Books in the A Council on Foreign Relations Book series

Economy traces the economic and political roots of China's environmental challenge and the evolution of the leadership's response. She argues that China's current approach to environmental protection mirrors the one embraced for economic development.

No country feels China's rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts over the boundaries of economic zones in the East China Sea, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China. Smith finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats and include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions complicating Japan's encounters with China, such as those surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine or territorial disputes, have deep roots in the postwar era, and political advocates seeking a stronger Japanese state organize themselves around these causes. Other tensions manifest themselves during the institutional and regulatory reform of maritime boundary and food safety issues. Smith scrutinizes the role of the Japanese government in coping with contention as China's influence grows and Japanese citizens demand more protection. Underlying the government's efforts is Japan's insecurity about its own capacity for change and its waning status as the leading economy in Asia. For many, China's rise means Japan's decline, and Smith suggests how Japan can maintain its regional and global clout as confidence in its postwar diplomatic and security approach diminishes.

Failure to Adjust presents an especially timely analysis of the trade policies of the Obama administration, and discusses how America can reassert itself as the leader in setting rules for international economic competition that would spread the benefits of global trade and investment more broadly.

"A Council on Foreign Relations book"--Cover.

Paul B. Stares proposes an innovative and timely strategy to resolve America's foreign-policy predicament based on forging "preventive partnerships" and becoming less shortsighted and reactive. Preventive Engagement provides a detailed and comprehensive blueprint for the United States to shape the future and reduce the potential dangers ahead.

How and why did NATO, a Cold War military alliance created in 1949 to counter Stalin's USSR, become the cornerstone of new security order for post-Cold War Europe? Why, instead of retreating from Europe after communism's collapse, did the U.S. launch the greatest expansion of the American commitment to the old continent in decades? Written by a high-level insider, Opening NATO's Door provides a definitive account of the ideas, politics, and diplomacy that went into the historic decision to expand NATO to Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the still-classified archives of the U.S. Department of State, Ronald D. Asmus recounts how and why American policy makers, against formidable odds at home and abroad, expanded NATO as part of a broader strategy to overcome Europe's Cold War divide and to modernize the Alliance for a new era.Asmus was one of the earliest advocates and intellectual architects of NATO enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s and subsequently served as a top aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott, responsible for European security issues. He was involved in the key negotiations that led to NATO's decision to extend invitations to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and finally, the U.S. Senate's ratification of enlargement.Asmus documents how the Clinton Administration sought to develop a rationale for a new NATO that would bind the U.S. and Europe together as closely in the post-Cold War era as they had been during the fight against communism. For the Clinton Administration, NATO enlargement became the centerpiece of a broader agenda to modernize the U.S.-European strategic partnership for the future. That strategy reflected an American commitment to the spread of democracy and Western values, the importance attached to modernizing Washington's key alliances for an increasingly globalized world, and the fact that the Clinton Administration looked to Europe as America's natural partner in addressing the challenges of the twenty-first century.As the Alliance weighs its the future following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and prepares for a second round of enlargement, this book is required reading about the first post-Cold War effort to modernize NATO for a new era.

In the two decades since the United States became the world's only superpower, policymakers in Washington have seemingly abandoned many tools of statecraft and instead now rely on U.S. military strength as the key-and sometimes the sole-element of its...

This incisive book introduces post-apartheid South Africa to an international audience. Despite calls to undermine the 1994 political settlement characterized by human rights guarantees and the rule of law, diplomat John Campbell argues that the country's future is bright and that its democratic institutions will weather its current governance.

Ruling But Not Governing provides valuable insight into the political dynamics that perpetuate authoritarian regimes and offers novel ways to promote democratic change.

South Korea at the Crossroads examines fifty years of South Korean foreign policy and offers predictions--and a prescription--for the future. Pairing a historical perspective with a shrewd understanding of today's political landscape, Scott A. Snyder contends that South Korea's best strategy remains a robust alliance with the United States.