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All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the Twenty-First Century and the Future of American Power
A groundbreaking look at the future of great power competition in an age of globalization and what the United States can do in response
The two decades after the Cold War saw unprecedented cooperation between the major powers as the world converged on a model of liberal international order. Now, great power competition is back and the liberal order is in jeopardy. Russia and China are increasingly revisionist in their regions. The Middle East appears to be unraveling. And many Americans question why the United States ought to lead. What will great power competition look like in the decades ahead? Will the liberal world order survive? What impact will geopolitics have on globalization? And, what strategy should the United States pursue to succeed in an increasingly competitive world? In this book Thomas Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other. Wright outlines a new American strategy—Responsible Competition—to navigate these challenges and strengthen the liberal order.
The two decades after the Cold War saw unprecedented cooperation between the major powers as the world converged on a model of liberal international order. Now, great power competition is back and the liberal order is in jeopardy. Russia and China are increasingly revisionist in their regions. The Middle East appears to be unraveling. And many Americans question why the United States ought to lead. What will great power competition look like in the decades ahead? Will the liberal world order survive? What impact will geopolitics have on globalization? And, what strategy should the United States pursue to succeed in an increasingly competitive world? In this book Thomas Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other. Wright outlines a new American strategy—Responsible Competition—to navigate these challenges and strengthen the liberal order.
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 23, 2017
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July 25, 2017
Since World War II the United States has invested considerable effort in promoting a system of alliances and shared political and economic norms around the world. This system is what we collectively refer to as the international liberal order and it has governed a growing sphere of the world over the past few decades. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberal order became the only game left in town and soon encompassed almost every country on earth. Those countries that sought to revise its terms (often by trying to physically redraw borders) found themselves without much leeway to operate, as they were confronted by both the United States and its many allies who have become invested in upholding the status quo.
The premise of this book is that the United States has declined in absolute power over the past several years. The liberal order that it constructed in the 20th century is under pressure from three revisionist powers of varying strength: China, Russia and Iran. The United States own failures, most notably the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis, have also undermined its will and ability to uphold the liberal order and to protect it from external threats. As U.S. power has decreased, the U.S. public has also come to believe that their government is incompetent at promoting positive change in the world. For many people, it is no longer obvious that the liberal order is even worth the continued cost of protecting. These shifting sentiments are most clearly evinced by the recent election of an isolationist U.S. president who has made no secret about his wish to dismantle the prevailing system, in what would be a truly revolutionary change from post-World War II U.S. policy.
Wright's argument in the book is that the liberal order is indeed important to U.S. core interests and is worthy of protecting. Free trade and liberal human rights norms are popular around the world and upholding them adds to American prosperity and prestige. Most importantly, the current replacements on offer for the liberal order are not great, and attempts at a mercantilist economic policy and “realist” foreign policy are likely to mean immiserating trade wars at home and collapsing human rights standards abroad. While the status quo is far from perfect and is often hypocritical, there is no obvious alternative, as there may have been in the past. What is on offer is a “spheres of influence” arrangement of the world, dividing it into Russian, Iranian and Chinese fiefdoms, something which would likely be a recipe for more conflict rather than less. In many ways some of the pressures the liberal order is now experiencing, particularly in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, are the inevitable outcome of the growing power of countries like China, Russia and Iran, which were never going to remain poor and passive forever. While none of these powers are strong enough to replace the liberal order globally, they are all able to degrade it at a regional level to the point that the broader system might be called into question. Given that the international order is itself a sum of its parts, even small breaks against it in places like Ukraine and the South China Sea could have serious implications.
Wright accepts the premise of a more competitive world, although he argues that it will be one that is necessarily less stable than unipolarity. He recommends that the United States stays engaged internationally and works to find mutually acceptable new equilibriums in various regions. Some level of conflict will be inevitable with countries that are committed to revisionism, but instead of large-scale war between powers he predicts that conflict will happen through the leveraging of points of shared economic, technological and political connectivity. These types of connectivity-wars are themselves made possible by the unprecedented globalization of the past few decades. During the Cold War the United States and Russia were poorly connected and did little trade. Today Russia relies on the United States for its global financial infrastructure and the United States and Europe rely to varying degrees on Russia for its natural gas supplies. Instead of firing nuclear weapons at enemy cities, a lose-lose proposition, countries will look to analyze their existing relationships with one and other and find pressure points, be they economic sanctions or hacking, as a way of improving their competitive positions. If the cost to the other party is deemed greater than the loss to oneself, steps may be taken to use these relationships as a form of coercion in a situation of conflict.
In Wright's view, the great strength and resilience of the liberal order comes from the fact that it is generally accepted and viewed as a positive force by most countries around the world. While other forms of "imperialism" have caused people to chafe in the past, the values embodied in the liberal internationalist model, including trade and democracy, have been broadly attractive and have led other countries to serve as force multipliers for U.S. interests. The liberal principle of territorial non-aggression has been particularly kind to smaller states, as it has protected them from being consumed by predatory larger neighbors. The genuine popularity of the liberal system, particularly human and democratic rights norms, is an important point worthy of engaging with. But I would argue that the positive aspects of the international system have also been distributed unevenly. The imposition of an unpopular regional order on the Middle East, an order that did not have the support or consent of the local people, helped doom that region to perpetual conflict, including direct conflict with the United States itself. The ultimate collapse of that regional order is still playing out, and has served as an important counterpoint for Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and other revisionist leaders in their critiques of liberal internationalism. To his credit, Wright concedes that the liberal system was always weakest in the Middle East. I would add that the long-running dispute over the partition of Palestine was one of the key aggravators that led to its dissolution in that region, though he doesn’t mention this specifically.
The book concludes with a brief discussion of the newly-elected elephant in the room: President Donald Trump. President Trump has been a consistent, if inarticulate, opponent of the international system and his presidency is likely to lead to a weakening of the system as a whole. This leads to an important inflection point for the U.S-built order. The greatest test of any form of imperialism is whether it can survive the demise of its original creator. The Islamic empire survived the demise of the Arab caliphate and was taken up with equal vigor by Turks, Persians, Indians and sub-Saharan Africans. If the liberal system survives America's own exit and is championed instead by powers like Germany, Canada and Japan, it will go down as one of the more successful forms of imperialism in recorded history.
In sum this was a pretty reasonable apologia for the U.S-led international system, though I suspect that many of the author's recommendations will be harder to implement with the election of Trump. The liberal order could seriously weaken or even collapse in the coming years, which will lead to interesting times for many around the world, including in the United States.
The premise of this book is that the United States has declined in absolute power over the past several years. The liberal order that it constructed in the 20th century is under pressure from three revisionist powers of varying strength: China, Russia and Iran. The United States own failures, most notably the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis, have also undermined its will and ability to uphold the liberal order and to protect it from external threats. As U.S. power has decreased, the U.S. public has also come to believe that their government is incompetent at promoting positive change in the world. For many people, it is no longer obvious that the liberal order is even worth the continued cost of protecting. These shifting sentiments are most clearly evinced by the recent election of an isolationist U.S. president who has made no secret about his wish to dismantle the prevailing system, in what would be a truly revolutionary change from post-World War II U.S. policy.
Wright's argument in the book is that the liberal order is indeed important to U.S. core interests and is worthy of protecting. Free trade and liberal human rights norms are popular around the world and upholding them adds to American prosperity and prestige. Most importantly, the current replacements on offer for the liberal order are not great, and attempts at a mercantilist economic policy and “realist” foreign policy are likely to mean immiserating trade wars at home and collapsing human rights standards abroad. While the status quo is far from perfect and is often hypocritical, there is no obvious alternative, as there may have been in the past. What is on offer is a “spheres of influence” arrangement of the world, dividing it into Russian, Iranian and Chinese fiefdoms, something which would likely be a recipe for more conflict rather than less. In many ways some of the pressures the liberal order is now experiencing, particularly in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, are the inevitable outcome of the growing power of countries like China, Russia and Iran, which were never going to remain poor and passive forever. While none of these powers are strong enough to replace the liberal order globally, they are all able to degrade it at a regional level to the point that the broader system might be called into question. Given that the international order is itself a sum of its parts, even small breaks against it in places like Ukraine and the South China Sea could have serious implications.
