign off and, you know, whatever I might have said about
Kosovo, I realize that it's a different ballgame now. But give me a
little face-saving, and we can make a deal here, and I'll come out of
the bunker.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: I think you've really hit on the key issue, and if
you ask me-- it's really what I want to write my column on Friday
because I'm really thinking about--
CHARLIE ROSE: I write his column a lot.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: You don't know this, but I write his column a lot.
TOM FRIEDMAN: It's really true. Don't tell anybody that.
CHARLIE ROSE: He takes my ideas. The next time you read a column,
say--
TOM FRIEDMAN: You know, I--
CHARLIE ROSE: The column on Friday--
TOM FRIEDMAN: One of the things we don't know enough about,
Charlie-- now, I-- you could ask me, and I could ask you, do you know
why the negotiations are stuck? I don't know why--
CHARLIE ROSE: No.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --the negotiations are stuck.
CHARLIE ROSE: No.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And we don't know enough about-- are they stuck
because it's an issue of whether the peacekeepers wear blue U.N.
helmets or green NATO helmets? Are they stuck over the question of 800
American troops in this thing or 10,000? I want to know more about why
they're stuck here, okay, because to me the prize -- the eye on the
prize -- is to get the refugees back under credible international
protection, okay? How we do that, okay, I would be very, very flexible
about.
To me, the refugees will be the ultimate judges. I mean, whether
they go back or not is going to depend whether they think the
protection is credible. But I hope we're not stuck on some ego kind of
thing because it would be terrible, given the potential for collateral
damage here, if that were the case.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me point out to you that you have always argued
that, ``Listen, whatever we say, we got to negotiate with the Serbs.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. You know, you--
CHARLIE ROSE: You know?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly. I mean, my point from the very beginning,
Charlie, has been there's a lot of things you can do in the Balkans.
You can make war. You can make fun. You can make trouble. You can make
pizza pie. There's just one thing you can't do without the Serbs, and
that's make peace. It happens that there's eight million of them,
okay? There are many, many, many more of them than anybody else, okay?
CHARLIE ROSE: And they got more troops, or they did have more
troops--
TOM FRIEDMAN: And they've got--
CHARLIE ROSE: --and more arms than anybody else.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And more will. So that's not to say you should cave
to them. It's just to recognize that there's going to have to be some
kind of diplomatic solution.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, but then stretch that to where-- what do we, in
our best interests, allow Milosevic? Suppose he comes out and says,
``Man, I get the picture. You're going to do this for a long time.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: ``And in the end, I'm going to have nothing here.
It's just going to be me in a bunker.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know?
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's right.
CHARLIE ROSE: And he says, ``Come on, give me something.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: What do we give him? What do we do?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, I think the key--
CHARLIE ROSE: Because it's not going to be--
TOM FRIEDMAN: It's a good question.
CHARLIE ROSE: --unconditional surrender.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right. Let's take two parts of your question. First
of all, what is the strength-- you know, an air war-- they say a camel
is a horse designed by a committee, okay? Well, an air war is a
military strategy designed by a 19-member alliance.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. Right. Nineteen countries.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Now-- to satisfy 19 countries. Now, it has a lot of
weaknesses because it's war at 15,000 feet-- not 20,000 feet, not zero
feet, okay? NATO's found its level, and it's sticking to it, 15,000
feet, okay? It has many weaknesses. It has one strength up to now. You
can do it for a long time. So if I'm Milosevic, I've got to be worried
about that.
Now, what is the sort of face-saving element here? It seems to
revolve around, Charlie, the question of how many troops he will be
allowed to maintain in Kosovo and what sort of sovereignty
relationship will it have with Yugoslavia. To me, that doesn't strike
me as a particularly important issue, as long as you have a credible
peacekeeping force. He's obviously going to control those borders.
CHARLIE ROSE: Now, are you saying that we have to probably, in the
end, at the end of the day, allow him to have some Serb troops in
Kosovo?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. I think there's no question. We have
to negotiate--
CHARLIE ROSE: Because there are Serbs in Kosovo.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. I mean, let's not forget there are 10
percent of the population of Kosovo are Serbs.
CHARLIE ROSE: So if we're willing to make that compromise, then--
you know--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah, I mean, you know, my own feeling--
CHARLIE ROSE: What are we dealing with?
TOM FRIEDMAN: There is a school that says we've got to go to
Belgrade, take out Milosevic, have a Nuremberg trial and et cetera.
You know, my--
CHARLIE ROSE: What's wrong with that school?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, my own-- my feeling--
CHARLIE ROSE: What-- what--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah, my feeling about that is as follows. You know,
let's not forget something. This guy was basically democratically
elected three times, okay? He is not some outside dictator imposed on
this country. He is, whether we like it or not, the expression of, you
know, the Serb attitudes right now.
I believe, you know, there really is something wrong, okay, right
now with the Serb ethic, as it were. I mean, we've now seen, you know,
their behavior in Bosnia and in Kosovo. There's a deep pathology
there, okay? But we're not going to cure it, in my opinion, by going
in there and taking out their leader, okay? That's something they're
going to have to do themselves.
