US hegemony

Question 1

historical US foreign policy

Answer 1

isolationism

Question 2

historical US foreign policy cont’

Answer 2

• WWI – US does not join voluntarily
• 1919 – US Senate rejects League of Nations
• 1940 - Nazis conquer France
• FDR “not send American boys into any foreign wars.”
• 1941 – US attacked by Japan, Hitler declares war

Question 3

securing dominance after WWII

Answer 3

ikenberry - set up multilateral institutions to make IR peaceful
strategic constraint to solidify legitimacy

Question 4

posen - command of the commons

Answer 4

• US has command of sea, space, and air
• Gets more military use, can deny their use to others, cannot be denied by others
• Can marshal its capabilities, and its allies, to create massive local superiority
• Restrict adversaries access to economic, military, and political assistance

Question 5

power transition theory

Answer 5

• when one power declines and another rises there is higher risk of war
• changing capabilities means more uncertainty + less ability to commit in future

Question 6

Thucydides trap

Answer 6

• “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta”
• Rising power’s pride, sense of entitlement, demand for greater say and sway

Question 7

cons of Thucydides trap

Answer 7

• no/vague mechanisms
• case selection/stat argument
• historical time difference

Question 8

beckley

Answer 8

• no decline + won’t be a decline
• other calculations of power are wrong - GDP + military spending are often GROSS
• Overstate the power of populous countries production welfare security

Question 9

beckley geography

Answer 9

• US – natural resources, friends and fish
• China – pollution, hostile neighbors

Question 10

beckley institutions

Answer 10

• US – entrepreneurship, accountability, attractive
• China – expropriative, corruption, no reform

Question 11

beckley demography

Answer 11

• US – growing, young, educated
• China – aging faster than any society in history

Question 12

cooley + nixon

Answer 12

• US declining in hegemony
• small states are changing behaviour
• new forms of transnationalism

Question 13

cooley + Nixon small states

Answer 13

• have more exit options
• Authoritarian govts can get money, services, other goods from non-US and non-western powers
• Avoid political/economic conditions on assistance

Question 14

cooley + nixon illiberal transnational networks

Answer 14

• Right wing networks challenge liberal organizations/rhetoric on LGBT, ethnic diversity, democratic governance
• Illiberal regimes limited or eliminated influence of reformist NGOs, free press
• “Illiberal turn” in the West