Wright accepts the premise of a more competitive world, although he argues that it will be one that is necessarily less stable than unipolarity. He recommends that the United States stays engaged internationally and works to find mutually acceptable new equilibriums in various regions. Some level of conflict will be inevitable with countries that are committed to revisionism, but instead of large-scale war between powers he predicts that conflict will happen through the leveraging of points of shared economic, technological and political connectivity. These types of connectivity-wars are themselves made possible by the unprecedented globalization of the past few decades. During the Cold War the United States and Russia were poorly connected and did little trade. Today Russia relies on the United States for its global financial infrastructure and the United States and Europe rely to varying degrees on Russia for its natural gas supplies. Instead of firing nuclear weapons at enemy cities, a lose-lose proposition, countries will look to analyze their existing relationships with one and other and find pressure points, be they economic sanctions or hacking, as a way of improving their competitive positions. If the cost to the other party is deemed greater than the loss to oneself, steps may be taken to use these relationships as a form of coercion in a situation of conflict.
In Wright's view, the great strength and resilience of the liberal order comes from the fact that it is generally accepted and viewed as a positive force by most countries around the world. While other forms of "imperialism" have caused people to chafe in the past, the values embodied in the liberal internationalist model, including trade and democracy, have been broadly attractive and have led other countries to serve as force multipliers for U.S. interests. The liberal principle of territorial non-aggression has been particularly kind to smaller states, as it has protected them from being consumed by predatory larger neighbors. The genuine popularity of the liberal system, particularly human and democratic rights norms, is an important point worthy of engaging with. But I would argue that the positive aspects of the international system have also been distributed unevenly. The imposition of an unpopular regional order on the Middle East, an order that did not have the support or consent of the local people, helped doom that region to perpetual conflict, including direct conflict with the United States itself. The ultimate collapse of that regional order is still playing out, and has served as an important counterpoint for Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and other revisionist leaders in their critiques of liberal internationalism. To his credit, Wright concedes that the liberal system was always weakest in the Middle East. I would add that the long-running dispute over the partition of Palestine was one of the key aggravators that led to its dissolution in that region, though he doesn’t mention this specifically.
The book concludes with a brief discussion of the newly-elected elephant in the room: President Donald Trump. President Trump has been a consistent, if inarticulate, opponent of the international system and his presidency is likely to lead to a weakening of the system as a whole. This leads to an important inflection point for the U.S-built order. The greatest test of any form of imperialism is whether it can survive the demise of its original creator. The Islamic empire survived the demise of the Arab caliphate and was taken up with equal vigor by Turks, Persians, Indians and sub-Saharan Africans. If the liberal system survives America's own exit and is championed instead by powers like Germany, Canada and Japan, it will go down as one of the more successful forms of imperialism in recorded history.
In sum this was a pretty reasonable apologia for the U.S-led international system, though I suspect that many of the author's recommendations will be harder to implement with the election of Trump. The liberal order could seriously weaken or even collapse in the coming years, which will lead to interesting times for many around the world, including in the United States.
June 26, 2017
Since Trump’s upset victory last November, there’s been more public fretting about the liberal international order than at an time since the beginning of the Cold War. However, as Thomas Wright notes, the international order was under considerable pressure even before Trump (indeed, much of the book was written when many assumed Hillary Clinton would win). “All Measures Short of War” proposes a blueprint for how we should respond.
Wright’s first contribution is to lay out the nature of the threat to the liberal international order. This is actually more difficult than it might seem. Although Russia and China clearly do challenge that order, Wright notes that their challenges tend to focus on regional rather than global issues. China and Russia (less so) cooperate on global issues, like the Paris Climate Agreement, but are much more aggressive about attempting to create spheres of influence in their respective neighborhoods.
However, Wright argues that a stable international order depends upon stable regional orders, so the two are connected. As such, the first few chapters proceed to examine threats from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Wright is eminently fair in ascribing blame to Obama, Bush, and all of their predecessors.
Second, Wright proposes “responsible competition” as a framework for dealing with these threats. Wright argues that the U.S. should indeed compete with Russia and China in order to protect the international order, but should also circumscribe that competition narrowly so as to not undermine cooperation. The U.S. should take a more active leadership role in the world. In short, despite the new terminology, his actual policies are a fairly standard set of policies straight out of the DC foreign policy establishment.
Herein lies my first concern with Wright’s argument. He treats states as rational actors and believes their responses will be predictable and containable. However, history is far more complicated. Even the examples Wright cites don’t fully support his argument. For example, Wright - like many in the foreign policy establishment - places a lot of faith in economic sanctions. He claims that sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine helped deter further aggression. Yet, sanctions . were one of the factors that led Moscow to pursue the bold - and extremely successful - strategy of using cyberattacks to interfere in the 2016 election. This was an unforeseen and unprecedented escalation. Had U.S. policymakers known in 2014 that the result of our sanctions would be a Trump presidency, I suspect many would have hesitated. Likewise, Japans response to our oil embargo during World War II was to bomb Pearl Harbor - not a measured response at all. Ultimately, I worry Wright needs to reread Tuchman’s “Guns of August” as a reminder of just how easy it is for great powers to stumble into war.
Another concern I have with Wright’s argument is that he focuses on international relations rather than domestic politics. I understand that the book can’t delve too deeply into the domestic politics of Russia or China or America, but ultimately domestic politics and foreign strength are inextricably linked. For example, I was initially puzzled by Wright’s optimism regarding American strength, but soon realized that this was because Wright was only looking at macroeconomic indicators and overall military strength. In ignoring domestic politics, he also ignores the fact that partisan gridlock greatly constrains what presidents can do abroad, the credibility of their commitments, etc. China, by contrast, would have a much easier time mobilizing its citizens on behalf of its policies (nationalism is a potent force there).
Finally, I was a bit struck by the fact that the book barely mentions Latin America or Africa. Wright is right to suggest that Europe and Asia were the keystones of the Cold War international order, but I would think that a book about the international order would at least address those regions. Central America and Mexico are particularly important to U.S. peace and security given that those countries actually lie close to our border.
Despite my disagreements with him, Wright’s book is a serious piece of scholarship and possibly the most sophisticated proposal for the defense of the liberal international order I have come across. I recommend this book to students of foreign policy and government officials.
[Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]
Wright’s first contribution is to lay out the nature of the threat to the liberal international order. This is actually more difficult than it might seem. Although Russia and China clearly do challenge that order, Wright notes that their challenges tend to focus on regional rather than global issues. China and Russia (less so) cooperate on global issues, like the Paris Climate Agreement, but are much more aggressive about attempting to create spheres of influence in their respective neighborhoods.
However, Wright argues that a stable international order depends upon stable regional orders, so the two are connected. As such, the first few chapters proceed to examine threats from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Wright is eminently fair in ascribing blame to Obama, Bush, and all of their predecessors.
Second, Wright proposes “responsible competition” as a framework for dealing with these threats. Wright argues that the U.S. should indeed compete with Russia and China in order to protect the international order, but should also circumscribe that competition narrowly so as to not undermine cooperation. The U.S. should take a more active leadership role in the world. In short, despite the new terminology, his actual policies are a fairly standard set of policies straight out of the DC foreign policy establishment.