I can think of no greater punishment for the Serb people than that
they have to live with Milosevic, okay? I can think of no better way
to cure their pathology than for them to come out of the bunker, look
around and say, ``Now, what exactly did we get here? We got blue
helmets instead of green ones? And for that you set us back 20
years?''
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Only when they draw that conclusion, Charlie, only
when they look into Milosevic's eye, and their own soul, after this
and really ask, ``What was this all about?'' I think will you really
see a fundamental change in behavior.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, but to get there, they got to go around this
notion that he is at the height, we assume--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --of his popularity because he's saying ``It's us''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --``against those big, bad countries who are bombing
us.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: There's no--
CHARLIE ROSE: And they don't know what he's done in Kosovo.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right. Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: So they're saying--
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's the missing link in this whole story.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know?
TOM FRIEDMAN: You know, we know-- we know all about what we've
done.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: You know, we know all about the refugees having been
expelled. But there's a whole triangle in this story missing, a whole
third of the triangle, and the triangle the rapes, the pillaging, the
murders that his troops have done in Kosovo. And I believe that when
that comes out, it's going to be a very important part of this story.
But I believe that that's something the Serb people are going to have
to basically deal with. Once you drive him out of Kosovo, in the
military sense--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --you will have him bottled up. He will be
surrounded, basically, either by hard states -- Croatia on one side,
and Americans in Albania, et cetera, and NATO in Macedonia and these
other countries. He'll be really surrounded. There's nowhere else for
him to go, basically. And in which case, you know, he can stew in that
pot.
CHARLIE ROSE: Here's also the scenario you're looking at. We've got
American troops in Bosnia today--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --and I don't see when they're coming out.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you?
TOM FRIEDMAN: They're not. They're not coming out.
CHARLIE ROSE: They're not coming out. And none of them have been
killed--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --except in--
TOM FRIEDMAN: My own feeling about that, Charlie, is I have no
problem with that. I'll tell you why--
CHARLIE ROSE: All right, so you have no problem if they're in
Bosnia. You have no problem if we're peacekeepers in--
TOM FRIEDMAN: In Kosovo.
CHARLIE ROSE: --in Kosovo.
TOM FRIEDMAN: I'll tell you why. It seems to me-- let's just look
at what we've had in Europe during the cold war system. We had 100,000
troops in Germany, basically masked as an iron fist against the Soviet
Union.
But we now have a different security threat. It is no longer the
iron fist of the Soviet Union on the other side. It is internal
instability in Europe. And to deal with that new threat in Europe, if
it means we take 25,000 of those troops from Frankfurt and redeploy
them to Bosnia-Kosovo, and they're able to close Europe's last open
sore so that European integration can go forward now in a relatively
peaceful way--
CHARLIE ROSE: The last open sore is the Balkans, I guess. Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: The Balkans, yeah. I think that's a very good use of
our troops in Europe. And who cares whether they're in Frankfurt or in
the Balkans?
And more importantly, you know, when you talk to American troops
who have been to Bosnia, my experience is they don't say, ``God, are
we stuck in a mud pile there!'' What-- you hear two things. One is
they're basically proud of what they're doing. They understand they've
got a mission there. They're keeping the peace.
And the other thing is they're out there. They're doing things.
People join the Army-- you know, it's not to march around a flagpole
at Fort Dix or in Frankfurt. You know, they like being out doing
things. So that doesn't bother me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me come back to the strategy, and then we'll move
away from Kosovo. But it is, as you say, the olive tree. It is this
notion that how we have-- once-- you can argue we should have gone in
or should not have gone in, and that's a whole 'nother debate.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right. That's--
CHARLIE ROSE: That's another debate.
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's one we will have, actually.
CHARLIE ROSE: That may take place.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: And how that applies to whether we go into somewhere
else.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know, we're going to learn the lesson here so
that next time it's presented as an option--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: --we make a choice.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And who gets to vote on that choice?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: That's not today. Today is-- one question is-- the
president and the choices he made-- have we missed the boat
significantly because we didn't do what Colin Powell said we ought to
do, put everything on the table, tell Milosevic ``We're going to hit
you, and we're going to hit you hard,'' and do what we did in Gulf--
in Desert Storm? Did we make a mistake--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --and is therefore-- we didn't hit the bombing
harder, and we've been delayed, and so therefore people have begun to
question the bombing, including--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right. I think there's an element--
CHARLIE ROSE: --our own--
TOM FRIEDMAN: There's an element of truth in that, and it's because
the thing was so mismanaged from the beginning, basically. There was
an assumption from the beginning that-- I have one-- let's talk about
the beginning here because it's relevant. I have one fundamental
problem with how this war started, and I believe this will be an issue
of debate in the future. It is a war built on what I call a
``dishonest yes,'' all right? The United States laid down a peace plan
at the Rambouillet peace conference to the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation
Army, and to the Serbs. It was a take-it-or-leave-it deal that
basically gave the KLA independence in Kosovo on what I would call the
three-year installment plan.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: It was autonomy now, and in three years final status
talks. The KLA, as you recall, rejected the plan, as did Milosevic.
