Tag: international relations

  • Review: 'How New and Assertive is China's New Assertiveness' by Alastair Iain Johnston, Spring 2013

    [This review is part of a new experiment. I have read for general impressions, main points, and potentially useful material for myself and others. This is not a detailed methodological or theoretical examination, nor is it a conscientious summary. I have tried to consider both specialist and generalist audiences. Comments are very welcome, as I hope…

  • 'National interests' and dealing with U.S.–China distrust

    From Kenneth Lieberthal, a political scientist now at the Brookings Institution, writing in a new report with Chinese scholar Wang Jisi, “Addressing U.S.–China Strategic Distrust“: Too little understanding of how the Chinese political system actually functions also leads easily to Americans’ viewing Chinese decision making as strategic, coordinated, and disciplined. Disparate conflicting outcomes produced by…

  • Does 'grand strategy' still matter?

    At NBR, my interview with Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley Tellis recently went live. Perhaps my favorite exchange from the talk was his response to my question about the value of “grand strategy,” which it seems to me can mean different things to different people. I think Tellis makes a reasonable argument for taking a broad view…

  • Etzioni on wrongheaded US views of India and China

    At World Policy Journal, which I have just discovered has an interesting blog, Amitai Etzioni in July argued that mainstream U.S. views on India and China are deeply flawed. When people talk about balancing Chinese power with a democratic ally in India, Etzioni argues, we buy into a long-discredited ideology of international relations. An excerpt:…