Herein lies my first concern with Wright’s argument. He treats states as rational actors and believes their responses will be predictable and containable. However, history is far more complicated. Even the examples Wright cites don’t fully support his argument. For example, Wright - like many in the foreign policy establishment - places a lot of faith in economic sanctions. He claims that sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine helped deter further aggression. Yet, sanctions . were one of the factors that led Moscow to pursue the bold - and extremely successful - strategy of using cyberattacks to interfere in the 2016 election. This was an unforeseen and unprecedented escalation. Had U.S. policymakers known in 2014 that the result of our sanctions would be a Trump presidency, I suspect many would have hesitated. Likewise, Japans response to our oil embargo during World War II was to bomb Pearl Harbor - not a measured response at all. Ultimately, I worry Wright needs to reread Tuchman’s “Guns of August” as a reminder of just how easy it is for great powers to stumble into war.
Another concern I have with Wright’s argument is that he focuses on international relations rather than domestic politics. I understand that the book can’t delve too deeply into the domestic politics of Russia or China or America, but ultimately domestic politics and foreign strength are inextricably linked. For example, I was initially puzzled by Wright’s optimism regarding American strength, but soon realized that this was because Wright was only looking at macroeconomic indicators and overall military strength. In ignoring domestic politics, he also ignores the fact that partisan gridlock greatly constrains what presidents can do abroad, the credibility of their commitments, etc. China, by contrast, would have a much easier time mobilizing its citizens on behalf of its policies (nationalism is a potent force there).
Finally, I was a bit struck by the fact that the book barely mentions Latin America or Africa. Wright is right to suggest that Europe and Asia were the keystones of the Cold War international order, but I would think that a book about the international order would at least address those regions. Central America and Mexico are particularly important to U.S. peace and security given that those countries actually lie close to our border.
Despite my disagreements with him, Wright’s book is a serious piece of scholarship and possibly the most sophisticated proposal for the defense of the liberal international order I have come across. I recommend this book to students of foreign policy and government officials.
[Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]
January 3, 2021
كتاب للباحث الأمريكي توماس رايت، معهد بروكينجز، يدرس تاريخ استراتيجية تنافس الولايات المتحدة مع القوى الأخرى. يشير رايت أن أطروحة الكتاب لا تتوافق مع أفكار ترامب، لكنها مناسبة لإدارة بقيادة هيلاري كلينتون، وبالتالي مُفيد الإطلاع على أطروحة قد تكون على مكتب بايدن، خلال أيام. يأتي عنوان الكتاب، All Measures Short of War، من استراتيجية الولايات المتحدة بداية الحرب العالمية الثانية، عندما سعى روزفلت لمنع الحرب بين بريطانيا/ألمانيا بكل الطرق الممكنة. اليوم، تتنافس القوى العظمى من أجل تشكيل أو تغيير أو تقويض النظام العالمي، لكن كل القوى تتجنب أي حرب كبرى. تنافس أمريكا، الصين، روسيا وغيرهم جيوسياسيًا وقت السلم، دفعهم للتوسع في بناء القواعد العسكرية، وسياسات هجينة مِن الإكراه الدبلوماسي، والسعي لكسب قلوب وعقول الأمم الأخرى، وإستغلال نقط ضعفهم بلا رحمة. والإختراق الاقتصادي لتحقيق غاياتهم، وقد يُقاتلوا بعضهم البعض في حروب بالوكالة. توماس رايت، غير متشائم، فأغلب القوى الدولية مُدركة أن تكلفة أي حرب اليوم ببساطة كبيرة للغاية، والفائدة المحتملة صغيرة جدًا. بالطبع، يمكن أن تحدث حرب خاطفة، أو هجمات هنا وهناك، لكن دائمًا ما سيكون إمكانية لتدارك الموقف دون الإنجراف لمواجهات كُبرى. ورغم التتنافس بين الولايات المتحدة مع روسيا والصين هُناك توافق في عدة قضايا دولية مثل: الحد من السلاح النووي، الإرهاب، المناخ، استقرار الشرق الأوسط، هناك مجالات عديدة يجب على الولايات المتحدة أن تتعاون فيها مع منافسيها من منطلق المصلحة المشتركة. من الناحية التجريبية، عملت الولايات المتحدة عن كثب مع روسيا للتفاوض بشأن الاتفاق النووي مع إيران حتى عندما كان هناك خلاف حول العدوان الروسي على أوكرانيا. وجاء اتفاق باريس بشأن تغير المناخ، الذي ضم الولايات المتحدة وروسيا والصين، في وقت متوتر في كل من سوريا وبحر الصين الجنوبي. لكن يجب على الولايات المتحدة أن تتجنب إغراء ربط المفاوضات حول القضايا العابرة للحدود بالمنافسات الجيوسياسية الإقليمية، لأنه من الحكمة محاولة إبقاء جميع المنافسين على طاولة المفاوضات عندما تكون المخاطر متزايدة عالميًا. يجب ألا تسمح الولايات المتحدة لنفسها أو لحلفائها بالاعتماد على الخصوم الجيوسياسيين إلا عند الضرورة القصوى. عند التفكير في هذا الأمر ، لا يكفي أن نتساءل عما إذا كان كلا البلدين سيستفيدان من التقارب. بل يجب على المرء أن يتخيل هيكل الحوافز المحتمل في وقت التوتر الجيوسياسي المتزايد. بالنسبة للصين خصوصًا، هناك حاجة لتقليل مخاطر تعرض الولايات المتحدة لضربة مالية مِن الصين، وذلك ليس بضربة عسكرية، بل بخفض حيازات الأخيرة بالخزانة الأمريكية فقط. لكن، هذا يعني أيضًا زيادة مساعدة حلفاء الولايات المتحدة لتقليل اعتمادهم المُطرد على الصين. يجب أن تكون الولايات المتحدة أيضًا مدركة ومتفهمة إلى حد ما مع مصالح روسيا والصين تبحث عن طرق لتقليل تعرض هذين النظامين للحلفاء في أسيا وأوروبا الشرقية والشرق الأوسط. ويحتاج هذا لتسقليل نفوذ الولايات المتحدة أمامهما، لكن قد يكون له تأثير إيجابي على استقرار علاقات القوى العظمى. هناك تشابه هنا مع الحرب الباردة، لكن، بلا سلاح نووي، هذه المرة إقتصادي، اليوم ، تشعر روسيا والصين بالقلق من أن النظام الاقتصادي غير المتوازن قد يعطي الولايات المتحدة حوافز إضافية لاتخاذ إجراءات ضدهما. أما روسيا لا شك فهي قوة مزعجة للإتحاد الأوروبي، لكن الدولة الروسية تعاني مِن مأزق إقتصادي طويل الأمد، ويدرك بوتين أنه من أجل تعزيز مصالحه في أوروبا، لا يُحارب بل يحتاج إلى أصدقاء وشركاء جدد. لذا سعى إلى تنويع علاقات روسيا الخارجية بعيدًا عن الغرب وبناء علاقات مع الدول الأخرى. لقد عمل بوتين مع دول البريكس ، وحاول بناء شراكة مع بكين ، واستكشف الانفتاح على اليابان والعديد من البلدان الأخرى. لم تعوض هذه المبادرات خسارة الثروة من الحرب الاقتصادية مع الغرب ، ولم تخلو من الصعوبات ، لكنها مع ذلك ساعدت في تقليل الضغط على روسيا ودفع أجندة بوتين قدمًا. الحقيقة انحسر تحدي بوتين للنظام الأوروبي 2015، يبدو أن أمريكا وأوروبا قد بدأتا في التعامل مع الأزمة الأوكرانية، على الأقل في المدى القصير، بعصا العقوبات. لكن تجنبت أوروبا رصاصة إقتصادية حقيقية، وهي خروج اليونان، فالصدع الأوروبي كان داخلي وليست بتهديد جيوسياسي روسي. لذا يدعو توماس رايت إلى ما أسماه: "المنافسة المسؤولة" وهي استراتيجية شاملة لعالم أكثر قدرة على المنافسة، ويزال متشابكًا. وهذا يتطلب مشاركة أمريكية متزايدة في المناطق الأكثر أهمية من الناحية الاستراتيجية. يجب أن تُركز الولايات المتحدة جهودها وبشكل واضح لتحديد أولويات السياسة الخارجية. والهدف من هذه الاستراتيجية ليس هزيمة مُنافسي أمريكا، الهدف هو خلق حالة عالمية تُحفز هؤلاء المنافسين لإعادة إنشاء توازن قوى من أجل توفير أساس للتقدم في المستقبل. من الواضح أن الولايات المتحدة لم تسعى للمنافسة المسؤولة في ظل رئاسة ترامب. لكن هذه هي الاستراتيجية يجب أن يتبعها خليفته، بايدن. ومن المحتمل أن يواجه الأخير عالماً أقل ميلًا للنظام الدولي الليبرالي. تستفيد الولايات المتحدة بشكل كبير من وجود نظام دولي فعال وصحي. والنظام الدولي الليبرالي يعمل بشكل جيد سواء بشروطه أو بالنسبة للبدائل. ويوفر الاقتصاد العالمي المفتوح فرصة أفضل بكثير للازدهار المشترك مما يوفره النظام التجاري. التدابير المحددة الموصوفة في الكتاب لمناقشة قضايا: أوكرانيا وإيران وبحر الصين، قد تتجاوزها الأحداث، لكن مبادئ المنافسة المسؤولة تبقى فعالة. وهي وحدها القادرة على خلق مستويات متزايدة وفعالة من التعاون الدولي. في النهاية، تقدم هذه الاستراتيجية احتمال مقبول لنظام سلمي ومزدهر وعادل.
