Download or read book The Paradox of Power The United States and Europe After the Cold War written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the momentous consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union, none is as significant for the geostrategist as the emergence of the United States as the world's sole superpower. America's unrivaled primacy in the post-Cold War era has sparked comparisons with classic Rome and ancient China and even prompted the French to coin the new phrase "hyperpower." By every traditional measure of power, both "hard" and "soft," the U.S. towers above all other nations. The American military is unsurpassed in technological sophistication and unique in its capacity to reach into any region of the globe. The American economy is the world's largest and most productive. English has become the language of choice in science, diplomacy, and world business, while American media, popular culture and computer technology have penetrated virtually every society regardless of geographic boundaries. And the fundamental precepts of free market democracy are now championed as ideals by new-found converts on every continent. As we approach the end of the 20th century, the U.S. appears increasingly like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians, and Henry Luce's famous declaration of "the American Century" now rings truer than ever before. The paradox of power after the Cold War, illustrated most vividly by the specter of a muscle-bound America, bursting with inherent capability yet unable to achieve many of its foreign policy objectives, can be explained largely by three factors: the changed nature of the international system; the changed dynamic of U.S. statecraft, and the enduring phenomenon of power balancing among states.
Download or read book The Paradox of Power written by David C. Gompert and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2020 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second half of the 20th century featured a strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. That competition avoided World War III in part because during the 1950s, scholars like Henry Kissinger, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, and Albert Wohlstetter analyzed the fundamental nature of nuclear deterrence. Decades of arms control negotiations reinforced these early notions of stability and created a mutual understanding that allowed U.S.-Soviet competition to proceed without armed conflict. The first half of the 21st century will be dominated by the relationship between the United States and China. That relationship is likely to contain elements of both cooperation and competition. Territorial disputes such as those over Taiwan and the South China Sea will be an important feature of this competition, but both are traditional disputes, and traditional solutions suggest themselves. A more difficult set of issues relates to U.S.-Chinese competition and cooperation in three domains in which real strategic harm can be inflicted in the current era: nuclear, space, and cyber. Just as a clearer understanding of the fundamental principles of nuclear deterrence maintained adequate stability during the Cold War, a clearer understanding of the characteristics of these three domains can provide the underpinnings of strategic stability between the United States and China in the decades ahead. That is what this book is about.
Download or read book The Paradox of Power written by David C. Gompert and published by Department of the Army. This book was released on 2011-12-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking deeply into the matter of strategic vulnerability, the authors address questions that this vulnerability poses: Do conditions exist for Sino-U.S. mutual deterrence in these realms? Might the two states agree on reciprocal restraint? What practical measures might build confidence in restraint? How would strategic restraint affect Sino-U.S. relations as well as security in and beyond East Asia?
Download or read book Russia Resurrected written by Kathryn E. Stoner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics. Too often, we are told that Russia plays a weak hand well. But, perhaps the nation's cards are better than we know. Russia ranks significantly behind the US and China by traditional measures of power: GDP, population size and health, and military might. Yet 25 years removed from its mid-1990s nadir following the collapse of the USSR, Russia has become a supremely disruptive force in world politics. Kathryn E. Stoner assesses the resurrection of Russia and argues that we should look beyond traditional means of power to assess its strength in global affairs. Taking into account how Russian domestic politics under Vladimir Putin influence its foreign policy, Stoner explains how Russia has battled its way back to international prominence. From Russia's seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine to its military support for the Assad regime in Syria, the country has reasserted itself as a major global power. Stoner examines these developments and more in tackling the big questions about Russia's turnaround and global future. Stoner marshals data on Russia's political, economic, and social development and uncovers key insights from its domestic politics. Russian people are wealthier than the Chinese, debt is low, and fiscal policy is good despite sanctions and the volatile global economy. Vladimir Putin's autocratic regime faces virtually no organized domestic opposition. Yet, mindful of maintaining control at home, Russia under Putin also uses its varied power capacities to extend its influence abroad. While we often underestimate Russia's global influence, the consequences are evident in the disruption of politics in the US, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few. Russia Resurrected is an eye-opening reassessment of the country, identifying the actual sources of its power in international politics and why it has been able to redefine the post-Cold War global order.
Download or read book Rethinking the Cold War written by Allen Hunter and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A path-breaking collection of essays by cutting-edge authors that reassess the Cold War since the fall of communism.