Bob Dole then went over, who has very close ties with Albanians, and
lectured them, and basically said, ``Look, you-- this is the best deal
you're going to get.'' They told Bob Dole no. You remember, he washed
his hands of them.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Finally, after about two weeks of arm-twisting, we
got them to say yes. I believe that the historical record will show we
got them to say yes by basically whispering in their ear, ``Just say
yes. Just say yes, and the pressure will all be on that guy,'' and--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. Well, clearly, that took place.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --them, ``We'll bomb him,'' you know, if he doesn't
say yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: In other words, they never really embraced this
notion and--
CHARLIE ROSE: But basically, they're saying-- go ahead.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And they never really embraced this notion, and we
went to war against Milosevic even though we knew at some level these
guys really weren't on for this peace plan, the KLA. It would be like
coming to Bebe Netanyahu and saying, ``Yasir Arafat's had therapy.
He's a new man.'' And he says, ``Wait a minute. I know this''-- this
is what Milosevic said. ``Don't tell me they've said yes to this!''
Okay? Well, you know, ``I just fell off a turnip truck or something?''
Okay? And that's--
CHARLIE ROSE: ``I know these guys!''
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``I know these guys. I've been living and fighting
with them.'' And that's a problem I have with how this war started,
frankly.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: But we'll debate about that in the future.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay. And so you're suggesting that, as we leave
Kosovo, that, ``Look''-- as you said, and coined the phrase, ``Give
war a chance.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And so-- ``Give war a chance'' by-- that maybe all of
history is wrong.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Maybe air power today, with increased--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Now, is it--
TOM FRIEDMAN: For a limited-- for a limited objective.
CHARLIE ROSE: Just-- I leave with this big question.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is it worth what's happened to our relationship with
China? Is it worth sort of the problems we're having with the
Russians? Or are they minor things that don't make diddle?
TOM FRIEDMAN: I think that if this comes out right, okay--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --that is, the refugees go home under some form of
international protection, that we are able to say that our basic
objectives were achieved, it'll be a very important thing. It'll have
been a worthwhile mission, and our relations with China and Russia
will recover. If it comes out badly, I think NATO will be fractured.
Our relations with China and Russia could be--
CHARLIE ROSE: NATO won't only be fractured--
TOM FRIEDMAN: --seriously--
CHARLIE ROSE: --it'll have no credibility.
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's right. And we'll rue the day we ever did this.
CHARLIE ROSE: So it depends on whether we win or not.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Everything depends, and that's why we cannot lose.
That's why-- you know, from my point of view, as a columnist-- you
know, you've been seeing how I've been-- I don't sit back and write
like this-- my whole feelings about how this war started. I got real
problems, as I said before.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, but--
TOM FRIEDMAN: But I'm not dwelling on it right now.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --for a very simple reason, Charlie. This is our
country. This is our kids. This is our future. You start cracking
fundamental pillars of our security like NATO--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --fundamental pillars of our security like our
relations with Russia and China, you're really--
CHARLIE ROSE: Then--
TOM FRIEDMAN: --tampering with the future of my kids.
CHARLIE ROSE: Then why not-- why not say, ``We're not going to
trust this air war,'' but just say, ``We're coming in,'' you know,
``as fast as we can get the American men over there because it's so
fundamental''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --``to our children and our future that we're going
to give you''-- as Colin Powell says, if you're going to fight, give
them everything you've got--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Very simple, because that will fracture NATO for sure
immediately.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because NATO will split over--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: --the fact that--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Will split over that.
CHARLIE ROSE: --we've got those goals--
TOM FRIEDMAN: And then you may not be able to sustain the strategy
you can sustain.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And God knows where the Russians and Chinese would go
in the wake of that.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is this relationship with the Russians and the
Chinese-- if we win, everything will be okay anyway? We can handle
that?
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's my basic feeling.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know?
TOM FRIEDMAN: It's my basic feeling. But who knows what can happen.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right. I want to get back to this, but a couple
things around the world. The Chinese thing and all this spying-- is
that a big deal, the fact that they've been getting these atomic
secrets from us, and they're going to build much bigger and better
bombs than they would have been able to do otherwise?
TOM FRIEDMAN: I think you can't say that China, you know,
leapfrogging ahead in its nuclear program isn't a big deal. I think it
is a big deal. And I think the big deal, though, the biggest deal of
it, is that we have to deal-- you know, we have to do something about
the security of our own nuclear labs. [crosstalk]
CHARLIE ROSE: --they could steal them--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah. Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: --not the point that they got them.
TOM FRIEDMAN: The idea that-- I mean, I'm shocked the Chinese are
stealing our secrets, you know?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: I mean, you'd have to close down half the embassies
in Washington if we, you know, somehow went to war against people who
are stealing our secrets. I mean, part of me wants to get up
tomorrow-- you know, columns start with me-- it's a volcanic process.
They just erupt out of you, okay? So you have to have a volcanic
personality to sometimes do this job. And part of what erupts out of
me-- the column I'd like to write for tomorrow is, like, ``Hey, let's
just cut to the bottom line. Let's just declare war on these guys.
What are we messing around for? is that what you guys want? You want a
war with China? Let's have it.''
CHARLIE ROSE: ``Let's do it!''
