Introduction: the guns of August -- Contours of Russian foreign policy -- Bulldogs fighting under the rug: the making of Russian foreign policy -- Resetting expectations: Russia and the United States -- Europe: between integration and confrontation -- Rising China and Russia's Asian vector -- Playing with home field advantage? Russia and its post-Soviet neighbors -- Conclusion: dealing with Russia's foreign policy reawakening.

Many foreign policy analysts assume that elite policymakers in liberal democracies consistently ignore humanitarian norms when these norms interfere with commercial and strategic interests. Today's endorsement by Western governments of repressive regimes in countries from Kazakhstan to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the name of fighting terror only reinforces this opinion. In Just Politics, C. William Walldorf Jr. challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that human rights concerns have often led democratic great powers to sever vital strategic partnerships even when it has not been in their interest to do so.Walldorf sets out his case in detailed studies of British alliance relationships with the Ottoman Empire and Portugal in the nineteenth century and of U.S. partnerships with numerous countries—ranging from South Africa, Turkey, Greece and El Salvador to Nicaragua, Chile, and Argentina—during the Cold War. He finds that illiberal behavior by partner states, varying degrees of pressure by nonstate actors, and legislative activism account for the decisions by democracies to terminate strategic partnerships for human rights reasons.To demonstrate the central influence of humanitarian considerations and domestic politics in the most vital of strategic moments of great-power foreign policy, Walldorf argues that Western governments can and must integrate human rights into their foreign policies. Failure to take humanitarian concerns into account, he contends, will only damage their long-term strategic objectives.

At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world's most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia. According to balance-of-power theory--the bedrock of realism in international relations--other states should have joined together militarily to counterbalance the United States' rising power. Yet they did not. Nor have they united to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or Russian offensives along its western border. This does not mean balance-of-power politics is dead, argues renowned international relations scholar T. V. Paul; instead it has taken a different form. Rather than employ familiar strategies such as active military alliances and arms buildups, leading powers have engaged in "soft balancing," which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions. Paul places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective, from the post-Napoleonic era to today's globalized world. This book offers an illuminating examination of how subtler forms of balance-of-power politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races.

This survey of the foreign relations of the great powers is essentially a straightforward diplomatic history: an attempt to describe how statesmen conducted foreign policy, how they dealt with crisis situations, and how they succeeded or failed to resolve them.

It has become axiomatic to contend that U.S. foreign policy must adapt to an era of renewed “great-power competition.” The United States went on a quarter-century strategic detour after the Cold War, the argument goes, basking in triumphalism and getting bogged down in the Middle East. Now China and Russia are increasingly challenging its influence and undercutting the order it has led since 1945. How should it respond to these two formidable authoritarian powers? In this timely intervention, Ali Wyne offers the first detailed critique of great-power competition as a foreign policy framework, warning that it could render the United States defensive and reactive. He exhorts Washington to find a middle ground between complacence and consternation, selectively contesting Beijing and Moscow but not allowing their decisions to determine its own course. Analyzing a resurgent China, a disruptive Russia, and a deepening Sino-Russian entente, Wyne explains how the United States can seize the "great-power opportunity" at hand: to manage all three of those phenomena confidently while renewing itself at home and abroad.

Named by Foreign Affairs as a book to read on geopolitics. In an era of high technology and instant communication, the role of geography in the formation of strategy and politics in international relations can be undervalued. But the mountains of Afghanistan and the scorching sand storms of Iraq have provided stark reminders that geographical realities continue to have a profound impact on the success of military campaigns. Here, political scientist Jakub J. Grygiel brings to light the importance of incorporating geography into grand strategy. He argues that states can increase and maintain their position of power by pursuing a geostrategy that focuses on control of resources and lines of communication. Grygiel examines case studies of Venice, the Ottoman Empire, and China in the global fifteenth century—all great powers that faced a dramatic change in geopolitics when new routes and continents were discovered. The location of resources, the layout of trade networks, and the stability of state boundaries played a large role in the success or failure of these three powers. Grygiel asserts that, though many other aspects of foreign policy have changed throughout history, strategic response to geographical features remains one of the most salient factors in establishing and maintaining power in the international arena.

This book presents the theoretical-historical-comparative political framework needed to fully grasp the truly dynamic nature of 21st century global affairs. The author provides a realistic assessment of the shift from U.S predominance to a new mix of counterbalancing rival middle-tier and assertive regional powers, while highlighting those geopolitical zones of contention most critical for future international stability. The book will appeal to scholars and policy makers interested in understanding the contours of the emerging world order, and in identifying its principal shapers and leading political actors.