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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University Author G. John Ikenberry

1. Racing toward Tragedy? China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma

Author:
G. John Ikenberry and Adam P. Liff
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claims that China's rapid economic growth and surging military spending are fomenting destabilizing arms races and security dilemmas are widespread. Such claims make for catchy headlines, yet they are rarely subject to rigorous empirical tests. Whether patterns of military competition in the Asia Pacific are in fact attributable to a security dilemma–based logic has important implications for international relations theory and foreign policy. The answer has direct consequences for how leaders can maximize the likelihood that peace and stability will prevail in this economically and strategically vital region. A systematic empirical test derived from influential theoretical scholarship on the security dilemma concept assesses the drivers of bilateral and multilateral frictions and military competition under way in the Asia Pacific. Security dilemma–driven competition appears to be an important contributor, yet the outcome is not structurally determined. Although this military competition could grow significantly in the near future, there are a number of available measures that could help to ameliorate or manage some of its worst aspects.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Cold War
Political Geography:
China and Asia

2. Don't Come Home, America: The Case against Retrenchment

Author:
G. John Ikenberry, William C. Wohlforth, and Stephen G. Brooks
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Confronting a punishing budget crisis, an exhausted military, balky allies, and a public whose appetite for global engagement is waning, the United States faces a critical question. After sixty-five years of pursuing a globally engaged grand strategy- nearly a third of which transpired without a peer great power rival-has the time finally come for retrenchment? According to many of the most prominent security studies scholars-and indeed most scholars who write on the future of U.S. grand strategy-the answer is an unambiguous yes. Even as U.S. political leaders almost uniformly assert their commitment to global leadership, over the past decade a very different opinion has swept through the academy: that the United States should scale back its global commitments and pursue retrenchment. More specifically, it should curtail or eliminate its overseas military presence, eliminate or dramatically reduce its global security commitments, and minimize or eschew its efforts to foster and lead the liberal institutional order.
Political Geography:
United States and America