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``Let's take on one fifth of humanity! Let's take
on-- come on! And while we're in Kosovo, while we're at it, let's take
on the Russians! Let's take on everybody!'' Okay? I mean, what is it--
you sort of wonder where these people--
CHARLIE ROSE: We're number one!
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah, we're number one! Let's-- let's take-- and you
know, I mean, maybe we are fated for a cold war with China. Maybe
we're fated, as the rising power and the existing superpower--
CHARLIE ROSE: But isn't that a failure of--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay.
TOM FRIEDMAN: But I'll tell you one thing. If we can avoid that, we
should sure as heck be trying to do that because this isn't like a
cold war with Russia. These folks don't make T.V.'s that blow up and
tractors that are more valuable as scrap metal than they are as
tractors. These are serious people, okay?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And you know, if you can avoid a civil war-- a cold
war--
CHARLIE ROSE: With serious people.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --with them, you want to do that. What is the answer?
The answer is, in my opinion, what I call ``draw red-lines, build
bridges.'' You draw red-lines where you have to. And on this nuclear
issue, that's got to be a big red red-line.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Now, the red-line's got to be, unfortunately, here,
around our own labs, to begin with. And you build bridges where
possible. But it's not an either-or. It's red-lines in the morning,
bridges in the afternoon. You've got to do both at the same time.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, but here's my only problem with the Chinese. It
doesn't seem that they have that same attitude anymore because of the
way they have taken-- understanding Chinese lives were lost in the
embassy bombing--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --there is not enough apology in the world to satisfy
them on that issue. And it seems that they're using that--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Oh, I think they are using it, and that's why my own
feeling is, you know, you apologize. You say you're sorry.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: You do the right thing.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, ``And here's the evidence of what happened
and''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right. And then you say, ``Get over it.''
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly.
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``You really want to start a riot? We'll close the
visa window at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. That'll start a riot,''
okay?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Right! ``No more''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``No more visas.''
CHARLIE ROSE: ``No more students at our universities.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: All right? ``So knock it off,'' all right?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: I mean, you know, you can-- you take it to a certain
point, you know, you do the right thing, and then you draw the
red-line, all right?
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And the right thing is to apologize, but to remind
them ``This was a war zone. We weren't bombing the French Riviera,
okay? You were in a war zone.''
CHARLIE ROSE: This wasn't downtown Beijing, either.
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``We are at war with the Serb people. You may think
it's okay with what they're doing in Kosovo. Nineteen members of NATO
don't, all right? You're in a war zone? This can happen. We're very
sorry. We were not targeting you. We will pay reparations to those
families.''
CHARLIE ROSE: ``And we'll show you the map we used, and it wasn't a
good map.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: Okay. End of story, okay? But we're not going to
relive this every day.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you think this administration has done that?
TOM FRIEDMAN: This administration is extremely weak, especially
when it comes to China, at getting in people's face, okay? They are
weak at getting in people's face domestically. All those-- the ``I
hate China'' crowd, who really want to drive us into a cold war with
China, and getting in their face and saying, ``What are you talking
about?''
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Okay? And they are very weak at getting in the face
of the Chinese, as well. It is something in the DNA of Democrats. I
don't know what it is.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right. Because it's very simple to say, ``We want
to be your friends. We want to do business.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's right.
CHARLIE ROSE: ``We want to have a good relationship. However--
however, there are limits to our''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly. And let me do the math here.
CHARLIE ROSE: --``acceptance of you''-- exactly. Let's do--
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's right. ``You got a $60 billion trade deficit
with us,'' okay? ``You got 200,000 students in our universities,'' all
right? ``No one in China wants to get an MBA at Moscow U. And there's
no DisneyWorld in Vladivostock. So get over it,'' all right?
CHARLIE ROSE: All right. Let me-- let me move to a place where you
have written probably more columns-- you-- I will grant you-- I will
make this-- this guess. You have written more columns that have to do
with the political attitude and diplomatic attitude of Benjamin
Netanyahu perhaps more than any other single individual. Is that a
fair guess?
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's probably a fair guess.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right?
TOM FRIEDMAN: I was not his biggest fan.
CHARLIE ROSE: You were not. What are the implications for peace in
the Middle East of the election of Ehud Barak in Israel?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Let's-- can I-- let me just try to rephrase your
question slightly in order to encompass the full answer.
CHARLIE ROSE: Help yourself. Everyone does.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Okay. Which is simply to say what are the-- why was
Barak elected--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --by a landslide. In Israeli terms, this was a
landslide. And this is-- and I would give you three answers. The first
answer is very simple, Charlie. Israelis wanted to be led by a better
man. Period, paragraph, endit. They wanted--
CHARLIE ROSE: The character of Benjamin Netanyahu--
TOM FRIEDMAN: They wanted to be led by--
CHARLIE ROSE: --was the issue?
