Highest Stakes: The Economic Foundations of the New Security System

9780195070354

0195070356

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.