US PRIMACY
May 2007
"What's at Stake in the American Empire Debate"
Journal Article, American Political Science Review, issue 2, volume 101
By Daniel H. Nexon and Thomas J. Wright, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2004-2007
"Scholars of world politics enjoy well-developed theories of the consequences of unipolarity or hegemony, but have little to say about what happens when a state's foreign relations take on imperial properties...."
Winter 2007
"The Iraq Experiment and US National Security"
Journal Article, Survival, issue 4, volume 48
By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
This article was prepared for a Council on Foreign Relations/International Institute for Strategic Studies Symposium on Iraq's Impact on the Future of US Foreign and Defence Policy, with generous support from Rita E. Hauser.
Winter 2006/07
"Correspondence: The Short Shadow of U.S. Primacy?"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 31
By Jeffrey Lantis, Tom Sauer, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1997-1999, James Wirtz, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl Press
Jeffrey Lantis, Tom Sauer, and James Wirtz reply to Keir Lieber and Daryl Press's spring 2006 International Security article, "The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy."
Fall 2006
"Smart Power: In Search of the Balance between Hard and Soft Power (Book Review of Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security By Kurt M. Campbell and Michael E. O'Hanlon)"
Journal Article, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, issue 2
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"When I developed the concept of soft power a decade and a half ago, the conventional wisdom was that the United States was in decline. As the late Senator Paul Tsongas put it in 1992, "the Cold War is over, and Japan and Germany won." As I was trying to understand why the declinists were wrong and why I thought the United States would be the leading country of the twenty-first century, I totaled up American military and economic power and realized that something was still missing: the enormous capacity of this country to get what it wants by attraction rather than through coercion. This attractive, or "soft," power stemmed from American culture, values, and policies that were broadly inclusive and seen as legitimate in the eyes of others."
Fall 2006
"The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 31
By Christopher Layne, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1995-1996
The United States is the sole superpower in a unipolar world. How long this situation will last, however, is unclear. Although no new great military powers have emerged to balance against the United States, second-tier states are engaging in subtle, nontraditional forms of balancing that could lead to the end of unipolarity. Analysts who focus exclusively on traditional forms of balancing should not be surprised when the United States finds itself unable to maintain its unipolar position in a changing world.
Fall 2006
"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"
Journal Article, Middle East Policy, issue 3, volume XIII
By John J. Mearsheimer, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
"Why has the United States adopted policies that jeopardized its
own security in order to advance the interests of another state?"
January 2006
"Chinese Strategies in a US-Hegemonic Global Order: Accommodating and Hedging"
Journal Article, International Affairs, issue 1, volume 82
By Rosemary Foot, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2005-2006
"China's economic, political and military influence has been increasing at a time when the United States, as sole superpower, dominates the international order. This article outlines Chinese elite perspectives on the current global order and shows not only how these perceptions have affected China's policies towards the United States, but also how they have influenced China's regional and global policies more broadly...."
September / October 2005
"Taming American Power"
Journal Article, Foreign Affairs, issue 5, volume 84
By Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
This article is adapted from Stephen M. Walt's book, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy.
Summer 2005
"Soft Balancing against the United States"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 30
By Robert Pape, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
The George W. Bush administration’s national security strategy, which asserts that the United States has the right to attack and conquer sovereign countries that pose no observable threat, and to do so without international support, is one of the most aggressively unilateral U.S. postures ever taken. Recent international relations scholarship has wrongly promoted the view that the United States, as the leader of a unipolar system, can pursue such a policy without fear of serious opposition.
Summer 2005
"Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 30
By T.V. Paul
Analysts have argued that balance of power theory has become irrelevant to understanding state behavior in the post–Cold War international system dominated by theUnited States, yet some second-tier and emerging states have engaged in soft-balancing strategies, including the formation of temporary coalitions and institutional bargaining, mainly within the United Nations, to constrain the power as well as the threatening behavior of the United States.
