Still Ours to Lead: America, Rising Powers, and the Tension between Rivalry and Restraint - Hardcover

Jones, Bruce D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815725124 ISBN 13: 9780815725121

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2014

Synopsis

Is the United States still a ""superpower""? How are the rising powers establishing themselves in international politics and security? What is the future of global stability?
For over a decade, Bruce Jones has had a front-row seat as the emerging powers—principally China, India, and Brazil, but also Turkey, Indonesia, Korea, and others—thrust themselves onto the global stage. From Delhi to Doha to Beijing to Brasilia, he's met with the politicians, diplomats, business leaders, and scholars of those powers as they craft their strategies for rising influence—and with senior American officials as they forge their response.
In Still Ours to Lead, Jones tells a nuanced story of American leadership. He artfully examines the tension between the impulse to rival the United States and the incentives for restraint and cooperation among the rising powers. That balance of rivalry and restraint provides the United States with a continued ability to solve problems and to manage crises at roughly the same rate as when American dominance was unquestioned. Maintaining the balance is central to the question of whether we will live in a stable or unstable system in the period to come. But it just so happens that this challenge plays to America's unique strength—its unparalleled ability to pull together broad and disparate coalitions for action. To succeed, America must adapt its leadership to new realities.

About this title

About the Author

Bruce Jones is a senior fellow and director of the International Order and Strategy project at Brookings, and a consulting professor at Stanford University. He has past experience in Middle East peace negotiations, crisis management in the Balkans, and intergovernmental negotiations on security and transnational threats. He is also chair of the New York University Center on International Cooperation.

His other books include Shaping the Emerging World (Brookings 2013), Power & Responsibility (Brookings 2009) and the forthcoming Risk Pivot (Brookings 2014).

Reviews

03/17/2014 When is America's time as leader of the free world up? This is the question on the minds of many Americans and non-Americans alike, and the answer according to Jones in his convincing new book is not as soon you think. Jones, director of the International Order and Strategy project at the Brookings Intuition, argues that America is currently on top and, as possessor of the world's largest economy, owner of the denomination of the global reserve currency, in a position that is tough to topple. Jones analyzes the positions of emerging powers, focusing mainly on Brazil, India, China, and sometimes Russia, and identifies a mindset behind them which involves a constant balance between rivalry and restraint. He puts forth reasonable and realistic reasons why their takeover(s) is approaching but not imminent. Like it or not, Jones evenhandedly points out, the nations of the world whether current powers, emerging powers or declining powers are interconnected through trade, economy, geopolitics, fuel energy, threat of terrorism, climate control, and a myriad of other shared interests, so no one on the top or the bottom is positioned to rock the international waters. The result is an interesting, relevant, and accessible read. (Feb.)

Edition details

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0815725124
• ISBN 13: 9780815725121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 263