Fareed Zakaria's Post-Pandemic World: Ten Lessons for Global Governance

In "Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World," Fareed Zakaria (Bombay, 1964) analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of infinite growth and the necessity of international cooperation. The book, published by W. W. Norton & Company in New York (2020, 336 pages, $16.95), argues that the pandemic is the third asymmetric shock of the 21st century, following 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis. Zakaria, a naturalized US citizen educated at Yale and Harvard under Samuel P. Huntington, emphasizes investing in healthcare, education, science, and technology. He contends that categories like left/right or democracy/dictatorship are obsolete; what matters is good governance. Within the EU, the France-Germany axis and officials like Ursula von der Leyen enabled unprecedented financial aid to poorer member states. Zakaria calls for strengthening the World Health Organization to resist political pressures from China, the US, or others. He dismisses the idea of a world government as science fiction, advocating instead for effective global governance through sovereign agreements. The US-China relationship is critical: China now hosts 226 of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers, double the US count. Two futures are possible: cooperation on climate change and stability, or escalating competition in space, cyberspace, AI, and bioengineering with potentially catastrophic consequences. The article originally appeared in Artribune Magazine #58.