The Opportunity - Softcover

Haass, Richard N

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586484532 ISBN 13: 9781586484538

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2006

Synopsis

In this dramatic new perspective on international affairs, Richard N. Haass, one of the country's most brilliant analysts and able foreign policy practitioners, argues that it is hard to overstate the significance of there being no major power conflict in the world. America's great military, economic, and political power discourages traditional challenges; no ideological fault line divides the world into warring blocs. India, China, Japan, Russia, and Europe all seek a prolonged period of stability that would support economic growth.

The opportunity thus exists for unprecedented cooperation among the major powers. This is good, because they share vulnerabilities. Globalization, which promotes trade and investment and eases travel and communication, also facilitates the spread of viruses (human and computer alike), weapons, terrorists, greenhouse gases, and drugs. And the United States, for all its strength, cannot defeat these threats alone.

But opportunity is not inevitability. The question is whether the United States will be able to integrate other countries into global efforts against terrorism, the spread of nuclear weapons, genocide, and protectionist policies that jeopardize global economic prosperity. This compelling book explains why it must and how it can.

About this title

About the Author:

Prior to becoming President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N.Haass was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and was the lead U.S. government official in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. He previously served in Jimmy Carter's Pentagon, in Ronald Reagan's State Department, and in George H. W. Bush's White House.

From Publishers Weekly:

As the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the country's most influential nongovernmental organizations and the publisher of the essential policy journal Foreign Affairs, Haass has an unique seat from which to weigh the direction of the U.S.'s relations with the rest of the world. In this book, he covers a lot of familiar territory: the collapse of the bipolar world, the advent of terrorism, the unprecedented possibilities for global political cooperation (that follow on the economic), the lessons to be drawn from the way the war in Iraq has been conducted. Haass ends up arguing not just that the U.S. has terrific opportunities to integrate itself politically with the rest of the world, but that it must do so-in order to preserve its economic integrity if nothing else. The final chapter, titled "The Necessity," argues that if that integration does not happen, "The principal challenges of this era...will come to overwhelm the United States." Coming as they do from a carefully calibrated source, those are sobering words.
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About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1586484532
• ISBN 13: 9781586484538
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272