The Myth Of Americas Decline Politics Economics And A Half Century Of False Prophecies

"While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a ... German commentator and Stanford University academic, [proposes] that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets ... Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe [posits that] 'economic miracles' that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly confined to Europe alone, Declinism has also been an especially nifty career builder for American politicians, among them Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, who all rode into the White House by hawking 'the end is near'"--Dust jacket flap.

This volume critiques contemporary power trends by examining key bilateral dynamics between five putative ‘poles’ of the multipolar order in the twenty-first century. Written by emerging scholars and established academics, this work provides a timely and authoritative analysis of one of the most controversial and compelling security debates of the twenty-first century. Adopting a detailed case study approach, the volume examines contemporary great power relations between the US, China, Russia, India and the EU. Each chapter explores the essential nature and characteristics of individual inter-state relationships in order to explicate and appraise the empirical evidence for a putative multipolar order. The volume aims to deepen understanding of power trends and critically assess the individual inter-dynamics at play. In doing so, it critiques the various models offered, such as the hub and spoke model (with the US remaining as the primary actor) and Zakaria’s ‘networked’ model, as part of a purported ‘post-American world’. The work places each of the individual relationships into a wider strategic and political context, in relation to the continued international turbulence and change that has seemed even more prominent in recent times, taking into account the twin challenges of Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump. It concludes by returning the focus to the central questions of if, how and when a post-American, multipolar world could develop. This volume will be of much interest to students of global security, foreign policy, and IR in general.

Starting from the key concept of geo-economics, this book investigates the new power politics and argues that the changing structural features of the contemporary international system are recasting the strategic imperatives of foreign policy practice. States increasingly practice power politics by economic means. Whether it is about Iran’s nuclear programme or Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Western states prefer economic sanctions to military force. Most rising powers have also become cunning agents of economic statecraft. China, for instance, is using finance, investment and trade as means to gain strategic influence and embed its global rise. Yet the way states use economic power to pursue strategic aims remains an understudied topic in International Political Economy and International Relations. The contributions to this volume assess geo-economics as a form of power politics. They show how power and security are no longer simply coupled to the physical control of territory by military means, but also to commanding and manipulating the economic binds that are decisive in today’s globalised and highly interconnected world. Indeed, as the volume shows, the ability to wield economic power forms an essential means in the foreign policies of major powers. In so doing, the book challenges simplistic accounts of a return to traditional, military-driven geopolitics, while not succumbing to any unfounded idealism based on the supposedly stabilising effects of interdependence on international relations. As such, it advances our understanding of geo-economics as a strategic practice and as an innovative and timely analytical approach. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, international political economy, foreign policy and International Relations in general.

Much like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, President Barack Obama came to office as a politician who emphasized conviction rather than consensus. During his 2008 presidential campaign, he pledged to transform the role of the United States abroad. His ambitious foreign policy goals included a global climate treaty, the peaceful withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a new relationship with Iran. Throughout Obama's tenure, pundits and scholars have offered competing interpretations of his "grand strategy," while others have maintained that his policies were incoherent or, at best, ad hoc. In Dangerous Doctrine, political scientist Robert G. Kaufman argues that the forty-fourth president has indeed articulated a clear, consistent national security policy and has pursued it with remarkable fidelity. Yet Kaufman contends that President Obama has imprudently abandoned the muscular internationalism that has marked US foreign policy since the end of World War II. Drawing on international relations theory and American diplomatic history, Kaufman presents a robust critique of the Obama doctrine as he situates the president's use of power within the traditions of American strategic practice. Focusing on the pivotal regions of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, this provocative study demonstrates how current executive branch leadership threatens America's role as a superpower, weakening its ability to spread democracy and counter threats to geopolitical order in increasingly unstable times. Kaufman proposes a return to the grand strategy of moral democratic realism, as practiced by presidents such as Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, with the hope of reestablishing the United States as the world's dominant power.

Critical and connected: brings together diverse political perspectives from the world's leading experts, giving students the tools to critically evaluate America's ever-changing role in international politics and to connect theory to real events.

This book is a critique of claims regarding how emerging economies are supposedly rewriting the rules of global governance and ushering in alternative models to neoliberal orthodoxy. It argues that such assumptions are abstractions that ignore both the transnationalizing nature of the global political economy and the actual policy goals of the ruling classes within most emerging economies. Considering the larger issues behind the emerging economies (or powers) debate, the book deploys an adapted global capitalism perspective with insights from Gramsci, Poulantzas and Cox, to argue that the transnational nature of the global political economy and the actual policy goals of the dominant elites within most emerging economies merge to undermine any transformative element. Far from challenging the global order, these ostensible new rivals in fact seek to integrate their economies more and more within the existing liberal global economy. Inter-state dynamics and even inter-elite tensions exist and it is clear that the nation state has not simply become a transmission belt for global capital, but equally we must move beyond the surface phenomena that are most visible in global tensions to get at the underlying essence of social and class forces in the global political economy. Looking at the largest emerging powers, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, Taylor explains why the emerging powers’ elites, although essentially subscribing to neoliberalism (in all its variegated forms) may confront the core in a myriad of ways, but that these are not challenges to the ongoing world order and, in fact, the so-called emerging powers serve a legitimizing function for the extant global system. The book will be of great use to graduates and scholars of International Relations, Global/International Political Economy and International Development.

The World Today Series: USA and The World describes not only what happened, but puts events in the context of the past and criticizes policy actions as appropriate. The result goes deeper than most of what appears in current publications. Updated annually and part of the renowned “World Today Series,” USA and the World presents an unusually penetrating look into America and its relationship to the rest of the world. The combination of factual accuracy and up-to-date detail along with its informed projections make this an outstanding resource for researchers, practitioners in international development, media professionals, government officials, potential investors and students. Now in its 17th edition, the content is thorough yet perfect for a one-semester introductory course or general library reference.

“Wise counsel for a constructive, tough-minded, and sensible foreign policy. Read and learn.” —GEORGE SHULTZ, U.S. Secretary of State, 1982–1989 The world is tipping into chaos. Why? In this acclaimed and influential book, Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Bret Stephens shows how the retreat of American power, orchestrated by Barack Obama, has created the power vacuums now being filled by our enemies. From Vladimir Putin’s quest to restore the old czarist empire, to China’s efforts to dominate the South China Sea, to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to ISIS’s dreams of an Islamic caliphate, we have entered an era in which our foes no longer fear us and our friends no longer trust us. With his stylistic flair and analytical brilliance, Stephens explains the ideological roots of Obama’s suspicions of American power. He demonstrates how a false belief in Ameri­can decline has led to a disastrous prescription of retreat, as if the cure for domestic weak­ness is international weakness. In a prophetic chapter, he warns of what the world could look like in 2019 if we do not change course. And he lays out the right formula for U.S. foreign policy—the same formula that brought order to our once crime-ridden streets. America in Retreat is shaping the greatest foreign policy debate of our decade.

How the bipartisan partnership of President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg revolutionized America’s foreign policy and set the course for America’s global leadership through the Cold War and beyond.

The World Today Series: USA and The World describes not only what happened, but puts events in the context of the past and criticizes policy actions as appropriate. The result goes deeper than most of what appears in current publications. Updated annually and part of the renowned “World Today Series,” USA and the World presents an unusually penetrating look into America and its relationship to the rest of the world. The combination of factual accuracy and up-to-date detail along with its informed projections make this an outstanding resource for researchers, practitioners in international development, media professionals, government officials, potential investors and students. Now in its 19th edition, the content is thorough yet perfect for a one-semester introductory course or general library reference.