23. US decline or primacy? A debate

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Layne ◽  
William Wohlforth ◽  
Stephen G. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
External Driver ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
Us Decline

This chapter focuses on the debate over whether U.S. power is in decline and if so, what is the best grand strategy that the United States needs to pursue. Three leading experts offer their views on the issue and its significance for U.S. foreign policy: Christopher Layne, William Wohlforth, and Steven Brooks. Layne argues that the United States is now in inexorable decline and attributes it to the end of unipolarity. He identifies two specific drivers of American decline, one external and one domestic. The external driver of U.S. decline is the emergence of new great powers in world politics, while domestic drivers include debt, deficits, and the dollar’s uncertain future. In contrast, Wohlforth and Brooks assert that the United States remains the sole superpower, and that multipolarity is not just around the corner.

Grand Strategy in 10 Words

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Biscop
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Key Terms

This book introduces ten key terms for analysing grand strategy and shows how the world's great powers - the United States, China, Russia and the European Union (EU) - shape their strategic decisions today and shows how the choices made will determine the course of world politics in the first half of the 21st century.

US grand strategy after the Cold War: Can realism explain it? Should realism guide it?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M Walt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Elites

This article uses realism to explain past US grand strategy and prescribe what it should be today. Throughout its history, the United States has generally acted as realism depicts. The end of the Cold War reduced the structural constraints that states normally face in anarchy, and a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy elites attempted to use this favorable position to expand the US-led ‘liberal world order’. Their efforts mostly failed, however, and the United States should now return to a more realistic strategy – offshore balancing – that served it well in the past. Washington should rely on local allies to uphold the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East and focus on leading a balancing coalition in Asia. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump lacks the knowledge, competence, and character to pursue this sensible course, and his cavalier approach to foreign policy is likely to damage America’s international position significantly.

Megaregions and Coevolution in World Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Robert R. Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Global Leadership ◽  
Hierarchical Network ◽  
Sharp Turn ◽  
Traditional Assumption ◽  
At Home

The rise of the New Silk Road is generating fierce debates over the emergence of new megaregions and their role in reshaping world politics. Chinese writers are avid consumers of and contributors to these discussions both at home and internationally. China’s growing interest in megaregional integration accompanied a sharp turn in foreign policy—from a defensive posture that feared provoking war with the United States toward a bold campaign to assert global leadership, economically and diplomatically. Gradually, Chinese leaders are beginning to realize that all of the emerging megaregions are developing lives of their own that cannot be directed by a hierarchical network centered in Beijing. This realization is forcing China’s policymakers to reconsider their traditional assumption that sovereignty belongs only to formal governments and the elites that control them rather than to the all of the citizens who comprise the national communities.

The Far Eastern Commission

1948 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel S. Stratton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Far Eastern

Shortly before he left the State Department in the summer of 1947, Undersecretary Dean Acheson summarized the main objectives of American foreign policy during his term in office. These, he said, had been principally two. One was to “establish the unity and mutual confidence and cooperation of the great powers.” The other, he said, was to “create international organizations necessarily based on the assumption of this unity and cooperation, in which all nations could together guarantee both freedom from aggression and the opportunity for both the devastated and undeveloped countries to gain and expand their productivity under institutions of their own free choice.''x Following out this policy, the United States has helped to create and has participated in an impressive number of international organizations. Some, like the United Nations and its affiliates, are directed mainly to the continuing task of building and maintaining a secure peacetime order among nations. Others, like the Allied control bodies in former enemy countries, have the more temporary job of filling in the gap of leadership until peace treaties have been signed.

