The Geopolitics Of Super Power

What is Soviet-American competition all about? Is the Soviet Union a security problem that the United States must solve? Or is it an insecurity condition with which the U.S. must learn to live—and if so, on what terms? What kind of a player is the United States in the great game of power politics? In The Geopolitics of Super Power, one of our most respected strategic theorists answers these and other questions. In geopolitical terms, Colin Gray sees the Soviet-American antagonism as an enduring contest between a continental empire and a maritime coalition, each with its distinctive character and purposes. Gray explores the roots of the American style in foreign policy and strategy, and how that style relates to defense options. He identifies four broad alternatives for U.S. national security policy: passive and active means of containment, disengagement from foreign security commitments, and the "rollback" of the Soviet empire. Gray argues vigorously for active containment, for the systematic deemphasis of nuclear weapons, and for the intelligent use, for deterrence and defense purposes, of the West's great competitive strengths in the political, economic, and technological spheres.

Reassesses the history and operation of post-war global politics, presenting a new and satisfying explanation of how international relations and strategy work. Contains a theoretical perspective on superpowers in the international system, an original researched investigation of how superpower relations ended during the Cold War and explores current geopolitical change along with the future and adjustment of the U.S. to the new world order.

In 2014's The Accidental Superpower, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan made the case that geographic, demographic and energy trends were unravelling the global system. Zeihan takes the story a step further in The Absent Superpower, mapping out the threats and opportunities as the world descends into Disorder.

In the bestselling tradition of The World Is Flat and The Next 100 Years, THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER will be a much discussed, contrarian, and eye-opening assessment of American power. Near the end of the Second World War, the United States made a bold strategic gambit that rewired the international system. Empires were abolished and replaced by a global arrangement enforced by the U.S. Navy. With all the world's oceans safe for the first time in history, markets and resources were made available for everyone. Enemies became partners. We think of this system as normal-it is not. We live in an artificial world on borrowed time. In THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the planet is aging into a mass retirement that will enervate markets and capital supplies; and how, against all odds, it is the ever-ravenous American economy that-alone among the developed nations-is rapidly approaching energy independence. Combined, these factors are doing nothing less than overturning the global system and ushering in a new (dis)order. For most, that is a disaster-in-waiting, but not for the Americans. The shale revolution allows Americans to sidestep an increasingly dangerous energy market. Only the United States boasts a youth population large enough to escape the sucking maw of global aging. Most important, geography will matter more than ever in a de-globalizing world, and America's geography is simply sublime.

This global history as the Chinese would write it gives brilliant and unconventional insights for understanding China's role in the world, especially the drive to "Make China Great Again." We in the West routinely ask: "What does China want?" The answer is quite simple: the superpower status it always had, but briefly lost. In this colorful, informative story filled with fascinating characters, epic battles, influential thinkers, and decisive moments, we come to understand how the Chinese view their own history and how its narrative is distinctly different from that of Western civilization. More important, we come to see how this unique Chinese history of the world shapes China's economic policy, attitude toward the United States and the rest of the world, relations with its neighbors, positions on democracy and human rights, and notions of good government. As the Chinese see it, for as far back as anyone can remember, China had the richest economy, the strongest military, and the most advanced philosophy, culture, and technology. The collision with the West knocked China's historical narrative off course for the first time, as its 5,000-year reign as an unrivaled superpower came to an ignominious end. Ever since, the Chinese have licked their wounds and fixated on returning their country to its former greatness, restoring the Chinese version of its place in the world as they had always known it. For the Chinese, the question was never if they could reclaim their former dominant position in the world, but when.

From a brilliant Brookings Institution expert, an “important” (The Wall Street Journal) and “penetrating historical and political study” (Nature) of the critical role that oceans play in the daily struggle for global power, in the bestselling tradition of Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography. For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for supremacy. But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent serving as the primary modes of commercial transit. All that has changed, as nine-tenths of global commerce and the bulk of energy trade is today linked to sea-based flows. A brightly painted forty-foot steel shipping container loaded in Asia with twenty tons of goods may arrive literally anywhere else in the world; how that really happens and who actually profits from it show that the struggle for power on the seas is a critical issue today. Now, in vivid, closely observed prose, Bruce Jones conducts us on a fascinating voyage through the great modern ports and naval bases—from the vast container ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai to the vital naval base of the American Seventh Fleet in Hawaii to the sophisticated security arrangements in the Port of New York. Along the way, the book illustrates how global commerce works, that we are amidst a global naval arms race, and why the oceans are so crucial to America’s standing going forward. As Jones reveals, the three great geopolitical struggles of our time—for military power, for economic dominance, and over our changing climate—are playing out atop, within, and below the world’s oceans. The essential question, he shows, is this: who will rule the waves and set the terms of the world to come?

America will remain the world's only superpower for the foreseeable future. But what sort of superpower? What role should America play in the world? What role do you want America to play? Ian Bremmer argues that Washington's directionless foreign policy has become prohibitively expensive and increasingly dangerous. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policymakers have stumbled from crisis to crisis in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine without a clear strategy. Ordinary Americans too often base their foreign policy choices on allegiance or opposition to the party in power. We can no longer afford this complacency, especially now that both parties are deeply divided about America's role in the world. The next presidential election could easily pit an interventionist Democrat against an isolationist Republican--or the exact opposite. As 2016 rapidly approaches, Bremmer urges every American to think more deeply about what sort of country America should be and how it should use its superpower status. He explores three options: Independent America asserts that it's time for America to declare independence from the responsibility to solve other people's problems. Instead, Americans should lead by example--in part, by investing in the country's vast untapped potential. Moneyball America acknowledges that Washington can't meet every international challenge. With a clear-eyed assessment of U.S. strengths and limitations, we must look beyond empty arguments over exceptionalism and American values. The priorities must be to focus on opportunities and to defend U.S. interests where they're threatened. Indispensable America argues that only America can defend the values on which global stability increasingly depends. In today's interdependent, hyperconnected world, a turn inward would undermine America's own security and prosperity. We will never live in a stable world while others are denied their most basic freedoms--from China to Russia to the Middle East and beyond. There are sound arguments for and against each of these choices, but we must choose. Washington can no longer improvise a foreign policy without a lasting commitment to a coherent strategy. As Bremmer notes, "When I began writing this book, I didn't know which of these three choices I would favor. It's easy to be swayed by pundits and politicians with a story to sell or an ax to grind. My attempt to make the most honest and forceful case I could make for each of these three arguments helped me understand what I believe and why I believe it. I hope it will do the same for you. I don't ask you to agree with me. I ask only that you choose."