TOM FRIEDMAN: --a more honest, decent, committed person, committed
to the country, not just himself. They wanted to be led by a better
man. The second reason he was elected, in my view, is that Bibi
Netanyahu had led Israel into a dead end. People had no hope,
basically, for any kind of change. He was talking-- oh, he could talk
the high-tech line, you know, with John Doerr [sp] and John Chambers
and Andy Grove, but you know-- about how Israel was a high-tech
superpower. And then, as one Israeli columnist-- and then he was
worried about 500 Palestinian rifles and was ready to stop everything
over whether Arafat had 40,000 rifles or 40,500 rifles. It made no
sense. And he had driven-- the sense of real-- that nothing was going
to change, the sense of real despair, you know, was pervasive there.
That was the second reason he lost.
And don't underestimate--
CHARLIE ROSE: So first character, second despair.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Despair and a sense that, you know, a real-- you
know, some of the people he had appointed-- there was a real concern
there about the rule of law, where it was going, a real concern that
the ultra-Orthodox were simply taking over, being able to attack the
supreme court without the prime minister coming out in any vigorous
way and denouncing that, for political reasons. There was a real worry
about where this country is drifting. That's the second reason.
The third reason I believe he was elected -- and this gets to your
question specifically -- is that I can't tell you whether there's
going to be a breakthrough with peace in the Middle East, with
Israelis and Palestinians. We're down to the real hard stuff now.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Final status stuff.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, he seems--
TOM FRIEDMAN: But I'll--
CHARLIE ROSE: Go ahead.
TOM FRIEDMAN: But I'll tell you this. What I can guarantee you with
Barak, we're going to have an honest effort now. We're going to have
someone who doesn't confront a speed bump and try to turn it into a
mountain, someone who doesn't confront a speed bump and use it as an
excuse to come back. We're going to deal with someone who, when he
confronts a speed bump here -- and there's going to be a lot of them
on the road to Lebanon and the Golan and the West Bank -- is going to
make an honest effort, with Israel's security paramount, at getting
over that speed bump. I cannot guarantee you on Lebanon, on the Golan,
on the West Bank -- because those speed bumps are high -- that we will
get over it, but I can guarantee you this. With Ehud Barak, we will
have an honest effort. You will now know in the next year what is
really possible, what is really possible and what isn't possible with
good will, not with bad will.
CHARLIE ROSE: And do you think the attitude in terms of the
Palestinians and the Syrians and others is that, as Margaret
Thatcher's famous words about Gorbachev, ``This is a man I can deal
with,'' that the Arabs view him as someone who they can trust, the
same way that there was an element of trust between Rabin and Arafat?
They didn't like each other, but Rabin always said, ``Listen, you
don't negotiate with your friends.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's right.
CHARLIE ROSE: ``You negotiate with your enemies.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: I think they respect Barak, starting off. I think
this is a real-- you know, Bibi Netanyahu-- Bib was the human ``time
out.'' He basically was just a-- he slowed everything down. And it
really served the interests of a lot of people.
Hey, you know, because he slowed everything down, Israelis didn't
have to really decide what settlements are you going to uproot and
which ones not? And America didn't really have to decide, you know,
what are you going to side with here? Are you going to send troops to
the Golan or not?
And you know what? The Arabs also didn't have to decide. They could
sit back and say, ``Oh, woe is me! If only Bibi weren't there! Oh, if
only Bibi weren't there, we would trade with the Jews.''
CHARLIE ROSE: That's right. They had--
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``If only Bibi weren't there, we'd have tourism! If
only''-- well, Bibi ain't there anymore.
CHARLIE ROSE: So they've got to make choices now.
TOM FRIEDMAN: So now they've got to make choices. Now it's cards on
the table, and we'll see what the Arabs are ready to do.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. One last factor about the Middle East. Assad
is not in great health, and he's not young.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Arafat is not in great health, and he's not-- and
he's not young. We've got a change in Jordan because of King Hussein's
tragic death. Does this play, that somehow Arafat says, ``I know I've
got a limited amount of time left on this earth, and I want to make
sure this state is set before I take my last breath,'' Assad, worried
about succession and whether his son's going to be ready, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, saying, ``Let's get this Golan thing done. We've
now got somebody we can make a deal with''-- is that--
TOM FRIEDMAN: I think that is there. There's an element of that
there. And that-- it's a good-- it's a good segue to the book--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. You were worried we weren't going to get back,
weren't you!
TOM FRIEDMAN: --because-- no, quite seriously, you know, the Arab
world-- two things are happening--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --as you've alluded to. The Arab world-- if you
looked at regions of the world that have been on vacation from
globalization--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --been on vacation from the invasion of global
capital and information, it's been the Arab world, from Morocco to the
borders of Pakistan, because of oil. When you have oil, you can build
walls and keep them up a lot longer than you are if you're Korea or
Thailand, okay?
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Those walls are now coming down. They're cracking. So
you're going to have two things happening in the Arab world at the
same time. One is the information of-- the invasion of capital and
information on a global scale. And unlike Saddam Hussein, you know,
who comes and goes, and there's a ceasefire, in this invasion, there
will be no ceasefire. So that is going to create huge, wrenching
adjustments for all these governments. All these fat, bloated,
oil-funded Arab governments are now going to have to downsize,
streamline and shed power to the private sector in every one of these
countries. And you're going to see civil wars -- some violent, some
implicit -- in every one of these countries between globalizers and
localizers, between the private sector and the state sector. It's
going to produce enormous tension in all of them, and there will be a
temptation to export some of that tension onto Israel. Bibi came in
very handy for them because he was like a lightning rod they could
export some of that internal tension onto.