September 4, 2017
A short, persuasive look at where the regional powers are up to this point. Where the ideological differences lie. The impact elected leaders have in either getting along or negatively steering liberalism for its people which America has been championing. The possible watershed moment US is experiencing.
September 14, 2022
If you have been offline for the last couple of years it is probably a very enlightening book. If you have follow security policy and politics lately it is an okay read. Should have read it on release
December 30, 2017
The author makes his pitch for a U.S. strategy that he calls “responsible competition.” He warns against the temptations offered by retrenchment and a retreat of American support for the liberal international order that has been in place since the end of WW II.
While I agree with the author’s position on the continuing importance of alliances for the United States and most of his other points, he is understandably short on specifics for strategic implementation. He necessarily describes recommended future strategic choices and policies in broad strokes. To do otherwise would make this a very dense volume. As it stands, this book is an efficient and compelling work.
Although I think the author overstates, at least for now, the possible negative implications of the Trump presidency for the liberal international order, he is rightly skeptical about much of the rhetoric of “America First.” But rather than coming across as a partisan hack, the author does a fine job of making his argument in objective, dispassionate language that loses nothing in its content. Thoughtful critics of the Trump Administration now and in the years to come should take note of Thomas Wright’s approach. Highly recommended.
While I agree with the author’s position on the continuing importance of alliances for the United States and most of his other points, he is understandably short on specifics for strategic implementation. He necessarily describes recommended future strategic choices and policies in broad strokes. To do otherwise would make this a very dense volume. As it stands, this book is an efficient and compelling work.
Although I think the author overstates, at least for now, the possible negative implications of the Trump presidency for the liberal international order, he is rightly skeptical about much of the rhetoric of “America First.” But rather than coming across as a partisan hack, the author does a fine job of making his argument in objective, dispassionate language that loses nothing in its content. Thoughtful critics of the Trump Administration now and in the years to come should take note of Thomas Wright’s approach. Highly recommended.
May 5, 2025
Although slightly dated given that the world of 2025 is almost unimaginable from the 2016 lens that this book uses yet it helps understand the context of these changes. This is especially useful since now we can evaluate the ideas based on the last 10 years. In that sense, the book helps establish a baseline of US foreign policy and the world view it is based on.
I have had a lot of takeaways, especially the inevitability of the rise of American isolationism, the role of successive US presidents and how US foreign policy establishment in general, views its options. In terms of schools of International Relations, it belongs to the liberalism school of thought, and in some ways gives an alternate path that US did not take or might not ever take given the second Trump Administration.
I have had a lot of takeaways, especially the inevitability of the rise of American isolationism, the role of successive US presidents and how US foreign policy establishment in general, views its options. In terms of schools of International Relations, it belongs to the liberalism school of thought, and in some ways gives an alternate path that US did not take or might not ever take given the second Trump Administration.
November 16, 2021
I'm not terribly fond of the policy positions in the book
but they are an excellent layout of 'The Conventional Wisdom'
Which i think is pretty much the intelligent pathway for Sleepwalking Through History!
I think the realists will win out like Mearsheimer, Walt and Huntington for what works out, which will probably bum out most Democrats and most Republicans....
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amazon review
U.S. Think Tank’s Conventional Wisdom
Thomas Wright is a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy and Director of the Center for the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution.
Wright has a BA and MA from University College Dublin, an M Phil in international studies from Cambridge University, and a PhD in government from Georgetown University.
It is difficult to say who might find this work of interest. Its virtue is that in the field of International Relations his composition is rich in the jargon of the field and he balances his basic thesis against the work of other scholars so it takes on the qualities of a text book with rich references to pursue.
But its shortcoming for this reviewer is that it never departs from the premise that the U.S.A. is the Nucleus of the Universe and American ‘National Interest’ are the overriding world’s promise without specifying what those interests are and who they serve in the three regions of his concern, Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East.
He leaves them in the vague categories of Liberal, Democratic, and Inclusive at a time when he does note that those three categories are under stress’ In short he is holding to a defense that Pax Americana was good and must continue when America’s role may be slipping and in search of content.
This rises to the level of ideology or more simply Conventional Thoughts by an Insider; of interest to those who concur and few others.
An alternative would be that Pax Americana has created chaos and has little to show except the survival of alliances that themselves are under intense stress; as many other authors engage: That list would be long.
A good and more insightful follow up would be Easternization: Asia's Rise and America's Decline From Obama to Trump and Beyond by Gideon Rachman.
From reviews it sounds like Haass’ latest book, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order, run parallel to Wright’s work but perhaps a bit more Hawkish.
wsmrer
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The Small Wars Journal
Interview with Thomas J. Wright
Q1: Let’s start with the title. Why do you feel that the “all measures short of war” concept captures the essence of the competition of our time?
The title of the book was inspired by the famous lecture gave by George Kennan in the mid 1940s but also by the strategy that president Roosevelt pursued against Germany in the late 1930s. What I really mean is that we are entering a period of renewed geopolitical competition between the major powers. They do not want to fight each other directly in a general war. I don’t think China has any interest in waging a hegemonic war against United States. But they will compete vigorously beneath the threshold and they will use a lot of strategies and tactics, all measures short of war to achieve their strategic objectives. So it is likely to see economic, cyber and proxy warfare, coercive diplomacy and all sorts of other measures. That doesn’t mean of course that general war won’t occur. When FDR pursued that strategy, general war did occur, but it does mean that it is more likely to see that the intention of these powers is to use all of these other measures. We are looking at a long period of greater competition between big countries.
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Q2: How do you assess the role kinetic/hard power plays in advancing contemporary revisionism? Although not central, hard-power capabilities are always in proximity, offstage. Moreover, the proliferation of A2/AD capabilities is changing the calculus about what is achievable regionally, making limited war more likely.
Hard power remains a crucial element of this. But the point that I am trying to make in the book is that it is not just about the overall level of defense expenditures, not just about the overall balance of power but about strategic power and the strategy you pursue where hard power remains a key aspect. For example in Crimea the overall balance of power between Russia and U.S. has mattered less than of the deployable power that Russia had in that particular crisis, the stronger Russian will to act or the proximity and the fact that they could take the initiative. All of these things were decisive and mattered a lot in that case. To me it is not really about an overall balance of power as it is about the strategic advantages and disadvantages that each side has in a particular strategic competition.
