Home › Books & Reviews › Capsule Reviews › Principles of Global Security

Principles of Global Security

John Steinbruner
Reviewed by By G. John Ikenberry
September/October 2000
Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.
John Steinbruner
Brookings Institution Press
2000
272 pp.
0815780958
$44.95

An important account of the transforming global security landscape. Over the last decade, Steinbruner has advanced provocative ideas of "cooperative security," which builds collaborative ties between potential adversaries to provide reassurance and lower the risks of war as an alternative or supplement to deterrence. In this book, he argues that radical shifts in security threats now demand a thorough rethinking of security principles. Globalization, population growth, rising economic inequality, and the spread of new destructive technologies are fundamentally altering what societies must do to protect themselves. Steinbruner contends that these new threats stem less from fixed places and established states than from "distributed processes" -- i.e., the erosion of legal standards, the unanticipated interaction of deployed forces, and the emergence of dangerous pathogens. Although he spins out some grim scenarios of new-age global violence, he also suggests that the prospects for security hinge most on the traditional challenges of managing the American relationship with China and Russia. This thought-provoking book makes the reader ponder whether the cooperative security principles that guide American security relations with Europe and Japan could also apply to those great-power outcasts.

Related

Essay, Mar/Apr 1996
America's Information Edge
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and William A. Owens

The American century, far from being over, is on the way. The information revolution, which capsized the Soviet Union and propelled Japan to eminence, has altered the equation of national power. America leads the world in the new technologies. Its emerging military systems can thwart any threat. On the "soft-power" side, it projects its ideals and other countries follow. To prevent an information race, America must share its lead; to preserve its reputation, it must keep its house in order.

Read
Essay, Mar/Apr 1997
Hastening Korean Reunification: The Writing on the 38th Parallel
Nicholas Eberstadt

Pacific powers would like Korea to reunify slowly, but the North is soon likely to implode, its economy deteriorating as its weapons of mass destruction accumulate. Rapid reunification would spur economic growth, as in Germany, and reduce regional tensions. South Korea's liberalization of its own economy and strengthening of its civic institutions will prepare it to assist the North. China and Russia may not go along, but Western governments should stop coddling Pyongyang. America should underwrite a united Korea's security, and Japan its finances.

Read
Essay, Winter 1981
Mitterrand's Foreign Policy: The Limits of Continuity
Dominique Moisi

Under Charles de Gaulle, French foreign policy as seen from Washington had a "nuisance value" at a time when France's domestic choices were much more in tune with those of her allies and neighbors. Under François Mitterrand, the radical nature of the domestic changes in France (e.g., nationalization of major industries and banks, decentralization of the administration of the country) have virtually changed French foreign policy into a reassuring value. At a time when pacifism is sweeping Northern Europe, and the Federal Republic of Germany in particular, France, with her firmness vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, her nuclear striking force, her strong defense budget and weak pacifist movement, seems an oasis of continuity.

Read