At the same time that that's happening, you're going to have
generational change. The 1960s class of Arab leaders, basically, that
have been in power since the late '60s, are going to be dying off. So
the combination of what I call geology, biology and technology --
falling oil prices, the information revolution and a dying generation
-- are going to remake that part of the world.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right, this is a book
called The Lexus and the Olive Tree. We now know what the title is.
But let me just make this point. For a long time, since after World
War II, the world was essentially divided into East and West. There
were the Russians and-- the Soviets and the Americans. And the
Americans had their allies, and the Russians had their-- Soviets had
their allies. There ain't no more of that great divide. What is now
the great divide? What is the architecture of the future shaping the
world? Is that in this book?
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah, that-- funny you should
ask!
CHARLIE ROSE: Can I get the answer in this
book?
TOM FRIEDMAN: The-- well, let's start, you
know, with-- with the framework, basically. And the framework
basically is-- you know, for the-- what is this book? It's a
declaration of the following, Charlie. For the last 10 years, we have
been speaking about the post-cold war world. We have been describing
the world by what it isn't, because we didn't know what it is. So we
called it ``the post-cold war world,'' the messy, incoherent post-cold
war world.
This book is a declaration that the statute
of limitations on the foreign policy cliche, ``the post-cold war
world,'' is over, okay? It has expired. It had a 10-year life. It's
over, okay?
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: The argument of this book is
that globalization, this integration of finance, markets and
technology, in a way that's shrinking the world from a size medium to
a size small and allowing each of us to reach around the world
farther, faster, deeper and cheaper then every before, this thing we
call globalization, isn't a trend. It's not a fad. And it's not a
Nintendo game. It is the international system that has replaced the
cold war system.
Now, the cold war system was characterized,
as you said, Charlie, but one overarching feature: division. The world
was a divided place, and all your threats and opportunities flowed
from who you were divided from. And it was symbolized by a single
word, the Wall, the Berlin Wall.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: The globalization system is
also characterized by one overarching feature: integration. And all
your threats and opportunities now flow from who you're connected to.
And it is symbolized by a single word: the Web. So we've gone from a
world of division and walls to a world of integration and Web.
In the cold war, we reached for the hotline,
which was a symbol that we're all divided, but at least two people
were in charge, the United States and the Soviet Union. And in
globalization, we reach for the Internet, which is a symbol that we're
all connected and nobody's in charge.
Now, what does that mean? In answer to your
specific question, there's no more first world, second world, third
world, because to have a third world, you need a third space. You need
walls, and they're gone. There's now just the fast world and the slow
world.
You're either in the fast world or the slow
world, and no one country is entirely in either, including our own.
There are neighborhoods not a mile from here that I would say are in
the slow world. This room and this audience are very much in the fast
world. The trick in this game is to try to move as much of your
country as quickly as possible from the slow world to the fast world.
CHARLIE ROSE: And how do you do that?
TOM FRIEDMAN: How do you do that? Well, you
know, I've got a chapter in the book called ``Buy Taiwan, Hold Italy,
Sell France,'' okay? And the theme of the chapter and the theme of
the-- one of the sub-themes of the book is when your country or
company, you know, kind of joins this global economy. But when your
country joins this global economy, it's the equivalent of taking your
country public. It's like turning your country into a public company--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --with many of the shareholders
abroad. Now-- and management increasingly living under the same
constraints as John Chambers and Andy Grove--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --as managers of big global
companies with shareholders all over the world. And what I do in this
chapter-- I call it ``The eight habits of highly effective
countries,'' okay?
CHARLIE ROSE: Man, you stole left and right,
didn't you.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Yeah, and I'm shameless! It's
just-- and what I really do, though, is-- and I'll go through it real
quickly-- is say here's the eight questions that I ask when I go to a
country now.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Whether you're on your way to
the fast world or not--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --these are the eight questions
I ask. First of all is how wired is your country?
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, so this will define
whether you're on the fast track or not.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly. You know, how many--
what are your megabits per capita? You know, what-- how much Internet
capacity do you have divided by your population? What is your-- how
wired are you?
The second question I ask is how fast is your
country? You know, we've moved from a world where the big eat the
small to a world where the fast eat the slow, okay? So you know, how
fast are you at processing information, deregulating, making room for
new change and new companies? How fast is your country?
The third question I ask is, is your country
harvesting its knowledge? It's one thing to be wired, but do you know
how to tap into those wires and get that knowledge to the right place
at the right time? I quote a management consultant here who worked-- a
German who worked on Siemens. Basically, he studied Siemens. He had a
wonderful quote. It's my favorite quoter in the book. He said, ``You
know, if Siemens only knew what Siemens knows, God, it would be a rich
company!''
Does your country know what it knows, you
know?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Or your company.
Fourth is how much does your country weigh?