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Q3: At the core, your book is about preserving and defending a certain type of international order, one with liberal traits. What are the virtues of the liberal international order, of the world that America made? Why is preserving a liberal international order a strategic and vital interest for the U.S.?
When we look at foreign policy and strategy we need to think about the type of world we want to create. What is the type of system we want to live in? I think there are basically two fundamental options available. One option is some version of the liberal international order that existed in the Western world since the mid-late 1940s and in most of the world since the end of the Cold War. That would not be identical to what it was in the past, but it would be somewhat similar to that. The second option is a sphere of influence system where China is the preeminent power in East Asia, Russia is much stronger in Eastern Europe, the European Union has disintegrated, the global economy is much more mercantilist, the world is much more nationalistic, the U.S. still has influence in some parts of the world but essentially has retreated from the proactive role that has had in promoting regional equilibriums in the key regions of the world.
To me the liberal international order is far preferable because the mercantilist alternative is much less stable, is much less likely to provide prosperity for the world as a whole, it would be far less cooperation on transnational issues and it will be extremely difficult and dangerous in getting to a sphere of influence system. The liberal international order is preferable in absolute terms but it is increasingly contested, under severe pressure internally because of the rise of the populism, but at the same externally with the return of the revisionist powers and of a more nationalistic geopolitically competitive world. U.S. has a fundamental strategic choice to which path to take. The real debate in American strategy is between two schools of thought one favoring restraint and retrenchment, and the other, increased engagement and competitiveness, one that puts at the heart of U.S. strategy the existential geopolitical challenge against the liberal order.
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Q4: It is often said that Vietnam War was lost in the minds of the American people. Are we in danger of losing the competition for hearts and minds when it comes to persuading the American people that the costs of defending a liberal order are worth paying? What does the rise of Trumpism tell us about the consensus regarding U.S. foreign policy? He campaigned on a narrative that is the anti-thesis of the core beliefs that were articulated after WW2.
It is true that Trump is the first elected president that is critical of this international order. It is also true that he wasn’t elected on foreign policy. The people that cared about foreign policy tend to vote for Hillary Clinton. From this perspective I don’t think the country has moved and fully believes in Trumpism internationally. It is also true that he had to moderate its position while in office. As people see the alternative of what America first would look like they will recoil and not become fans of it. It does present a big challenge, we need to ask some fundamental questions but I don’t think it necessarily signals an irreversible shift in how America thinks about the world. I think there is a general support for the alliances and liberal order. The real problem is a strategic one-how we respond strategically to some of these challenges.
The story of this administration is really a struggle between the two different camps and it will remain that way. There is a mainstream camp led by the Secretary Mattis and Lieutenant General McMaster and others that basically want to preserve the international order, the U.S. alliances-system and an open global economy. But there is also a more nationalist camp, the America first camp, composed by people like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller and most importantly Donald Trump himself who is quite nationalistic in his views. This struggle will never be really resolved. Neither one is going anywhere.
The president will still have all these nationalistic impulses even if he compromises on occasion. The mainstream camp is not going anywhere because they realize that what they are doing is so important. We will never get to a Trump doctrine and to a common strategy because that tension will never be resolved. You will have it swing one way or the other way. As long as somebody like Donald Trump is President we will have high levels of systemic risks in U.S. foreign policy because there is uncertainty about his commitment to the basic tenets of U.S. strategy as has existed over the past 70 years.
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Q5: What at stake if the international community accommodates China’s South China Sea claims? In Tokyo, for example, there is a perception that it is a matter of when, not if, China will push to establish an ADIZ in the South China Sea. More broadly why does the future of the borderlands/border-regions matter for the liberal international order?
These disputes really go beyond some islands in the South China Sea or for that matter small towns and villages in Eastern Ukraine. What they are fundamentally about is whether China and Russia get to establish a major sphere of influence in their regions. The control of South China Sea for China would be a key part of establishing a sphere of influence in East Asia, one that largely had the control of the Western part of the Western Pacific. That will fundamentally change relations with the U.S. in the region because it will give China a much stronger power base, much more influence regionally and capacity to push U.S. to the side and become the main organizer of the regional politics. China would be in a position to control the sea and airspace within its sphere of influence and dictate key economic, political, and foreign- policy decisions to its neighbors. That will not be welcome by the rest of the region, it will probably lead to more competition, but if it would succeed it would badly damage the U.S. interests and the international order and it be a step towards a sphere of influence system that is fairly unstable. The contest is between two very different visions of regional order: the continuation of the U.S.-led liberal order or a Chinese spheres-of-influence system.
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Q6: Let’s talk about the nature of today’s revisionism. It is no longer, or not yet, the revolutionary revisionism on the scale that we’ve seen in the inter-war period. It is more calibrated, measured, a version that is more oriented towards salami-slicing tactics. The contemporary revisionism operates more insidious, under the threshold. What are the common denominators and differences in the ways that Russia and China practice revisionism?
What we see in revisionist behavior today is pretty consistent with revisionist behavior in 19th and early 20th century. In this case the common sort of characteristic is that they tend to go out after the non-vital, peripheral interests of a major power because doing so generally doesn’t provoke the retaliatory strike that would come from attacking a vital interest. They send the message that it is not really worth quarrelling over some small villages in Eastern Europe or something that is marginal. It is, in effect, a salami slicing strategy. Such acts appear to be of limited strategic importance, until, in the aggregate, they acquire a much greater value generating sizable regional gains that simply disrupt the status quo. Today we see the return of this behavior in both Europe and East Asia.
At the same time, we need to keep in mind the differences. Russia is a declining power while Russia is a rising power. China is a maritime power while Russia is primarily land power centered. Russia used its hard power in very aggressive ways to achieve its objective where China has pursued a more softer, insidious recipe through civilian fleets and economic leverage. China is generally more supportive of some parts of the international order while Russia tends to be a more robust ideological critic of the liberal order. But both are trying to create their own sphere of influence in the region.
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Q7: What does “responsible competition” mean when applied to the European theater?
It is basically a deepening of U.S. engagement in order to strengthen the European order and push back against Russia. With the Trump Administration to start is important to go back to basics. The U.S. should support the European Union. It should seek a strong partnership with the EU and not try to undermine it. The U.S. administration should reinforce NATO and article 5. The president should give a speech on article 5. U.S. should downplay the role of burden-sharing, revive and broaden TTIP and make it more ambitious than it was under the Obama Administration. It is also important to bolster democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, strengthening deterrence of Russian aggression, countering Russian efforts to interfere in Western politics. The Europe does need to take into account the competitive nature of the world. The European do need to adopt a strategy that recognizes the challenges that Russia poses and treat Russia as a competitor. In general Russia is taking advantages of a lot of the divisions inside Europe and some of the fears the people have. Particularly the return of nationalism creates a rich environment to exploit. Putin’s number one objective is not the destruction of NATO but the weakening of the European Union. I worry not about a multi-speed Europe (which existed for a long time) but of a multi-tier Europe where you have different classes of countries. If we create a Europe where certain countries are disadvantaged that will work to Putin’s advantage.
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Q8: What would have been the consequence of not expanding the liberal order after the Cold War? It is a scenario highly desired by realists and offshore balancers. Even George Kennan was a supporter of this perspective. To me the age of the gray-zone interference could have come much earlier.
It would have been catastrophic if NATO would not have expanded and included the Central and Eastern Europe. If NATO would not have expanded to include the Baltic states we might be looking at Ukraine style conflict in Baltic and other parts of Eastern Europe. The fact that they are in NATO has made very difficult for Russia to pursue revisionist goals in those countries. Sometime we look to Ukraine as an example of expansion that was too close to Russia. The flip side of that is that if NATO would not have expanded at all then Europe would be a lot less stable, even than it is today. It was really the NATO expansion that insured the spread of democracy and stability.
