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1. The Waning of U.S. Hegemony—Myth or Reality? A Review Essay

Author:
Christopher Layne
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Over the next two decades, international politics will be shaped by whether the international system remains unipolar or is transformed into a multipolar system. Can the United States sustain its primacy? Or will the emergence of new great powers reorder the distribution of power in the international system? If U.S. power is waning, will power transition dynamics result in security competitions and an increased possibility of war? In particular, what are the implications of China's rapid ascent to great power status? If the United States is unable to preserve its hegemonic role, what will happen to the security and economic frameworks that it took the lead in creating after the end of World War II and that have provided the foundation for the international order ever since? In a world no longer defined by U.S. hegemony, what would become of globalization and the open international economic system that the United established after World War II and expanded after the Cold War ended? This essay reviews five publications that grapple with these questions: Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy; Parag Khanna, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order; Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East; National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World; and Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World.
Topic:
Economics and War
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

2. Debunking the 1930s Analogy: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Re-Examined

Author:
Christopher Layne
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
Abstract:
The key events of the 1930s Hitler's rise to power, Germany's reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, Munich and the subsequent German occupation of Prague in March 1939, and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 transpired some seventy years ago. The events of the 1930s or at least Churchill's depiction of them have provided the standard images that have shaped U.S. foreign policy and scholarly research alike: falling dominoes, insatiable dictators, the interdependency of strategic commitments, the importance of demonstrating resolve, and the impossibility of achieving diplomatic accommodation with nondemocratic regimes. But does the myth track with the historical record? Does the 1930s myth accurately explain British grand strategy in the 1930s? Simply stated, my argument is that the 1930s myth as commonly understood in the United States is bad history, and that its use has contributed importantly to a series of dubious policy decisions by U.S. decisionmakers and still does. As I demonstrate, the British, in fact, were not willfully blind to the German threat or indifferent to the need to rearm to meet it. Rather, during the 1930s, London formulated a quintessentially realist grand strategy that attempted to blend deterrence and diplomacy to contain Hitler's Germany (and Japan and Italy), and defend Britain's interests as a world power by avoiding what, for Britain, could only be a disastrous war.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Japan, Europe, London, Germany, Italy, and Austria

3. Casualties of War: Transatlantic Relations and the Future of NATO in the Wake of the Second Gulf War

Author:
Christopher Layne
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The Iraq War represents a turning point in transatlantic relations. Euro-American ties have been ruptured, and never again will be the same. But the growing estrangement between the European powers and the United States is tied primarily to the nature of power in the international system and to America's dominant role in the world today.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and America