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12. Bigger Is Better
- Author:
- Richard Rosecrance
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Throughout history, states have generally sought to get larger, usually through the use of force. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, countervailing trends briefly held sway. Smaller countries, such as Japan, West Germany, and the "Asian tigers," attained international prominence as they grew faster than giants such as the United States and the Soviet Union. These smaller countries -- what I have called "trading states" -- did not have expansionist territorial ambitions and did not try to project military power abroad. While the United States was tangled up in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, trading states concentrated on gaining economic access to foreign territories, rather than political control. And they were quite successful. But eventually the trading-state model ran into unexpected problems. Japanese growth stalled during the 1990s as U.S. growth and productivity surged. Many trading states were rocked by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, during which international investors took their money and went home. Because Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and other relatively small countries did not have enough foreign capital to withstand the shock, they had to go into receivership. As Alan Greenspan, then the U.S. Federal Reserve chair, put it in 1999, "East Asia had no spare tires." Governments there devalued their currencies and adopted high interest rates to survive, and they did not regain their former glory afterward. Russia, meanwhile, fell afoul of its creditors. And when Moscow could not pay back its loans, Russian government bonds went down the drain. Russia's problem was that although its territory was vast, its economy was small. China, India, and even Japan, on the other hand, had plenty of access to cash and so their economies remained steady. The U.S. market scarcely rippled.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, India, Asia, Vietnam, and Germany
13. The Perils of Apology: What Japan Shouldn't Learn From Germany
- Author:
- Jennifer Lind
- Publication Date:
- 05-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Japan should not apologize for its past aggression by emulating the contrition that Germany has displayed since the mid-1960s because it would risk a nationalist backlash. A more promising model is the one set by West Germany in the 1950s, which focuses on the future.
- Topic:
- NATO
- Political Geography:
- Japan and Germany
14. Globalization in Retreat
- Author:
- Roger C. Altman
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- It is now clear that the global economic crisis will be deep and prolonged and that it will have far-reaching geopolitical consequences. The long movement toward market liberalization has stopped, and a new period of state intervention, reregulation, and creeping protectionism has begun.
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom, America, France, and Germany
15. Which Way Is History Marching?
- Author:
- G. John Ikenberry, Daniel Deudney, Ronald Inglehart, zar Gat, and Christian Welzel
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Two recent articles in these pages -- "The Myth of the Autocratic Revival [1]" (January/February 2009) and "How Development Leads to Democracy [2]" (March/April 2009) -- have taken issue with my July/August 2007 essay, "The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers [3]." In the first, Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry dispute my argument that the authoritarian capitalist great powers Germany and Japan were defeated in both world wars largely because of contingent factors rather than structural inefficiencies. As I have argued, these countries were too small in comparison to the United States. With respect to the challenge posed by China and Russia, Deudney and Ikenberry insist that developed nondemocratic capitalist societies will not be viable in the long run.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Germany
16. Germany's Russia Question: A New Ostpolitik for Europe
- Author:
- Constanze Stelzenmüller
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Germany is a bridge between Russia and the West, and how Berlin chooses to deal with Moscow will set the tone for how the United States and the rest of Europe manage their own relationships with Russia.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Germany, and Berlin