The 1990s and 2000s were pretty permissive environments for the rise of democracies. You had a growing global economy, growing multilateral forum (EU and NATO) and that caused countries to evolve in a liberal direction and become more democratic. Now we’ve seen the reverse: a financial crisis followed by a great recession and a very slow recovery, the return of geopolitical competition and this environment helps the authoritarian forces. They project a narrative of decline and immigration that reinforces their influence. Spreading democracy will be difficult, but bolstering democracy is vital.
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Q9: The danger today, to many, is that the old Palmerstonian, transactionalist mindset is becoming the new normal. In the second half of the 2000s, there was a growing support for advancing the creation of a Concert of Democracies or an Alliance of Democracies. Isn’t this idea more necessary today in an environment where you need a mobilization of like-minded stakeholders to defend the rules-based liberal international ecosystem? Has the time come to dust off/revive the 2007 idea of a Concert of Democracies/Alliance of Democracies?
I do think that there is scope for democracies to work together. But it might be a challenge to have a global concert now, especially given the attitude of the president of U.S. Democracies share certain values and interests and should cooperate more together than they have in the past, even if the U.S. is absent.
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[https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...]
but they are an excellent layout of 'The Conventional Wisdom'
Which i think is pretty much the intelligent pathway for Sleepwalking Through History!
I think the realists will win out like Mearsheimer, Walt and Huntington for what works out, which will probably bum out most Democrats and most Republicans....
---
amazon review
U.S. Think Tank’s Conventional Wisdom
Thomas Wright is a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy and Director of the Center for the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution.
Wright has a BA and MA from University College Dublin, an M Phil in international studies from Cambridge University, and a PhD in government from Georgetown University.
It is difficult to say who might find this work of interest. Its virtue is that in the field of International Relations his composition is rich in the jargon of the field and he balances his basic thesis against the work of other scholars so it takes on the qualities of a text book with rich references to pursue.
But its shortcoming for this reviewer is that it never departs from the premise that the U.S.A. is the Nucleus of the Universe and American ‘National Interest’ are the overriding world’s promise without specifying what those interests are and who they serve in the three regions of his concern, Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East.
He leaves them in the vague categories of Liberal, Democratic, and Inclusive at a time when he does note that those three categories are under stress’ In short he is holding to a defense that Pax Americana was good and must continue when America’s role may be slipping and in search of content.
This rises to the level of ideology or more simply Conventional Thoughts by an Insider; of interest to those who concur and few others.
An alternative would be that Pax Americana has created chaos and has little to show except the survival of alliances that themselves are under intense stress; as many other authors engage: That list would be long.
A good and more insightful follow up would be Easternization: Asia's Rise and America's Decline From Obama to Trump and Beyond by Gideon Rachman.
From reviews it sounds like Haass’ latest book, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order, run parallel to Wright’s work but perhaps a bit more Hawkish.
wsmrer
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The Small Wars Journal
Interview with Thomas J. Wright
Q1: Let’s start with the title. Why do you feel that the “all measures short of war” concept captures the essence of the competition of our time?
The title of the book was inspired by the famous lecture gave by George Kennan in the mid 1940s but also by the strategy that president Roosevelt pursued against Germany in the late 1930s. What I really mean is that we are entering a period of renewed geopolitical competition between the major powers. They do not want to fight each other directly in a general war. I don’t think China has any interest in waging a hegemonic war against United States. But they will compete vigorously beneath the threshold and they will use a lot of strategies and tactics, all measures short of war to achieve their strategic objectives. So it is likely to see economic, cyber and proxy warfare, coercive diplomacy and all sorts of other measures. That doesn’t mean of course that general war won’t occur. When FDR pursued that strategy, general war did occur, but it does mean that it is more likely to see that the intention of these powers is to use all of these other measures. We are looking at a long period of greater competition between big countries.
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Q2: How do you assess the role kinetic/hard power plays in advancing contemporary revisionism? Although not central, hard-power capabilities are always in proximity, offstage. Moreover, the proliferation of A2/AD capabilities is changing the calculus about what is achievable regionally, making limited war more likely.
Hard power remains a crucial element of this. But the point that I am trying to make in the book is that it is not just about the overall level of defense expenditures, not just about the overall balance of power but about strategic power and the strategy you pursue where hard power remains a key aspect. For example in Crimea the overall balance of power between Russia and U.S. has mattered less than of the deployable power that Russia had in that particular crisis, the stronger Russian will to act or the proximity and the fact that they could take the initiative. All of these things were decisive and mattered a lot in that case. To me it is not really about an overall balance of power as it is about the strategic advantages and disadvantages that each side has in a particular strategic competition.
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Q3: At the core, your book is about preserving and defending a certain type of international order, one with liberal traits. What are the virtues of the liberal international order, of the world that America made? Why is preserving a liberal international order a strategic and vital interest for the U.S.?
When we look at foreign policy and strategy we need to think about the type of world we want to create. What is the type of system we want to live in? I think there are basically two fundamental options available. One option is some version of the liberal international order that existed in the Western world since the mid-late 1940s and in most of the world since the end of the Cold War. That would not be identical to what it was in the past, but it would be somewhat similar to that. The second option is a sphere of influence system where China is the preeminent power in East Asia, Russia is much stronger in Eastern Europe, the European Union has disintegrated, the global economy is much more mercantilist, the world is much more nationalistic, the U.S. still has influence in some parts of the world but essentially has retreated from the proactive role that has had in promoting regional equilibriums in the key regions of the world.
To me the liberal international order is far preferable because the mercantilist alternative is much less stable, is much less likely to provide prosperity for the world as a whole, it would be far less cooperation on transnational issues and it will be extremely difficult and dangerous in getting to a sphere of influence system. The liberal international order is preferable in absolute terms but it is increasingly contested, under severe pressure internally because of the rise of the populism, but at the same externally with the return of the revisionist powers and of a more nationalistic geopolitically competitive world. U.S. has a fundamental strategic choice to which path to take. The real debate in American strategy is between two schools of thought one favoring restraint and retrenchment, and the other, increased engagement and competitiveness, one that puts at the heart of U.S. strategy the existential geopolitical challenge against the liberal order.
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Q4: It is often said that Vietnam War was lost in the minds of the American people. Are we in danger of losing the competition for hearts and minds when it comes to persuading the American people that the costs of defending a liberal order are worth paying? What does the rise of Trumpism tell us about the consensus regarding U.S. foreign policy? He campaigned on a narrative that is the anti-thesis of the core beliefs that were articulated after WW2.
It is true that Trump is the first elected president that is critical of this international order. It is also true that he wasn’t elected on foreign policy. The people that cared about foreign policy tend to vote for Hillary Clinton. From this perspective I don’t think the country has moved and fully believes in Trumpism internationally. It is also true that he had to moderate its position while in office. As people see the alternative of what America first would look like they will recoil and not become fans of it. It does present a big challenge, we need to ask some fundamental questions but I don’t think it necessarily signals an irreversible shift in how America thinks about the world. I think there is a general support for the alliances and liberal order. The real problem is a strategic one-how we respond strategically to some of these challenges.
The story of this administration is really a struggle between the two different camps and it will remain that way. There is a mainstream camp led by the Secretary Mattis and Lieutenant General McMaster and others that basically want to preserve the international order, the U.S. alliances-system and an open global economy. But there is also a more nationalist camp, the America first camp, composed by people like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller and most importantly Donald Trump himself who is quite nationalistic in his views. This struggle will never be really resolved. Neither one is going anywhere.
The president will still have all these nationalistic impulses even if he compromises on occasion. The mainstream camp is not going anywhere because they realize that what they are doing is so important. We will never get to a Trump doctrine and to a common strategy because that tension will never be resolved. You will have it swing one way or the other way. As long as somebody like Donald Trump is President we will have high levels of systemic risks in U.S. foreign policy because there is uncertainty about his commitment to the basic tenets of U.S. strategy as has existed over the past 70 years.
