Tedtalks: Parag Khanna maps the future of countries

Part 1 A contemporary political map shows that we have countries in the world. What is the point he makes about tedistan? There are no .. connected/unconnected spaces. % of the world population will never. People, money, power, religion, culture and technology requires a .. understanding. In 1945 there were . countries, into the late 40s, 50s to 80s waves of . Took place and countries were born. China and Russia share a .. land border. What doesnt the map of Russia show (a point about population between the east and the west) Why is Mongolia referred to as Mine-golia? His point is that countries can be. Another country which is an example of this kind is 60,000 Chinese have moved into Russia setting up bazaars and medical clinics: China isn't conquering Russia. It's just.. it. That's what I call globalization

Chinese style. In terms of political history, East Asia doesnt think in terms of nations and borders, but in terms of .. and . How is China re-establishing itself in the hierarchy of the world (the answer relates to the word hub)? How is China developing trade with other countries in the region?

Stop here!

Look at the following text and think what the missing word could be:

Then Listen!!!!! And check your answers And now many of you have been reading the news how people are looking . China .. lead the rebound, the economic rebound, not just ..Asia, but potentially for the world. The Asian free trade zone, almost free trade zone, that's emerging now has a greater trade volume than trade across the Pacific. So China is becoming the anchor of the economy .. the region. Another pillar of this strategy is diplomacy. China has signed military agreements . many countries in the region. It has become the hub . diplomatic institutions such the East Asian Community. Some of these organizations don't even have the United States a member. There is a treaty of nonaggression . countries, such that if there were a conflict between China and the United States, most countries vow to just sit it out, including American allies . Korea and Australia. What does rebound mean from the text above? What does hub mean? What does pillar mean from the text above?

Continue here!
One pillar from for Chinas success is diplomacy. Listen to the next part. What is another strategy? What does China export around the region? Any examples??????? China is developing a co-prosperity zone: What does this mean? Is this the same for countries in the Middle East? What seems to be the reason for instability in Iraq? What is the point about Kurdistan, Iraq, oil and pipelines?

Part 2 Listen to the final part and make notes:

Now lets look at a perennial conflict in the region. That is, of course, in Palestine. Palestine is something of a cartographic anomaly because it's two parts Palestinian, one part Israel. 30 years of rose garden diplomacy have not delivered us peace in this conflict. What might? I believe that what might solve the problem is infrastructure. Today donors are spending billions of dollars on this. These two arrows are an arc, an arc of commuter railroads and other infrastructure that link the West Bank and Gaza. If Gaza can have a functioning port and be linked to the West Bank you can have a viable Palestinian state, Palestinian economy. That, I believe, is going to bring peace to this particular conflict. The lesson from Kurdistan and from Palestine, is that independence alone, without infrastructure, is futile. Now what might this entire region look like if in fact we focus on other lines on the map besides borders, when the insecurities might abate? The last time that was the case was actually a century ago, during the Ottoman Empire. This is the Hijaz Railway. The Hijaz Railway ran from Istanbul to Medina via Damascus. It even had an offshoot running to Haifa in what is today Israel, on the Mediterranean Sea. But today the Hijaz Railway lies in tatters, ruins. If we were to focus on reconstructing these curvy lines on the map, infrastructure, that cross the straight lines, the borders, I believe the Middle East would be a far more peaceful region. Now let's look at another part of the world, the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, the 'stans. These countries' borders originate from Stalin's decrees. He purposely did not want these countries to make sense. He wanted ethnicities to mingle in ways that would allow him to divide and rule. Fortunately for them, most of their oil and gas resources were discovered after the Soviet Union collapsed. Now I know some of you may be thinking, "Oil, oil, oil. Why is all he's talking about is oil?" Well there is a big difference in the way we used to talk about oil and the way we're talking about it now. Before it was, how do we control their oil? Now it's their oil for their own purposes. And I assure you it's every bit as important to them as it might have been to colonizers and imperialists. Here are just some of the pipeline projections and possibilities and scenarios and routes that are being mapped out for the next several decades. A great deal of them. For a number of countries in this part of the world, having pipelines is the ticket to becoming part of the global economy and for having some meaning, besides the borders that they are not loyal to themselves. Just take Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was a forgotten corner of the Caucuses. But now with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline into Turkey, it has rebranded itself as the frontier of the west. Then there is Turkmenistan which most people think of as a frozen basket case. But now it's contributing gas across the Caspian Sea to provide for Europe, and even a potentially Turkmen- Afghan-Pakistan-India pipeline as well.

