Great Power Competition in the 21st Century (Table of Contents)
Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today
My last post generated questions about my next book. So posting here the current table of contents. Comments are most welcome! Ill try to summarize the arguments of each chapter over the coming months.
Draft: January 29, 2023
Great Power Competition in the 21st Century
Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today
By Michael McFaul
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: New Cold Wars?
I. The Past: Power, Regimes, and Leaders
Chapter 2. The Origins of U.S.-Russia Confrontation
Chapter 3: The Origins of U.S.-China Confrontation
II. The Present: Power, Ideology, and the Global Order
Hard Power
Chapter 4: The Rise and Decline of American Hegemony
Chapter 5: The Balance of Power between the U.S. and Russia Today
Chapter 6: The Balance of Power between the U.S. and China Today
Ideational Power
Chapter 7: The Rise and Decline of Democracy as a Universal Value
Chapter 8: Exporting Putinism
Chapter 9: Exporting Xi Jinping Thought
Institutional Power
Chapter 10: The Rise and Decline of the Liberal International Order
Chapter 11: Russian Approaches to Global Order
Chapter 12: Chinese Approaches to Global Order
III. The Future: Pragmatic Idealism
Chapter 13: The Unilateral Agenda: American Renewal at Home
Chapter 14: The Bilateral Agenda: Containing and Engaging Russia
Chapter 15: The Bilateral Agenda: Containing and Engaging China
Chapter 16: The Multilateral Agenda: Revitalizing Liberal Internationalism
Chapter 17: Conclusion
The lesson we should be learning from the last cold war is that sooner or later we're going to lose control of brinksmanship, and it's going to get us all killed. It simply isn't credible that we can maintain big stockpiles of nuclear weapons forever and they will never be used. Once that's understood then geopolitical competition analysis starts to lose it's meaning.
It's the simplest thing. Our entire culture is walking around with a loaded gun in it's mouth. A gun we've become bored with and typically ignore. Sooner or later we're going to trip over a curb, or bump in to a door, and the gun is going to go off. And then the question of "who is winning" will no longer matter.
Looks a really interesting book. My only question is 'Exporting Putinism'. While I suspect there might be deposts who would like to emulate his success in staying in power I'm not sure if he's seen as a model to follow in the way China might be to dictators of under-developed nations.