Download or read book The Return of History and the End of Dreams written by Robert Kagan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. The world remains “unipolar,” but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict, and a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics.For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of America and the World Volume 4 1945 to the Present written by David C. Engerman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-03 with total page 903 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challenges to its power, originating both domestically and internationally. Highlighting cutting-edge ideas from scholars from all over the world, this volume anatomizes American power as well as the counters and alternatives to 'the American empire.' Topics include US economic and military power, American culture overseas, human rights and humanitarianism, third-world internationalism, immigration, communications technology, and the Anthropocene.
Download or read book The United States and Europe After the Cold War written by John William Holmes and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a former U.S. diplomat in Europe, John W. Holmes watched the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) fulfill its purpose with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In The United States and Europe after the Cold War, he explores the possibilities for future transatlantic relations in light of NATO's ebbing usefulness. Finding that a basis still exists for an alliance between the United States and the European Union, Holmes sets forth a comprehensive plan for establishing an association as long-lasting and profitable as the one now drawing to a close. Holmes advocates a solid foundation for the alliance, one that approaches a formal economic union. He lists key considerations for the construction of a new, effective relationship, including the growing impatience of Americans and Europeans with substantial U.S. military contingents in Europe, the changing nature of intra-European relations, and the need for a distribution of power more equitable than that of NATO.
Download or read book French Foreign Policy Since 1945 written by Fr Bozo and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part I. The era of frustration (1945-1958) -- France's difficult entry into the Cold War -- French powerlessness -- Part II. Challenging the status quo (1958-1969) -- Re-establishing France's "rank"--Challenging the established order -- The apogee of de Gaulle's grand policy -- Part III. Imanaging de Gaulle's legacy (1969-1981) -- Opting for continuity -- The education of a president -- Part IV. The end of the Cold War (1981-1995) -- New Cold War, new detente -- The end of "Yalta" -- Part V. France and globalization (1995-2015) -- In search of a multipolar world -- Charts
Download or read book The Rise and Decline of the American Empire written by Geir Lundestad and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rise and Decline of the American "Empire" explores the rapidly growing literature on the rise and fall of the United States. The author argues that after 1945 the US has definitely been the most dominant power the world has seen and that it has successfully met the challenges from, first, the Soviet Union and, then, Japan, and the European Union. Now, however, the United States is in decline: its vast military power is being challenged by asymmetrical wars, its economic growth is slow and its debt is rising rapidly, the political system is proving unable to meet these challenges in a satisfactory way. While the US is still likely to remain the world's leading power for the foreseeable future, it is being challenged by China, particularly economically, and also by several other regional Great Powers. The book also addresses the more theoretical question of what recent superpowers have been able to achieve and what they have not achieved. How could the United States be both the dominant power and at the same time suffer significant defeats? And how could the Soviet Union suddenly collapse? No power has ever been omnipotent. It cannot control events all around the world. The Soviet Union suffered from imperial overstretch; the traditional colonial empires suffered from a growing lack of legitimacy at the international, national, and local levels. The United States has been able to maintain its alliance system, but only in a much reformed way. If a small power simply insists on pursuing its own very different policies, there is normally little the United States and other Great Powers will do. Military intervention is an option that can be used only rarely and most often with strikingly limited results.
Download or read book The Senkaku Paradox written by Michael E. O'Hanlon and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America needs better options for resolving potential crises In recent years, the Pentagon has elevated its concerns about Russia and China as potential military threats to the United States and its allies. But what issues could provoke actual conflict between the United States and either country? And how could such a conflict be contained before it took the world to the brink of thermonuclear catastrophe, as was feared during the cold war? Defense expert Michael O'Hanlon wrestles with these questions in this insightful book, setting them within the broader context of hegemonic change and today's version of great-power competition. The book examines how a local crisis could escalate into a broader and much more dangerous threat to peace. What if, for example, Russia's “little green men” seized control of a community, like Narva or an even smaller town in Estonia, now a NATO ally? Or, what if China seized one of the uninhabited Senkaku islands now claimed and administered by Japan, or imposed a partial blockade of Taiwan? Such threats are not necessarily imminent, but they are far from inconceivable. Washington could be forced to choose, in these and similar cases, between risking major war to reverse the aggression, and appeasing China or Russia in ways that could jeopardize the broader global order. O'Hanlon argues that the United States needs a better range of options for dealing with such risks to peace. He advocates “integrated deterrence,” which combines military elements with economic warfare. The military components would feature strengthened forward defenses as well as, possibly, limited military options against Russian or Chinese assets in other theaters. Economic warfare would include offensive elements, notably sanctions, as well as measures to ensure the resilience of the United States and allies against possible enemy reprisal. The goal is to deter war through a credible set of responses that are more commensurate than existing policy with the stakes involved in such scenarios.