Then there is Kazakhstan, which didn't even have a name before. It was more considered South Siberia during the Soviet Union. Today most people recognize Kazakhstan as an emerging geopolitical player. Why? Because it has shrewdly designed pipelines to flow across the Caspian, north through Russia, and even east to China. More pipelines means more silk roads, instead of the Great Game. The Great Game connotes dominance of one over the other. Silk road connotes independence and mutual trust. The more pipelines we have, the more silk roads we'll have, and the less of a dominant Great Game competition we'll have in the 21st Century. Now let's look at the only part of the world that really has brought down its borders, and how that has enhanced its strength. And that is, of course, Europe. The European Union began as just the coal and steel community of six countries. And their main purpose was really to keep the rehabilitation of Germany to happen in a peaceful way. But then eventually it grew into 12 countries. And those are the 12 stars on the European flag. The E.U. also became a currency block, and is now the most powerful trade block in the entire world. On average the E.U. has grown by one country per year since the end of the Cold War. In fact most of that happened on just one day. In 2004, 15 new countries joined the E.U. and now you have what most people consider a zone of peace spanning 27 countries and 450 million people. So what is next? What is the future of the European Union? Well in light blue, you see the zones or the regions that are at least two-thirds or more dependent on the European Union for trade and investment. What does that tell us? Trade and investment tell us that Europe is putting its money where its mouth is. Even if these regions aren't part of the E.U., they are becoming part of its sphere of influence. Just take the Balkans. Croatia, Serbia Bosnia, they're not members of the E.U. yet. But you can get on a German ICE train and make it almost to Albania. In Bosnia you use the Euro currency already, and that's the only currency they're probably ever going to have. So, looking at other parts of Europe's periphery, such as North Africa. On average, every year or two, a new oil or gas pipeline opens up under the Mediterranean, connecting North Africa to Europe. That not only helps Europe diminish its reliance on Russia for energy, but if travel to North Africa today you'll hear more and more people saying that they don't really think of their region as the Middle East. So in other words, I believe that President Sarkozy of France is right when he talks about a Mediterranean union. Now let's look at Turkey, and the Caucasus. I mentioned Azerbaijan before. That corridor of Turkey and the Caucasus has become the conduit for 20 percent of Europe's energy supply. So does Turkey really have to be a member of the European Union? I don't think it does. I think it's already part of a Euro-Turkish superpower. So what's next? Where are we going to see borders change and new countries born? Well, South Central Asia, South West Asia is a very good place to start. Eight years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan there is still a tremendous amount of instability. Pakistan and Afghanistan are still so fragile that neither of them have dealt constructively with the problem of Pashtun nationalism. This is the flag that flies in the minds of 20 million Pashtuns who live on both sides of the the Afghan and Pakistan border. Let's not neglect the insurgency just to the south. Baluchistan. Two weeks ago Baluchi rebels attacked a Pakistani military garrison and this was the flag that they raised over it. The post-

colonial entropy that is happening around the world is accelerating. And I expect more such changes to occur in the map as the states fragment. Of course we can't forget Africa. 53 countries, and by far the most number of suspiciously straight lines on the map. If we were to look at all of Africa we could most certainly acknowledge far more, tribal divisions and so forth. But let's just look at Sudan, the secondlargest country in Africa. It has three ongoing civil wars, the genocide in Darfur, which you all know about, the civil war in the east of the country, and south Sudan. South Sudan is going to be having a referendum in 2011 in which it is very likely to vote itself independence. Now let's go up to the Arctic Circle. There is a great race on for energy resources under the Arctic seabed. Who will win? Canada? Russia? The United States? Actually Greenland. Several weeks ago Greenland's [60,000] people voted themselves self-governance rights from Denmark. So Denmark is about to get a whole lot smaller. What is the lesson from all of this? Geopolitics is a very unsentimental discipline. It's constantly morphing and changing the world, like climate change. And like our relationship with the ecosystem we're always searching for equilibrium in how we divide ourselves across the planet. Now we fear changes on the map. We fear civil wars, death tolls, having to learn the names of new countries. But I believe that the inertia of the existing borders that we have today is far worse and far more violent. The question is how do we change those borders, and what lines do we focus on? I believe we focus on the lines that cross borders, the infrastructure lines, then we'll wind up with the world we want, a borderless one. Thank you. (Applause)