THE FOUR TESTS

Authoritative and illuminating, The Four Tests concisely breaks down the "tests" the United States must pass to continue evolving for continued dominance and power in the 21st century - from the former United States Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The U.S., along with its allies, built the global economic and political realities of the 20th century. But America's unipolar moment has receded. Pessimists observe that the odds against us grow longer by the day, as our competitive advantages shrink and rivals rise. The divisions between us, economic changes driven by globalization and technology, and global threats including climate change, pandemics, and resurgent authoritarian powers, make it difficult for many of us to be optimistic about America's future. The problems feel overwhelming and innumerable, the evidence of decline ubiquitous.

This period when conventional wisdom and established institutions are being called into question is disorienting, yet it is also an opportunity to think about what might come next, and how to build what we need to succeed in the next era. Former United States Ambassador Daniel Baer suggests that we are living through an unsettling transition moment, and lays out the four tests faced by the United States in the next ten years that will determine whether it succeeds over the next fifty. These are: scale; investment; fairness; and identity.

The first two tests are familiar to strategists but are poised to take on new forms in the post-US hegemony world. A country has to think about the impact of scale differently when its population and economy are shrinking in relative terms rather than growing. And while of course investment is essential to productivity growth and economic competitiveness, investment in human beings themselves matters more than it ever has.

The second pair of tests will strike readers as unusual for a book about international competition and geopolitics but are crucial to the function and success of the United States as a political entity. Fairness, in perception and in practice, is essential to sustaining the U.S. economic and political systems domestically and to building U.S. international political influence as U.S. relative military dominance declines. When the Founders signed a document that held up the entitlement of each person not only to life and liberty but also to "the pursuit of happiness," they recognized that one of democracy's ends was its citizens' pursuit of a meaningful life of their own choosing - a life consistent with their own understandings of themselves and their place in their community. Identity, and minimum sense of security in it, is not just a core element of the moral purpose of democracy; it is a prerequisite for the process of democracy, and for our ability to fulfil our roles as democratic citizens.

Each of these tests requires us to take steps at home to strengthen our position abroad. While the challenges that loom are significant, for each test there remain comparative advantages which the U.S. can draw upon, and that some of our most vexing competitors lack. The four tests demand changes in behavior and culture - from politicians, corporate leaders, and citizens. But if we meet these tests, then we can be confident of America's place in the world and of future generations' reasonable expectations of a better life. The question is not whether we can succeed, but whether we will.


CLEAR-EYED YET OPTIMISTIC LOOK AT AMERICA'S FUTURE: Daniel Baer, former ambassador, is realistic but not pessimistic about America's present standing and its direction for the future. He prescribes a course correction, identifying four key areas that the US needs to target in order to rise to the challenges the future holds: Scale, Investment, Fairness, and Identity.

ACCESSIBLE WISDOM: Baer developed The Four Tests as a work that could be read by anyone trying to understand how America should react in today's fraught global climate: "This is not a book intended for academics or foreign policy insiders. This book is for those who wake up and look at their phone and feel like the news is coming for them from every direction."

WELL-CONNECTED AUTHOR: Baer has a network of high-profile contacts that he expects to support his publication, especially from his time in the Obama administration. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC, PBS Frontline, Al Jazeera, Sky, and The Colbert Report.


Baer is senior vice president for policy research and director of the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was a diplomatic fellow at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies from 2017 to 2019. He served in Governor John Hickenlooper's cabinet as executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education from 2018 to 2019. Under President Obama, he was U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2013 to 2017. Previously, he was a deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 2009 to 2013. Before his government service, Baer was an assistant professor at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, a faculty fellow at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics, and a project leader at the Boston Consulting Group.

He has appeared on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC, PBS Frontline, Al Jazeera, Sky, and The Colbert Report. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Foreign Affairs, POLITICO, The Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Lawfare, The Denver Post, and other publications. He holds a doctorate in international relations from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a degree in social studies and African American studies from Harvard. He is married to Brian Walsh, an economist at the World Bank.