cover image Birth of a New World: An Open Moment for International Leadership

Birth of a New World: An Open Moment for International Leadership

Harlan Cleveland. Jossey-Bass, $34.5 (260pp) ISBN 978-1-55542-511-1

``It has now become evident,'' writes Cleveland, a former assistant secretary of state and NATO ambassador, ``that the relevant shortages will not be mostly of things but of ideas, imagination, willpower, and leadership.'' Here he offers a practical agenda for developing a broader, more flexible system of world leadership based on an open-ended ``coalition of the willing'' led by the United States. Cleveland cites existing operations of international cooperation--weather forecasting, disease eradication programs, civil aviation agreements--and argues eloquently for creation of a world security system, regulation of world markets, establishment of a supranational world bank and an international tax system. Cleveland's new world order would deal in ``functional pieces of peace glued together by common interest and powered by modern informational techniques.'' Human contrariness aside, his elaborate plan seems feasible. (Apr.)