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Q5: What at stake if the international community accommodates China’s South China Sea claims? In Tokyo, for example, there is a perception that it is a matter of when, not if, China will push to establish an ADIZ in the South China Sea. More broadly why does the future of the borderlands/border-regions matter for the liberal international order?
These disputes really go beyond some islands in the South China Sea or for that matter small towns and villages in Eastern Ukraine. What they are fundamentally about is whether China and Russia get to establish a major sphere of influence in their regions. The control of South China Sea for China would be a key part of establishing a sphere of influence in East Asia, one that largely had the control of the Western part of the Western Pacific. That will fundamentally change relations with the U.S. in the region because it will give China a much stronger power base, much more influence regionally and capacity to push U.S. to the side and become the main organizer of the regional politics. China would be in a position to control the sea and airspace within its sphere of influence and dictate key economic, political, and foreign- policy decisions to its neighbors. That will not be welcome by the rest of the region, it will probably lead to more competition, but if it would succeed it would badly damage the U.S. interests and the international order and it be a step towards a sphere of influence system that is fairly unstable. The contest is between two very different visions of regional order: the continuation of the U.S.-led liberal order or a Chinese spheres-of-influence system.
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Q6: Let’s talk about the nature of today’s revisionism. It is no longer, or not yet, the revolutionary revisionism on the scale that we’ve seen in the inter-war period. It is more calibrated, measured, a version that is more oriented towards salami-slicing tactics. The contemporary revisionism operates more insidious, under the threshold. What are the common denominators and differences in the ways that Russia and China practice revisionism?
What we see in revisionist behavior today is pretty consistent with revisionist behavior in 19th and early 20th century. In this case the common sort of characteristic is that they tend to go out after the non-vital, peripheral interests of a major power because doing so generally doesn’t provoke the retaliatory strike that would come from attacking a vital interest. They send the message that it is not really worth quarrelling over some small villages in Eastern Europe or something that is marginal. It is, in effect, a salami slicing strategy. Such acts appear to be of limited strategic importance, until, in the aggregate, they acquire a much greater value generating sizable regional gains that simply disrupt the status quo. Today we see the return of this behavior in both Europe and East Asia.
At the same time, we need to keep in mind the differences. Russia is a declining power while Russia is a rising power. China is a maritime power while Russia is primarily land power centered. Russia used its hard power in very aggressive ways to achieve its objective where China has pursued a more softer, insidious recipe through civilian fleets and economic leverage. China is generally more supportive of some parts of the international order while Russia tends to be a more robust ideological critic of the liberal order. But both are trying to create their own sphere of influence in the region.
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Q7: What does “responsible competition” mean when applied to the European theater?
It is basically a deepening of U.S. engagement in order to strengthen the European order and push back against Russia. With the Trump Administration to start is important to go back to basics. The U.S. should support the European Union. It should seek a strong partnership with the EU and not try to undermine it. The U.S. administration should reinforce NATO and article 5. The president should give a speech on article 5. U.S. should downplay the role of burden-sharing, revive and broaden TTIP and make it more ambitious than it was under the Obama Administration. It is also important to bolster democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, strengthening deterrence of Russian aggression, countering Russian efforts to interfere in Western politics. The Europe does need to take into account the competitive nature of the world. The European do need to adopt a strategy that recognizes the challenges that Russia poses and treat Russia as a competitor. In general Russia is taking advantages of a lot of the divisions inside Europe and some of the fears the people have. Particularly the return of nationalism creates a rich environment to exploit. Putin’s number one objective is not the destruction of NATO but the weakening of the European Union. I worry not about a multi-speed Europe (which existed for a long time) but of a multi-tier Europe where you have different classes of countries. If we create a Europe where certain countries are disadvantaged that will work to Putin’s advantage.
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Q8: What would have been the consequence of not expanding the liberal order after the Cold War? It is a scenario highly desired by realists and offshore balancers. Even George Kennan was a supporter of this perspective. To me the age of the gray-zone interference could have come much earlier.
It would have been catastrophic if NATO would not have expanded and included the Central and Eastern Europe. If NATO would not have expanded to include the Baltic states we might be looking at Ukraine style conflict in Baltic and other parts of Eastern Europe. The fact that they are in NATO has made very difficult for Russia to pursue revisionist goals in those countries. Sometime we look to Ukraine as an example of expansion that was too close to Russia. The flip side of that is that if NATO would not have expanded at all then Europe would be a lot less stable, even than it is today. It was really the NATO expansion that insured the spread of democracy and stability.
The 1990s and 2000s were pretty permissive environments for the rise of democracies. You had a growing global economy, growing multilateral forum (EU and NATO) and that caused countries to evolve in a liberal direction and become more democratic. Now we’ve seen the reverse: a financial crisis followed by a great recession and a very slow recovery, the return of geopolitical competition and this environment helps the authoritarian forces. They project a narrative of decline and immigration that reinforces their influence. Spreading democracy will be difficult, but bolstering democracy is vital.
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Q9: The danger today, to many, is that the old Palmerstonian, transactionalist mindset is becoming the new normal. In the second half of the 2000s, there was a growing support for advancing the creation of a Concert of Democracies or an Alliance of Democracies. Isn’t this idea more necessary today in an environment where you need a mobilization of like-minded stakeholders to defend the rules-based liberal international ecosystem? Has the time come to dust off/revive the 2007 idea of a Concert of Democracies/Alliance of Democracies?
I do think that there is scope for democracies to work together. But it might be a challenge to have a global concert now, especially given the attitude of the president of U.S. Democracies share certain values and interests and should cooperate more together than they have in the past, even if the U.S. is absent.
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[https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...]
September 11, 2017
'All Measures Short of War' is a well argued and cogent case for a renewed commitment to the liberal world order in the form a foreign policy of restrained internationalism, or in Wright's own words, "responsible competition." Wright finds that the world is falling into disorder in the three regions of Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. He suggests that a carefully maintained presence in all three regions is the best approach to maintaining a world order that is friendly to the interests of the United States. I'm not sure that I agree with all of Wright's conclusions, but it is good to see an internationalist foreign policy that acknowledges a renewed age of competition.
My criticisms of this book outside of the realm of international relations paradigms are certainly not unique to Wright's book. Like many books, Wright neglects to touch on the subjects of Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia. The absence of even an explanation for why these regions are not considered is an oversight.
It is also clear that the election of Trump caught Thomas Wright by surprise when he was drafting the book. Sections are clearly tailored towards a Clinton white house. Wright does address this in his conclusion, acknowledging that his policy will likely not see the light of day in a Trump White House. His suggestion however that the same blue print could still serve the next President after Trump, however, seems less well thought out than other sections of the book, especially considering his assumption that Trump will only serve four years in office.
My criticisms of this book outside of the realm of international relations paradigms are certainly not unique to Wright's book. Like many books, Wright neglects to touch on the subjects of Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia. The absence of even an explanation for why these regions are not considered is an oversight.
It is also clear that the election of Trump caught Thomas Wright by surprise when he was drafting the book. Sections are clearly tailored towards a Clinton white house. Wright does address this in his conclusion, acknowledging that his policy will likely not see the light of day in a Trump White House. His suggestion however that the same blue print could still serve the next President after Trump, however, seems less well thought out than other sections of the book, especially considering his assumption that Trump will only serve four years in office.
January 31, 2018
The preface will tell you everything you need to know about this book. I reject the premises laid out, the dogmatic axiom "The world needs the US to be more powerful than the rest put together, for its own good" is wrong. and claiming Clinton was inspired by the left and socialism is outright ridiculous; it calls out for literal ridicule.
This thinking, this is what the fight is against. Liberalism is inhumane, power hungry, and undemocratic. I'm a pacifist, and a Democrat (the idea, not the party), and abhor our nation's history if terrorism and our economy's destruction if everything human, from one's very life to the local hangout.
