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supercontinent is reconnecting internally. Russia has<br />
announced ambitious plans to create a modern rail<br />
network connecting the Far East with Europe. China<br />
OBOR has geopolitical dimensions, but failing to see<br />
the underlying commercial dynamics would distort<br />
our analysis. The most efficient way to connect Asian<br />
has announced even<br />
producers to<br />
European<br />
more ambitious plans under<br />
the “One Belt, One Road”<br />
set of initiatives that would<br />
dramatically expand transportation<br />
networks through<br />
Central Asia into Western<br />
Asia. China has added a set<br />
of impressive and ambitious<br />
initiatives such as the Asian<br />
Today, this 400-year<br />
epoch of Asian geopolitics<br />
focused on the littoral<br />
is changing.<br />
markets in recent memory<br />
has been via sea transport.<br />
But overland rail links could<br />
easily cut transportation<br />
times by a factor of two or<br />
three. Cutting transit times<br />
dramatically would lower<br />
working capital demands by<br />
significantly reducing time<br />
Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Route when invested capital is unproductive.<br />
Fund. Dozens of major infrastructure projects have<br />
The U.S. government is ill equipped to assess this<br />
been announced, giving operational direction to this<br />
macro-development. From a bureaucratic standpoint,<br />
we divide the world in ways that block clearer<br />
sweeping initiative.<br />
The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative has stimulated<br />
wide-ranging debate. Some analysts voice four bureaus—East Asia and Pacific Affairs, European<br />
vision. The State Department divides this space into<br />
skepticism, casting OBOR as an effort to stimulate and Eurasian Affairs, Near Eastern Affairs, and South<br />
development in China’s lagging interior. Others see and Central Asian Affairs. The Defense Department<br />
it as the next phase of pump priming, instigated by divides itself into a Pacific Command that includes<br />
the now huge Chinese construction industry that is China in its area of responsibility, but the Central<br />
seeing slacking urban construction opportunities at Command and the European Command are responsible<br />
for other portions of Greater Asia.<br />
home. And others see it as a grand geopolitical gesture<br />
designed to capture the loyalties of Central Asian<br />
Bureaucratic institutions channel creative thinking.<br />
countries, cementing them into vassal structures.<br />
We are ill equipped to perceive a mega-trend when<br />
What does OBOR mean for the United States? Will we look at it from four different perspectives, seeing<br />
OBOR consume the energies of China for the next the attributes of a new dynamic only through distant<br />
few decades and ease pressure in Southeast Asia, historic filters.<br />
or does OBOR reflect an all-encompassing agenda<br />
of Chinese hegemony throughout the vast Asian<br />
It would be a huge mistake to ignore the significance<br />
of the reconnecting of Eurasia. It would be equally<br />
continent? Is OBOR good for America or a threat to<br />
dangerous to cast it as a geopolitical threat to the<br />
our interests?<br />
United States. We have a limited role in shaping this<br />
The new silk route narrative has been in circulation mega-development, but we certainly could alienate<br />
for many years. Over half of the “new silk route” entries<br />
in a web search trace back to Turkey and reflect have time to assess this objectively. It should be on<br />
ourselves from the central actors involved in it. We<br />
Turkish commercial interests. There is no doubt that any agenda for the next presidency.<br />
Global Forecast 2016 | 9
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