The Power of Personality

When I hear confident claims about liberty and democracy in the Third World, I always think about rural India, where I spent a great deal of time when I was young, and wonder what those peasants struggling to survive would make of the abstractions of the American Enterprise Institute. When I read commentators fulminating about women wearing the burqa—which I don't much like either—I think about one of my aunts, who has always worn one, and of the many complex reasons she keeps it on, none of which involves approval of misogyny or support for suicide bombers. When I talk to people in a foreign country, no matter how strange, they are always, at some level, familiar to me.

I couldn't do my job well without the expertise. But any insights I have are thoroughly informed by the perspective and judgment that I've gained from being first a foreigner, then a foreign student, then an aspiring immigrant and now an American. My biography has helped me put my book learning in context, made for a richer interaction with foreigners and helped me see the world from many angles. So I understand what Obama means when he talks about his life and its lessons.

Look at the experiences of so many distinguished Americans in foreign policy. Zalmay Khalilzad was, by common consent, a superb ambassador in Afghanistan and Iraq. Could that be in part because of his feel for those cultures? Most everyone regards Henry Kissinger as an enormously skilled negotiator. Could that be partly because as a Jew who grew up in Germany and then an immigrant in America, he has the ability to see things through several different prisms at once?

This might sound like an argument about intangibles, but it's been embraced by hard-nosed businessmen. Fourteen CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are foreign-born, a number that has grown by leaps in the past decade. Some of these companies have explicitly said that they chose CEOs who could penetrate foreign cultures and markets. This understanding, mind you, comes not from extensive work experience in these countries. Executives like Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo have spent most of their professional lives in the United States. But they have a powerful feel for the world beyond America.

We're moving into a very new world, one in which countries from Brazil to South Africa to India and China are getting richer, stronger and prouder. For America to thrive, we will have to develop a much deeper, richer, more intuitive understanding of them and their peoples. There are many ways to attain this, but certainly being able to feel it in your bones is one powerful way. Trust me on this. As a Ph.D. in international relations, I know what I'm talking about.

© 2007