But reading the opposition is useful.
EDIT: --
I wrote the above to get myself to actually read the damn book, very near the beginning. I don't even know what to say; there were so many single sentences where I kept thinking "*This*, this right here is the perfect example of the unremittant evil of this book!", but then there were just more, and more, and more.
I can't write a review of this; I'm too angry. Here's my 'review': "I was so uncontrollably angry over this book I accidentally stabbed myself with a fork while poking a holes in a potato. . .by stabbing thru the entire potato and into my hand. With a fork."
I feel dirty; I'm outraged, and I repeat what I said going in: This is what we need to fight against. Trump is a carnival act compared to this kind of evil.
And I'm burning this book.
This thinking, this is what the fight is against. Liberalism is inhumane, power hungry, and undemocratic. I'm a pacifist, and a Democrat (the idea, not the party), and abhor our nation's history if terrorism and our economy's destruction if everything human, from one's very life to the local hangout.
But reading the opposition is useful.
EDIT: --
I wrote the above to get myself to actually read the damn book, very near the beginning. I don't even know what to say; there were so many single sentences where I kept thinking "*This*, this right here is the perfect example of the unremittant evil of this book!", but then there were just more, and more, and more.
I can't write a review of this; I'm too angry. Here's my 'review': "I was so uncontrollably angry over this book I accidentally stabbed myself with a fork while poking a holes in a potato. . .by stabbing thru the entire potato and into my hand. With a fork."
I feel dirty; I'm outraged, and I repeat what I said going in: This is what we need to fight against. Trump is a carnival act compared to this kind of evil.
And I'm burning this book.
August 9, 2017
'Read' as audiobook, one of the first books which I've gone through in this format. Interesting facts about America's geopolitical current situation, and quite a lot of forecasting - nice to see mr Wright dipping his knowledgeable toe in future waters, since few do in this field at such length. Quite a lot of the usual 'America - first' type of explanations and unappologetic about America's missteps in few historical occasions. Overall a great reading about balance of political power in today and tomorrow's complicated world.
Audiobook format is not great though; definetly speeds up the reading process but does so by loosing focus and attention. Impossible to take highlights or reference to an earlier point in the book. At the end, you'll have indeed passed though the book's pages but its imprint on your mind remains flimsy.
Audiobook format is not great though; definetly speeds up the reading process but does so by loosing focus and attention. Impossible to take highlights or reference to an earlier point in the book. At the end, you'll have indeed passed though the book's pages but its imprint on your mind remains flimsy.
September 21, 2021
This book is quickly getting dated but is still relevant. If you read a reputable paper on a daily basis there is a lot of history on stories you have probably already heard. There were some good policy suggestions throughout the book, but few concepts I have not heard previously. In general agree with the authors assessment of the current state of affairs. It's not the next war, we're presently in a Cold War with China and it's time our nation gets more focused on winning this new Cold War. The book is very relevant to the project I am currently working for the US Army Reserves.
July 24, 2017
Tom Wright's book was an excellent argument for an engaged and internationalist foreign policy in a time of touted isolationism and skepticism toward the traditional role of US global activism. Nuanced and broad in its scope, yet short and very readable as well. Highly recommend to IR junkies and casual observers alike.
March 2, 2021
This book was filled with great analysis of the state of geopolitics as of the 2016 US presidential election. Wright writes both about the overarching theories that the recent geopolitical trends have demolished, like that of convergence to a world dominated by capitalist liberal democracies, as well as the strategies he believes will best serve US interests once the myth of convergence is discarded. Wrights write critically about the US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War but without attacking the intelligence or motives of the leaders in charge of it. Instead he shows the rationale and the political foundation for everything between Bill Clinton’s institutionalist engagement to Donald Trump’s isolationism. In this way he allows the reader to understand the ever-present tradeoffs and frames his own arguments as to why tradeoffs he is willing to live with. Definitely and interesting and illuminating look at what the next few decades could look like in geopolitical terms.
September 5, 2020
Prescient and cearsighted, All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the Twenty-First Century and the Future of American Power by Thomas J. Wright provides a level headed understanding of the future of great power competition in the twenty-first century. While there is a space for the nonstate actor here, it is clear that what this book is paying careful consideration to is the arena of state to state competition. What he lays out here is more persuasive than The Big Stick, and should probably be considered basic reading for any would-be policy maker in the realm of defense policy or international affairs. Though writing was completed just at the start of the Trump administration, much of his analysis remains largely untouched by - and indeed appears to be strengthened as a result - of the actions taken by the current President of the United States.
94/100
94/100
September 7, 2019
My new favorite among recent years’ offerings (Posner, Walt, Haass, Ziehan, Ramo, etc) in the the foreign policy/natsec genre. A very clear-eyed and robust analysis of global and regional factors and tensions and of grand strategy options proposed by many experts. His approach to “responsible competition” toward great power aspirants and revisionist states occupies a reasonable space between retrenchment/offshore balancing and what has become commonly labeled liberal hegemony. His most status-quo (and therefor contentious for some) argument is for continued US shaping in Southwest Asia as a necessity for stemming a middle-eastern version of the 30yrs’ war that would threaten global order. This was good enough to reread and keep for reference.
July 17, 2018
I was fortunate enough to meet Thomas Wright and attend an academic lecture in international relations on strategy @ Indiana University.
You should read this book thoroughly and take notes if you are new to these topics.
You should read this book if you are advanced in these topics.
If I taught a course, this would be a required reading.
This book is the best book I have read on the topic since Kissinger’s “World Order”.
Wright presents a case for US strategy by region of the world and why he believes the strategy would work. In doing so, Wright clearly presents problems in the regions and what the US should do.
You should read this book thoroughly and take notes if you are new to these topics.
You should read this book if you are advanced in these topics.
If I taught a course, this would be a required reading.
This book is the best book I have read on the topic since Kissinger’s “World Order”.
Wright presents a case for US strategy by region of the world and why he believes the strategy would work. In doing so, Wright clearly presents problems in the regions and what the US should do.
Want to read
June 3, 2021From Follett:"Looks at the future of great power competition in an age of globalization and what the United States can do in response . . . Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other. Wright outlines a new American strategy--Responsible Competition--to navigate these challenges and strengthen the liberal orde
December 28, 2021
This is less a book on gray zone tactics than it is an international relations treatise with recommendations for certain actions based on the world at the time of the writing. This book isn’t bad but it is now dated. It also does not explain the mechanisms through which to wield soft power and how to do so more effectively.
January 7, 2018
The return of geopolitics
Great book that provides insights into the perceptions of America’s competitors and provides reasonable alternatives to counter their influence / deny their objectives without sparking a potential global conflict
Great book that provides insights into the perceptions of America’s competitors and provides reasonable alternatives to counter their influence / deny their objectives without sparking a potential global conflict
September 26, 2020
A concise book about how the world is changing and what the difficulties are. Suggests that the USA pursue diplomatic ways to strengthen the EU, see BREXIT be successful and work with China and Russia to better their economies and function better.
January 4, 2024
Great book about the global world order and how it will evolve in the 21st Century. America remains dominant, and conflicts occur with economic warfare/sanctions and cyber warfare rather than conventional war. Very informed and cerebral approach to geopolitics.
January 26, 2019
Good...though not my favorite type of book. It was informative, clear, and well written. I didn’t find it riveting but I think that’s more a function of my interests, not the writing.
June 2, 2019
Really helps understand the evolution of American warfare, global economic change and the weaponization of rivers of nternational influence.
March 8, 2022
An important book for anyone interested in world affairs.
August 23, 2022
A comprehensive analysis of the threats of the modern world. Slightly biased
June 30, 2023
in retrospect overtly hopeful.
July 30, 2023
Interesting and accessible snapshot of global power dynamics circa 2016. Feels incredibly dated as there have been such significant advances in every sphere since then.
August 11, 2023
ok perspectives but a little outdated
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