Reviews of Books:Native American Power in the United States, 1783-1795 Celia Barnes

2004 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 1224-1225
Author(s):  
Eric Hinderaker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Power

The Unquiet Frontier

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub J. Grygiel ◽  
A. Wess Mitchell ◽  
Jakub J. Grygiel ◽  
A. Wess Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Global Order ◽  
American Power ◽  
Alliance Networks ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Critical Regions

From the Baltic to the South China Sea, newly assertive authoritarian states sense an opportunity to resurrect old empires or build new ones at America's expense. Hoping that U.S. decline is real, nations such as Russia, Iran, and China are testing Washington's resolve by targeting vulnerable allies at the frontiers of American power. This book explains why the United States needs a new grand strategy that uses strong frontier alliance networks to raise the costs of military aggression in the new century. The book describes the aggressive methods which rival nations are using to test American power in strategically critical regions throughout the world. It shows how rising and revisionist powers are putting pressure on our frontier allies—countries like Poland, Israel, and Taiwan—to gauge our leaders' commitment to upholding the American-led global order. To cope with these dangerous dynamics, nervous U.S. allies are diversifying their national-security “menu cards” by beefing up their militaries or even aligning with their aggressors. The book reveals how numerous would-be great powers use an arsenal of asymmetric techniques to probe and sift American strength across several regions simultaneously, and how rivals and allies alike are learning from America's management of increasingly interlinked global crises to hone effective strategies of their own. The book demonstrates why the United States must strengthen the international order that has provided greater benefits to the world than any in history.

Wheat Breeding and the Exercise of American Power, 1940-1970

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Perkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Wheat Breeding ◽  
Agricultural Science ◽  
World War ◽  
American Power ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Natural Resource Base

American power at the end of World War II was paramount. The usual image of this might, however, is formed more by the array of military and industrial components of American culture than by something as seemingly mundane as wheat breeding. Nuclear-tipped missiles, airplane and tank factories, engineering prowess, and motivated soldiers are more generally assumed to be the components of military strength, not scientists patiently crossing one strain of wheat with another and searching through the progeny for a better variety. In the direct exercise of military power, of course, the weapon systems and soldiers are the most important elements of power. Armies, however, exist only on the foundation of food supplies that are adequate for both the military personnel and their civilian support force. American strategists in both world wars were acutely aware of the role of agriculture in the projection of military might, and they considerably amplified agriculture’s importance in the aftermath of World War II. Specifically, through a variety of public and private initiatives, wheat breeding and other lines of agricultural science became an integral part of postwar American strategic planning. Put somewhat differently, after 1945, wheat breeding by American scientists became more than just an exercise in the modernization of agriculture. Old motivations for seeking new varieties did not disappear, but new motivations arose to justify expenditures. In addition, American scientists came to do their work not only in the United States for American farmers but overseas for foreign governments. Wheat breeding acquired ideological dimensions more elaborate than simply “the promo tion of progress.” Instead, wheat breeding and other agricultural science became part of the “battle for freedom.” In the process, many countries moved to new relationships with each other and with their own natural resource base. How did wheat breeding get caught up with strategic and national security considerations? It is necessary to follow a somewhat convoluted trail to answer this question, and the story can begin with the status of the United States after the collapse of Germany and Japan in 1945.

“New Cold Wars Have Begun”

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
American Power ◽  
Tiananmen Square ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 3 uses Party texts to explore China’s changing view of the United States at the end of the Cold War and the ends, ways, and means of its subsequent grand strategy to blunt American power. It demonstrates how China went from seeing the United States as a quasi-ally against the Soviet Union to seeing it as China’s greatest threat and “main adversary” in the wake of three events: the traumatic trifecta of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Gulf War, and the Soviet collapse. It traces how Beijing launched its blunting strategy under the Party guideline of “hiding capabilities and biding time,” which it tied to perceptions of US power captured in phrases like the “international balance of forces” and “multipolarity.” The chapter also introduces China’s effort to asymmetrically weaken American power in Asia across military, economic, and political instruments, which are discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters.