Thucydides and hegemony: Athens and the United States

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ned Lebow ◽  
Robert Kelly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World

Fifth century Greeks distinguished between hegemonia (legitimated leadership) and arkhe (control). Thucydides employed this distinction to track the changing nature of the Athenian Empire during the Peloponnesian War, and the ways in which a diminishing concern for balancing self-interest against justice corroded Athenian authority, made survival of the empire increasingly problematic and encouraged the disastrous expedition to Sicily. The Melian Dialogue—often cited by realists to justify a power-based approach to foreign policy—is intended to symbolize this decay. Building on our analysis of Thucydides, we examine the British, Soviet and American experiences with hegemony. A striking feature of the contemporary American situation is the extent to which American leaders claim hegemonia but deny any interest in arkhe. Rightly or wrongly, much of the rest of the world has the reverse perception. This seeming contradiction has important implications for US foreign policy and world politics more generally.

scholarly journals Important contribution to Russian Latin American studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Anatoly Borovkov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Latin American Studies ◽  
The Government

The book examines the main trends in Mexico's international activities in the first two decades of the XXI century, as well as the leading trends in its socio-political development. The author tried to show that Mexico is more and more actively involved in solving the main problems of world politics, where it emphatically takes independent positions. Mexico's relations with the United States, with the countries of Latin America, with China and Spain, as well as the prospects for expanding ties with Russia are analyzed, Mexico's position in the UN is shown and the prospects for the development of its foreign policy under the government of Lopez Obrador.

scholarly journals Retrospective of using the US universities and the Foreign Policy Association as elements of public diplomacy in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-291
Author(s):  
Alexey Vitalievich Danilov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Information Support ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
The Creation

The article covers the period of implemetation of the leading US universities and the Foreign Policy Association as elements of US public diplomacy wchich their impact in economic, political and cultural influence all over the world. The author methodically and consistently cites analytical, historical facts proving an indirect and direct impact on the foreign policy of countries. The relevance of the article is due to the high significance and influence of non-state actors on world politics nowdays. The author points out that the political course of the leadership of the United States from the second half of the 20th century was focused on more active inclusion of the country in international politics and the rejection of isolationism, which was primarily reflected in the departure from the postulates of the Monroe Doctrine and the entry of the United States into the First World War. This, in turn, had a great influence on the development of public diplomacy in the United States as a tool to promote the interests of the country, the creation of the necessary information support for foreign policy actions of the state, as well as a favorable image of the United States in other countries. Thus it required the active involvement of the leading US universities in US public diplomacy, as well as the creation of new non-state institutions.

scholarly journals Formation of the Chinese School of International Relations: Analytical Approaches and Research Methods

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-200
Author(s):  
Evgeny Nikolayevich Grachikov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
World Community ◽  
Chinese School ◽  
Analytical Approaches

In 1987, the first All-China Conference of international scholars took place in Shanghai, which is associated with the beginning of the process of creating the Chinese School of International Relations. Over these decades, a vast array of scientific literature has accumulated, exploring the interaction China with other countries and world community. The article is devoted to the study of analytical approaches prevailing in the Chinese academic environment in the study of foreign policy and world politics of the PRC, and specifically, in relation to the United States. Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and openness” policy contributed to the revival of the discipline of “international relations” and the intensification of international research in academic institutions and universities in China. A deep and systemic influence on these processes was exerted by several factors: uncritical borrowing of western international political knowledge, full-scale training of Chinese scholars in Western, mainly American, universities, and the translation into Chinese of most theoretical works of Western scientists. Methodological tools which include the analytical approaches used by Chinese scientists are taken from publications on realism, liberalism and constructivism. In realism, the emphasis is done on the balance of power, which is investigated in the framework of foreign policy analysis. The interdependence of China and the United States, primarily economic, the subject of study from the point of view of neoliberalism. The socialization and involvement of China in the world community and the liberal world order led by the United States are constructivist studies of bilateral relations. Yan Xuetong’s “theory of moral realism”, Qin Yaqing’s “theory of relations”, the Shanghai school’s “international symbiosis”, and Tan Shiping’s “social evolution of world politics” did not go beyond these paradigms, but are already used as their own innovative methods in a study of China’s relations with external actors. The article pays special attention to the dual identity of the Chinese state, as a developing country and a global power, which is publicly voiced by its representatives. This duality imposes regulatory restrictions on the use of analytical tools and, of course, affects the results of research.

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