Review of "Disunited Nations" by Peter Zeihan: The coming end of American hegemony will be good for America, but disastrous for much of the world, according to this sweeping treatise on international relations. Zeihan (author of The Accidental Superpower), a geopolitical strategy consultant, predicts that a United States weary of foreign entanglements will stop enforcing the post-WWII global “order” in which it guaranteed the military security of allies, kept sea lanes open, and welcomed exports from developing countries. What follows, he contends, will be pervasive disorder, in which some nations flourish—including a rich, isolated United States—as others face political chaos, economic regression, war, and famine caused by the breakdown of global supply chains and international cooperation. Zeihan pegs his arguments to in-depth discussions of the geography and agricultural, economic, and demographic trends of major countries and their impact on regional rivalries. Some of his prognostications are convincing: China’s vulnerability to trade blockades means it will never be a global military power as many fear, he reasons. Zeihan integrates a wealth of information and data into lucid analyses written in an accessible tone, explaining why the kind of superpower of US is different from the “superpowers” of the past, like Ming Dynasty China, Achaemenid Persia, or the Roman Empire. Zeihan describes that the absence of an American global order would lead to geopolitical regionalization all across Eurasia along historical lines. This means that the powers that had traditionally been dominant in Europe, Middle East, and the Far East, would end up explicitly dominating those regions again, as well as being subject to the same internal and external challenges that they have always been plagued with (e.g. China and its cyclical civil wars; the Middle East returning to the Anatolia vs Iranian Plateau geopolitical paradigm; continental Europe being dominated by the Franco-German area; Russia returning to its previous “horde lands” dynamic, etc). It is precisely because of the American Order that these countries have been "protected" from their reoccurring historical problems. The United States of America is an expansionist power. The 19th Century was largely spent expanding from 13 colonies to a nation that extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In addition, from the late 19th Century to the first half of the twentieth, the US focused on building influence. Post World War II, the US expanded its influence in Europe, Asia and Africa. Then post-Cold War, this influence was expanded to key parts of the former Soviet Bloc. Zeihan assumes that the colonial era could be revived. However, the major lesson from Iraq was, you can't do old-fashioned colonialism in the 21st Century. Zeihan don't have positive predictions on South Europe, alluding these countries aren't stable enough since the begging of the 2000s. Source: www.publishersweekly.com
The Kennedys in the World (March 1, 2021) by Lawrence J. Haas (a former White House communications strategist and award-winning journalist, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, author of Harry Truman and Arthur Vandenberg: the Partnership That Created the Free World, which was named by The Wall Street Journal one of its top ten non-fiction books of 2016), offers us a rich, fascinating, and consequential story about JFK, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy. From an early age the brothers developed a deep understanding of the different peoples, cultures, and ideologies around the world; a keen appreciation for the challenges that such differences created for the United States; and a strong desire to reshape America’s response to them. From their childhoods in the first half of the twentieth century, the brothers were prodded by their demanding father, Joe Kennedy, and their distant mother Rose, to learn and care about the world. For more than six decades after World War II, the Kennedy brothers shaped the U.S. response to almost every major global challenge of their times: the Soviet Union and China, the Cold War and Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Chile, Nicaragua and El Salvador, Korea and Vietnam, South Africa and Northern Ireland. In their time, America was what it remains today—the world’s greatest power, with roles and responsibilities that stretch across the planet. Jack, Bobby, and Ted shared a tough-minded internationalism and a conviction that America belonged on the side of the oppressed and not the overlords, but each applied that legacy to different challenges in distinct ways. Now the torch has been passed to our generation and this book serves as a powerful reminder of who we are as Americans and who we can be. Source: amazon.com
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