michael green by more than providence

PART FOUR THE RISE OF CHINA
  • [PART FOUR Introduction]
     (pp. 423-428)
    At 9:00 A.M. on May 30, 2015, U.S. secretary of defense Ashton Carter rose to the podium in the Island Ballroom of Singapore’s Shangri-La Hotel to address the hundreds of defense officials, scholars, and journalists gathered for the Fourteenth International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit. The American secretary of defense is always the most-quoted speaker at the annual dialogue, but this year the delegates were particularly focused on how Carter would explain American strategy in the aftermath of a string of bold Chinese moves that many thought represented a deliberate assault on the American-led postwar order in...
  • 12. “THE KEY TO OUR SECURITY AND OUR PROSPERITY LIES IN THE VITALITY OF THOSE RELATIONSHIPS”: GEORGE H. W. BUSH AND THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT, 1989–1992
     (pp. 429-452)
    George Herbert Walker Bush was one of the best-prepared presidents in American history regarding foreign policy (though Dwight Eisenhower and John Quincy Adams could certainly vie for that honor).¹ He brought to office experience as the youngest navy fighter pilot in the Pacific during the Second World War; as a member of the U.S. Congress; as the top U.S. diplomat in China; as head of the CIA; and as vice president to Ronald Reagan. His breeding and survival in combat and politics made him an internationalist but also an “incrementalist” and “pragmatic conservative”—the “guardian of Reagan’s legacy” who “wanted...
  • 13. “ENGAGE AND BALANCE”: BILL CLINTON AND THE UNEXPECTED RETURN OF GREAT-POWER POLITICS
     (pp. 453-481)
    When he became president, Bill Clinton was already a man steeped in internationalism. He had majored in international relations at Georgetown University and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He had worked for the preeminent internationalist of the U.S. Senate, fellow Arkansan William J. Fulbright. As governor of Arkansas, Clinton had led trade missions to Japan and Taiwan. Yet despite this pedigree, Clinton’s internationalism was colored first by his political instincts—and it was clear that the American people were ready for some relief at home after the Cold War. “I refuse to be part of a generation that...
  • 14. “A BALANCE OF POWER THAT FAVORS FREEDOM”: STRATEGIC SURPRISE AND THE ASIA POLICY OF GEORGE W. BUSH
     (pp. 482-517)
    The academic critique of George W. Bush’s Asia policy is often difficult to distinguish from the academic critique of the Iraq War. Resentful of alleged “unilateralism” and “militarism” in Iraq, scholars have often thrown the same charges at the forty-third president’s Asia strategy without examining the policies on their respective merits. For example, Bush is accused of “over-reliance on bilateral hubs and spokes” and “neglecting regionalism” in Asia,¹ yet he was the only president to attend every APEC summit, and his administration took the lead in initiating more new multilateral forums and institutions in Asia than any of his post...
  • 15. “THE PIVOT”: BARACK OBAMA AND THE STRUGGLE TO REBALANCE TO ASIA
     (pp. 518-540)
    By the time Barack Obama became the forty-fourth president of the United States, the broad contours and consensus behind a strategy of engaging and balancing a rising China had taken root. Jeffrey Bader, Obama’s principal advisor on Asia during the campaign and later at the White House, told the candidate early on that the Bush administration had managed major-power relations in Asia well but that there was the need for reengagement with Southeast Asia and the lingering problems on the Korean Peninsula.¹ Obama did not campaign on Asia policy, but he did promise a transformational presidency after six years of...
  • CONCLUSION: THE HISTORICAL CASE FOR ASIA STRATEGY
     (pp. 541-548)
    Is the United States capable of grand strategy? Two centuries of American engagement with Asia and the Pacific strongly suggest that the answer is yes. American grand strategy has been episodic and inefficient, but in the aggregate it has been effective. The American people have repeatedly mustered the willpower, focus, and resources to prevail when access to an open order in the region has been fundamentally challenged, and they have contributed in the aggregate to a more prosperous and just Asia-Pacific region. It did not matter whether the United States had a preponderance of power at the time. John Quincy...

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