Fareed Zakaria: The Post-American World
Hardcover: 292 pages
Publisher: Allen Lane 2008
"I don't believe that war has become obsolete or any such foolishness. Human nature remains what it is and international politics what it is." p. 9-10
Fareed Zakaria could well be the next Henry Kissinger-like theorist-turned-practitioner in American foreign policy. Zakaria's robust academic work combined with his journalistic vision in seeing the relevant makes his ideas very attractive. Zakaria is very much a realist studying the overall distribution of power in the international system but he is also very much in sync with global cultural trends.
The Post-American World is a book about the eventual relative decline of the United States vis a vis the other great powers. Actually it is not so much a book about America as it is about the "rise of the rest". China and India will be the new trendsetter-players in a multipolar and economically highly interconnected international-political arena.
"Over the last fifteen years, the United States has placed sanctions on half the world's population. We are the only country in the world to issue annual report cards on every other country's behavior." p. 47
"Legitimacy is power. The United States has every kind of power in ample supply these days except one: legitimacy. In today's world, this is a critical deficiency." p. 247
"In an increasingly empowered and democratized world, in the long run, the battle of ideas is close to everything." p. 248
Check out: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/
Second Opinion: Michiko Kakutani / The New York Times
¶ 9/26/2008 10:50:00 ip.
Rebecca Moore: NATO's New Mission - Projecting Stability in a Post-Cold War World
Hardcover: 210 pages
Publisher: Praeger Security 2007
Rebecca Moore's book is a concise and informative account of the transformation of NATO since the end of the Cold War. NATO's military mission of deterring the Soviet totalitarian threat has changed into a political mission of extending liberal democratic values.
The story of NATO after 1990 and the disapperance of the Soviet threat, as narrated by Moore, is a convincing criticism against political realism. Mearsheimer et co. who argued against NATO enlargement and viewed it as useless predicted the return of instability and great power rivalry in Western Europe. What in reality happened was that the peace zone was extended towards East. Now the European Civil Space encompasses former Soviet satellites in Europe that is increasingly becoming "whole and free".
NATO transformed itself from a military balance of power tool designed to sustain the status quo into an political apparatus designed to create a liberal democratic security order. Only time will tell whether NATO will develop into a global alliance of democratic states. Moore quotes more than once Javier Solana's insight: "Security... is what we make of it."
Second Opinion: Patrick Stephenson / NATO Review
¶ 9/11/2008 05:01:00 ip.
