Does the United States Need Allies?
Publisher
:
Éditions Payot
Parution date
:
2004
EAN
:
9782228898096
Description
To this question, Jean-Yves Haine, a security expert, replies that the answer lies in the past, and in an understanding of the whole notion of balance of power, first iterated in 1536 in F. Guichardin’s Storia d’Italia and famously explored by Machiavelli. In this context, and in the thoughts and works of political scientists from the Renaissance to today, the question takes on a new depth. Looking back at the US’s key alliances, how they were made, and how they are holding together today, he lays bare a less than elegant universe. Indeed as history shows, foreign policy decisions are mostly made in the dark, in an astonishingly irrational frame of mind, and with much weight given to how a policy reflects the nation’s self-image. NATO is a case in point, and how that organization fits into the scene is of preponderant interest here. As Haine sees it, the creation of NATO defied logic, and in some senses spelled its end as soon as it was created. Nonetheless, he argues, the notion of a progressive multi-nationalism is an important one, and detractors should not sound the death knell. Even if the United States set out seemingly alone in its war against terrorism, its past alliances are more important now than ever.
Author
Jean-Yves Haine : Jean-Yves Haine is director of research at the Institut d’études sur la securité de l’Union européenne, and was formerly a professor at the Institut d’études politiques in Paris as well as a visiting professor at Harvard University assisting Stanley Hoffmann.
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