Oh, I want to know how much do you weigh? How much does an average
boxcar of your exports weigh? Because if it's iron ore, it weighs a
lot. If it's information technologies and services, it weighs a
little, okay? And the lighter that boxcar of your exports weighs--
CHARLIE ROSE: The better you are.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --the better off you are, the
more you're going to have information technology and rising income.
Fifth is one you alluded to in your earlier--
do you dare to be open? Do you dare-- do you want to compete like
Apple in a world of walls, or are you ready to compete on an open
standard and try to beat people's pants off on the basis of what
everybody knows?
Sixth is how good are you at making friends?
And this is something John Chambers taught me, because what happens in
a global economy, when the walls get blown away-- Cisco, to compete,
they've got to be everywhere. But Cisco, to compete, can't possibly
afford to be everywhere.
CHARLIE ROSE: So they need friends and
partners.
TOM FRIEDMAN: They need allies.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: They need partners. So how good
are you at managing those alliances? How good is Andy Grove at
managing that alliance with Microsoft that we're talking about? And
how good are we at managing the alliance in NATO? It's the same thing
with countries.
The seventh is does your country's management
get it? You know, management now is real-- when the world is moving
this fast, do you get it? I begin this section by saying, you know, I
was interviewing a leader of an Arab country several years ago, and I
sat down to begin the interview, and I said, ``Mr. President, I want
to compliment you. Moody's just upgraded your country from below
investment grade to investment-grade.'' It was a big deal. ``And I
really-- I just want to congratulate you,'' and I was laying it on
thick. And while he was thanking me profusely, he turned to his
minister of information [unintelligible] in Arabic and said, ``What is
Moody's?''
So you know, do you get it? I mean, do you
even understand what the parameters of--
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, but wait a minute. Before
you go to number seven or eight, that's an interesting point. I mean,
the fact he was doing something right--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --if he got a good grade by
Moody's--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --and the fact that he didn't
know what Moody's was might--
TOM FRIEDMAN: It's-- it's--
CHARLIE ROSE: --rather than he knows what
Moody's is and doesn't--
TOM FRIEDMAN: And not doing the right thing.
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly.
TOM FRIEDMAN: At least someone was doing--
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly.
TOM FRIEDMAN: --the right thing. It's a real
story, actually, with this country, which will go nameless. But
Moody's had actually said they were coming to re-rate this country's
economy. They sent them a letter to their ministry of economy, and
they thought it was a solicitation, and they threw it away, okay? I
tell the whole story in the book.
Last is how good is your country's brand?
Brand matters.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, it does.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Because in a world without
walls, and I can-- and when Cisco and Intel, they can go anywhere--
CHARLIE ROSE: In a world of 1,000 products--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Boy, they want--
CHARLIE ROSE: --you want to be known--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Are you going to go to Italy?
Does they have pizzazz?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: I mean, it's why John Major--
it's why Tony Blair in Britain has shifted Britain from ``Rule
Britannia'' to ``Cool Britannia.''
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: It's why Australia's
re-branding itself by getting rid of the queen and re-branding itself
as an Asian tiger.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TOM FRIEDMAN: And it's why Mahathir in
Malaysia has soiled his brand by doing what he has done, and now
people are--
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, what-- he's closed down
his borders, and he's said--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: --``We're not interested in''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: So people said-- so those are
the eight questions I ask now when I come to a country to try to
assess, in economic terms, whether you're going to be in the fast
world or not.
CHARLIE ROSE: And how do you measure the
capacity of the country's-- if you go in there to try to measure--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --who do you talk to? Who is
your source for finding out the answer to these kinds of questions?
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's a good--
CHARLIE ROSE: What does a Friedman do when he
shows up?
TOM FRIEDMAN: That's a good-- and it's very
different. It's a good question, and I talk a little bit about this in
the first chapter of the book, because obviously, I cover the world
different from my predecessors because I'm in a different system. And
I describe what I do for a living as ``information arbitrage.''
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Okay? I'm an information
arbitrageur. And so when I come to a country, I'm trying to look at it
always through six different lenses at once. And basically, you know,
the evolution of this is I started out as a journalist covering the
mother of all tribal wars, the Arab-Israeli conflict. I had a kind of
two-dimensional perspective on the world. It was politics and culture,
because in that conflict, your defined your culture. That was all you
had to know.
Then I came back and covered foreign affairs,
and I added kind of geopolitics and national security, so that added
another lens for me. Then I started-- I covered finance and
international economics for three years and added markets, so fourth
dimension. Then I started the column, and I discovered if I wasn't
going out to Silicon Valley and talking to John Chambers and Andy
Grove and John Dorr, I couldn't-- this was the new power source. So I
added technology. And last, I added environment. I'm always kind of
arbitraging between all six of those now when I go into a country.
CHARLIE ROSE: I want to come to the last
chapter here--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Please.
CHARLIE ROSE: --which is called ``There's a
Way Forward.'' What do you mean there?
TOM FRIEDMAN: What I mean there is-- it's
trying to give Americans a sense of what I think our role in the world
is today. And I believe, in short, our role in the world, Charlie, is
to support sustainable globalization. We are the biggest beneficiaries
of this world. It's our products that are being globalized. It's our
ideas that are being globalized. It's our people that are being
globalized. It's our technologies that are being globalized. We have a
fundamental interest in sustaining globalization.
