Politics & Power Quote by Fareed Zakaria

Zakaria’s line lands like a calm weather report that’s actually a storm warning. On its face, it’s a simple claim about geopolitics: primacy is singular. The intent is less to flex theory than to discipline the reader’s expectations about “multipolar harmony.” In an era when politicians sell the public a fantasy of win-win dominance or “shared leadership,” Zakaria is saying the quiet part out loud: prestige, agenda-setting, and coercive leverage don’t split neatly. Someone writes the rules; others live inside them.

The subtext is aimed at America’s temptation to treat relative decline as optional. “Two countries” is a polite abstraction, but the likely pair is the United States and China, with Russia as spoiler rather than peer. Zakaria is warning that you can’t preserve the psychological perks of being number one while also claiming you’re comfortable with a world of equals. If you’re the incumbent, “coexistence” can become a euphemism for denial. If you’re the challenger, “peaceful rise” is often marketing for the same old push: reshape institutions, technology standards, trade routes, security alignments.

Context matters because dominance isn’t just GDP or aircraft carriers; it’s the ability to define what counts as legitimate power. The quote works by stripping away sentimental language and forcing a binary that policymakers hate: either you accept a reduced role, or you contest the challenger’s bid. Zakaria’s provocation isn’t that conflict is inevitable, but that ambiguity is costly. The world can be cooperative; it can even be plural. “Leading dominant” suggests something harsher: the top slot is a throne, not a committee seat.