Instrumental Internationalism: The American Origins of the United Nations, 1940–3

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wertheim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Fast Moving ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
American Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Indispensable Tool

Why did the United States want to create the United Nations Organization, or any international political organization with universal membership? This question has received superficial historiographical attention, despite ample scrutiny of the conferences that directly established the UN in 1944 and 1945. The answer lies earlier in the war, from 1940 to 1942, when, under the pressure of fast-moving events, American officials and intellectuals decided their country must not only enter the war but also lead the world long afterwards. International political organization gained popularity – first among unofficial postwar planners in 1941 and then among State Department planners in 1942 – because it appeared to be an indispensable tool for implementing postwar US world leadership, for projecting and in no way constraining American power. US officials believed the new organization would legitimate world leadership in the eyes of the American public by symbolizing the culmination of prior internationalist efforts to end power politics, even as they based the design of the UN on a thoroughgoing critique of the League, precisely for assuming that power politics could be transcended.

scholarly journals The Secret Life of Statutes: A Century of the Trading with the Enemy Act

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Coates
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
The United States ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
American Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
National Emergency ◽  
American State

In 1917 Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act to prevent trade with Germany and the Central Powers. It was a wartime law designed for wartime conditions but one that, over the course of the following century, took on a secret, surprising life of its own. Eventually it became the basis for a project of worldwide economic sanctions applied by the United States at the discretion of the president during times of both war and peace. This article traces the history of the law in order to explore how the expansion of American power in the twentieth century required a transformation of the American state and the extensive use of executive powers justified by repeated declarations of national emergency.

Occupational Engagement and Partisanship in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992093212
Author(s):  
Darin DeWitt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Elite ◽  
Occupational Engagement ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
American Power ◽  
Shed Light

In this article, I present a portrait of the American power elite and their relationship with the party system. I focus on occupational categories as institutional positions and take up three questions: Which occupational categories wield social influence? How politically mobilized is each of these occupational categories? And what partisan tilt is exhibited by each category? My results help clarify the contemporary structure of American electoral competition. Furthermore, they also shed light on which social groups have a voice in American politics and, thus, speak to questions of political equality.

Re-evaluating the Washington Loan Agreement: a revisionist view of the limits of postwar American power

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Burnham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Power ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Financial Agreement ◽  
Client State

The Financial Agreement signed between the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom on the 6th December 1945 (popularly known as the Washington Loan Agreement, and hereafter referred to as ‘the Agreement’) is widely interpreted as an agreement which imposed fundamental constraints on British external economic policy and is even seen as a benchmark in postwar international relations signalling the subordination of Britain to the level almost of a client state of the United States.

Conclusion

After Victory ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 257-274
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Power ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The Cold War

This concluding chapter evaluates the implications that emerge from this book's theoretical and historical analysis for American foreign policy. The United States begins a new century as an unrivaled global power. American foreign policy makers need to be reminded what characteristics of the postwar order have made American power reasonably acceptable to other states and peoples during and after the Cold War. American power is not only unprecedented in its preponderance, but it is also unprecedented in the way it is manifest within and through institutions. This helps explain why it has been so durable. If American policy makers want to perpetuate America's preeminent position, they will need to continue to find ways to operate within international institutions, and by so doing restrain that power and make it acceptable to other states.

“Demonstrate Benign Intentions”

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-133
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
American Power ◽  
Regional Institutions ◽  
Institutional Rules ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 5 considers the political and multilateral components of China’s grand strategy to blunt American power in Asia. It demonstrates that the “traumatic trifecta” at the end of the Cold War led China to reverse its previous opposition to joining regional institutions. Beijing feared Asian regional forums might be used by Washington to build liberal regional order or even an Asian NATO, so China joined them to blunt American power. It stalled institutionalization in regional organizations that included the United States; wielded institutional rules to constrain US freedom of maneuver; and hoped its own participation would reassure wary neighbors otherwise tempted to join a US-led balancing coalition. China also worked with Russia to erect regional institutions in Central Asia to guard against US influence within the region.

4. The American century?

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Andrew Preston
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
American Power ◽  
American Century ◽  
The World

Despite rejecting the internationalist marriage Woodrow Wilson had arranged for it with the world, America was still the strongest state in the international system. ‘The American century?’ explains how the myth of isolationism emerged in this period, and why it was so powerful. The Depression did more damage to America’s role in the world than anything in the decades before it, yet in the late 1930s Franklin D. Roosevelt began rebuilding the structures of American power. Thanks to Roosevelt, during World War II the United States transitioned from a major, but often peripheral actor on the world scene, to one of the most powerful states the world has ever seen.

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