Which countries are best positioned to thrive in the 21st century? No, it’s not Denmark. Nor China. According to Parag Khanna, the Singapore based geo-strategist, the three countries that top what he calls The Periodic Table of States are Germany, Japan and Switzerland. And the United States of America, Khanna says, going against conventional wisdom, isn’t far behind. Khanna’s analysis describes a "post-Westphalian world" where non-state actors like corporations and diasporas hold significant influence. Khanna challenges the more conventional rankings of countries by incorporating climate resilience, governance quality, and economic stability alongside traditional metrics into his Periodic Table.
The 5 KEEN ON AMERICA takeaways from our conversation with Khanna
* Traditional power metrics are insufficient for measuring state stability - Khanna's "Periodic Table of States" incorporates factors like climate resilience, governance quality, and institutional effectiveness alongside conventional metrics.
* Small states often outperform large powers in stability - Switzerland, Germany, and Japan top the rankings while large nations like India, Brazil, and Russia fall into the second tier.
* We live in a "post-Westphalian" world where non-state actors (corporations like Google, diaspora networks, and even organized crime) wield significant power beyond traditional nation-state frameworks.
* Migration management varies significantly across governance systems - Khanna notes that non-democratic states like UAE and Singapore have effectively managed high immigration rates while democratic nations have struggled politically with migration issues.
* A "neo-Hanseatic league" of small, innovative states (like Estonia, Singapore, and Israel) is emerging as a powerful network outside traditional alliance structures, forming their own connections through academic exchanges, free labor mobility, and economic partnerships.
Parag Khanna is Founder & CEO of AlphaGeo, the leading AI-powered geospatial analytics platform. He is the internationally bestselling author of seven books including MOVE: Where People Are Going for a Better Future (2021), preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019), as well as a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also the author of Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Born in India and raised in the UAE, New York and Germany, he has traveled to more than 150 countries and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
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