The Highest Stakes: The Economic Foundations of the Next Security System

by John Zysman, Michael Borrus, Wayne Sandholtz

Book Overview

Will markets, investment, and technology--rather than tanks and missiles--be the key elements in the new world order? When politics catches up with the global whirlwind of shifting economic capabilities, the international system will look very different than how it does today. This book explores how the momentous dislocations of economic power in the world--the might of Asia, the unification of Europe, the relative decline of the United States--will reshape global security issues. The authors explain power and interests are changing and how the loss of industrial and technological leadership is undermining the exercise of American power. They demonstrate how these changes may presage an entirely new era that would reconceive the very nature of security, redefine the international power game, and resituate its players. This volume first sets the stakes--drawing the links between economic capacities and security. Then the players are covered, detailing the relative positions of Asia, Europe, and United States. The book concludes with a warning that the emerging distribution of economic capabilities does not insure a natural extension of the present international security arrangement. At least two other directions are possible, each implying not only new security concerns at home, but a transformation in the international security system as a whole.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195070356
• ISBN13: 9780195070354
• Release Date: August 1992
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Still relevant and interesting

In this book, published in 1992, a group of academics from the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy have written a series of brilliant and provocative essays on the economic foundations of the next security system, that is, of the XXI century. They define three broad scenarios: a) Controlled multilateralism; b) coexistence of blocks; and c) neomercantilism. So far, it seems that they were right in predicting that the most likely and desirable outcome would be some form of controlled multilateralism. Certainly, it could be said that coexistence of blocks is also a reality, but we are seeing a lot more interrelation between these blocks than what the scenario took into account. Some countries have built institutional bridges across the blocks, like Mexico, which belongs to NAFTA, but also has a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union, several Latin American countries, Israel, and is now negotiating one with Japan, beyond its membership in APEC.The security system seems to stay also within controlled multilateralism, as actions on the former Yugoslavia and Irak show. Summing up, the book's arguments and points are still relevant to analyze the world's options regarding this new century. The interplay between the economic and the security systems are clearly defined, and the tone of the book is objective, neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic. It's good analysis, even if not each and every detail is still accurate. Recommended for students of very different specialties: international economics, national security, prospective studies, etc.