Download or read book The US Role in NATO s Survival After the Cold War written by Julie Garey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a new approach to answering the question of how NATO survived after the Cold War by examining its complex relationship with the United States. A closer look at major NATO engagements in the post-Cold War era, including in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, reveals how the US helped comprehensively reshape the alliance. In every conflict, there was tension between the United States and its allies over mission leadership, political support, legal precedents, military capabilities, and financial contributions. The author explores why allied actions resulted in both praise and criticism of NATO’s contributions from American policymakers, and why despite all of this and the growing concern over the alliance’s perceived shortcomings the United States continued to support the alliance. In addition to demonstrating the American influence on the alliance, this works demonstrates why NATO’s survival is beneficial to US interests.
Download or read book Liberty and Coercion written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the conflict between federal and state power has shaped American history American governance is burdened by a paradox. On the one hand, Americans don't want "big government" meddling in their lives; on the other hand, they have repeatedly enlisted governmental help to impose their views regarding marriage, abortion, religion, and schooling on their neighbors. These contradictory stances on the role of public power have paralyzed policymaking and generated rancorous disputes about government’s legitimate scope. How did we reach this political impasse? Historian Gary Gerstle, looking at two hundred years of U.S. history, argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in two contrasting theories of power that the Framers inscribed in the Constitution. One theory shaped the federal government, setting limits on its power in order to protect personal liberty. Another theory molded the states, authorizing them to go to extraordinary lengths, even to the point of violating individual rights, to advance the "good and welfare of the commonwealth." The Framers believed these theories could coexist comfortably, but conflict between the two has largely defined American history. Gerstle shows how national political leaders improvised brilliantly to stretch the power of the federal government beyond where it was meant to go—but at the cost of giving private interests and state governments too much sway over public policy. The states could be innovative, too. More impressive was their staying power. Only in the 1960s did the federal government, impelled by the Cold War and civil rights movement, definitively assert its primacy. But as the power of the central state expanded, its constitutional authority did not keep pace. Conservatives rebelled, making the battle over government’s proper dominion the defining issue of our time. From the Revolution to the Tea Party, and the Bill of Rights to the national security state, Liberty and Coercion is a revelatory account of the making and unmaking of government in America.
Download or read book International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-11-07 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict: Do the old methods still work? Are there new tools that could work better? How do old and new methods relate to each other? International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.
Download or read book People States and Fear written by Barry Buzan and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Western Europe s Democratic Age written by Martin Conway and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new history of how democracy became the dominant political force in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century What happened in the years following World War II to create a democratic revolution in the western half of Europe? In Western Europe's Democratic Age, Martin Conway provides an innovative new account of how a stable, durable, and remarkably uniform model of parliamentary democracy emerged in Western Europe—and how this democratic ascendancy held fast until the latter decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Conway describes how Western Europe's postwar democratic order was built by elite, intellectual, and popular forces. Much more than the consequence of the defeat of fascism and the rejection of Communism, this democratic order rested on universal male and female suffrage, but also on new forms of state authority and new political forces—primarily Christian and social democratic—that espoused democratic values. Above all, it gained the support of the people, for whom democracy provided a new model of citizenship that reflected the aspirations of a more prosperous society. This democratic order did not, however, endure. Its hierarchies of class, gender, and race, which initially gave it its strength, as well as the strains of decolonization and social change, led to an explosion of demands for greater democratic freedoms in the 1960s, and to the much more contested democratic politics of Europe in the late twentieth century. Western Europe's Democratic Age is a compelling history that sheds new light not only on the past of European democracy but also on the unresolved question of its future.
Download or read book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics Updated Edition written by John J. Mearsheimer and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2003-01-17 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A superb book.…Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers."—Barry R. Posen, The National Interest The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully? In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable.