You know, I like to compare it to Michael
Jordan and the NBA. I mean, Michael Jordan was really good. We are the
Michael Jordan of geopolitics, and everyone wants to be like Mike, and
Mike was really good. He just had one weakness, Michael Jordan. He was
nothing without the other 29 teams in the NBA. And we're nothing
without the rest of the world.
Without America on duty, there's no America
on line. And we have to always keep that in mind, all right, that
unless we are democratizing globalization, making sure that more
people in more countries on more days are becoming beneficiaries of
this system, both as companies doing that and as a country. It is the
most selfish, self-interested thing we could possibly be doing.
I have a simple-- people say ``What is your
politics?'' I say my politics is I am a radical integrationist social
safety-netter.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TOM FRIEDMAN: That is, I believe you dare not
be a globalizer in this world, an advocate of free trade, you know,
NAFTA, Internet, a Web side in every pot. You dare not be a globalizer
in this world without also being a social Democrat, be ready to have
my tax dollars used in the most effective way possible to bring the
have-nots, the know-nots and the left-behinds into this system because
if you don't do that, you're never going to maintain the political
consensus for openness.
But you dare not be a social Democrat today
without also being a globalizer because unless you are open to the
world, with more free trade, more immigration, more competition, more
knowledge in and out, you are never going to have the incomes and
growth you need to take care of the-- Intel's not going to have that
$100 million for that education program. What we're trying to do now
is find a new balance between those two.
CHARLIE ROSE: Are you saying, in a sense,
that America, as it goes straight forward pursuing its globalization,
its economic power, as by far the dominant economic power in the
world--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --that at the same-- and the
dominant military power in the world, as it exercises those muscles in
a responsible way--
TOM FRIEDMAN: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --it has also got to be very,
very careful about exporting its values-- its values-- not to the
standpoint of saying to someone, ``We're insensitive to your
culture,'' but ``These are the qualities that are essential,'' that we
not rip apart the social fabric not only in our country, but because
of what we represent, that we not destroy a culture of a place that we
want to play a positive role.
And we dare not forget that there are in this
world diversity and people of good meaning who want to participate in
the best, but are not necessarily saying ``We want to be like you'' or
``We want to do it your way.'' ``We want maybe to partner with you,
and we respect who you are, but we want to make sure you
understand''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: ``Who we are.''
CHARLIE ROSE: --``that we care who we are,
and we have''--
TOM FRIEDMAN: You know--
CHARLIE ROSE: --``maybe a different religion,
and maybe we look differently, and maybe are not as-- have as many
telephones as you do, but we have something else. We have a history,
and we have a pride, and we care about who we are.''
TOM FRIEDMAN: You know, this is a really
serious issue, and I have a chapter in the book called ``The
Revolution Is U.S.'' And what it's about is just this point, Charlie.
You know, I believe-- something you and I have talked about once. I
believe in the ``five gas stations'' theory of the world. You can
really reduce the world today to five gas stations, world economies.
First there's a Japanese gas station. You
drive in, gas is $5 a gallon. Four guys in uniforms and white gloves
wait on you. They wash your windows. The pump your gas. They fill your
air. The bow when you leave, politely. You drive away in peace.
Then there's the American gas station. Gas is
$1 a gallon. You pump it yourself. You drive away, and four homeless
people take your hub caps six blocks away.
Third is the Western European gas station.
Gas is also $5 a gallon. Only one guy works there. He works 90 hours--
sorry. He works 30 hours a week. He has 90 minutes off for lunch every
day, at which time the gas station is closed. He has six weeks
vacation in Provence every summer, and his four brothers are playing
Bocce ball across the street on very generous unemployment insurance.
Fourth is the developing world gas station.
Gas is only 35 cents there. Fifteen people work there. They're all
related. There are six gas pumps. Five are broken. They're waiting for
the spare parts to be flown in from Europe, where the owner lives,
okay? The owner has no idea that the people who work there are so poor
they have to shower in the car wash. There are only two kinds of
automobiles that use the developing world gas station, either a
Mercedes Benz or a motor scooter. Everybody else comes with a bicycle
to fill the air in their tires.
Lastly is the communist gas station. Gas is
only 50 cents, but there is none! There is none because the four guys
working there have sold it all on the black market for $5 a gallon.
Now, what is going on in the world on the
meta-meta-meta-scale is that everyone is being forced toward our gas
station, and they don't like our gas station. Built into their gas
station is just what you said, Charlie-- different social ethics about
the responsibility of government to provide lifetime employment, the
responsibility of government to make sure that everyone has a six-week
vacation, different cultural attitudes, different attitudes about the
responsibility of government to ensure not only opportunity, but
outcomes.
They don't like our gas station, and part of
the backlash against the United States out there is this sense that we
are out there whipping everyone along to downsize, speed up, upload,
downlink and pump your own gas.
CHARLIE ROSE: Tom Friedman. The book is
called The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
TOM FRIEDMAN: Thank you.
CHARLIE ROSE: Thank you for joining us. We'll
see you next time from San Francisco.
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