Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan, the New York Times bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power and one of the countrys most influential strategic thinkers, reaffirms the importance of United Statess global leadership in this timely and important book. Upon its initial publication, The World America Made became one of the most talked about political books of the year, influencing Barack Obamas 2012 State of the Union address and shaping the thought of both the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns. In these incisive and engaging pages, Kagan responds to those who anticipateor even long fora post-American world order by showing what a decline in Americas influence would truly mean for the United States and the rest of the world, as the vital institutions, economies, and ideals currently supported by American power wane or disappear. As Kagan notes, it has happened before: one need only to consider the consequences of the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I. This book is a powerful warning that America need not and dare not decline by committing preemptive superpower suicide.

Kagan argues that hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have proved wrong. He stresses that peoples of the liberal world need to choose whether they want to shape it or let others shape it for them. Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. Nation-states remain as strong as ever, as do the old, explosive forces of ambitious nationalism. The world remains "unipolar," but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict. Communism is dead, but a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics. Finally, radical Islamists are waging a violent struggle against the modern secular cultures and powers that, in their view, have dominated, penetrated, and polluted their Islamic world. The grand expectation that after the Cold War the world would enter an era of international geopolitical convergence has proven wrong. For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in "The Return of History and the End of" "Dreams," Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.

Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities. Great powers are once again competing for geopolitical influence. International competition between the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raises new threats of regional conflict. The expectation that after the Cold War the world had entered an era of international convergence has proved wrong. We have entered an age of divergence. In The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the questions facing the liberal democratic world today. For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. But now History has returned, and the peoples of the liberal world need to choose whether they want to shape it or let others shape it for them.

An NPR Book of the YearAt the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States was one of the worlds richest, most populous, most technologically advanced nations. It was also a nation divided along numerous fault lines, with conflicting aspirations and concerns pulling it in different directions. And it was a nation unsure about the role it wanted to play in the world, if any. Americans were the beneficiaries of a global order they had no responsibility for maintaining.Many preferred to avoid being drawn into what seemed an ever more competitive, conflictual, and militarized international environment. However, many also were eager to see the United States taking a share of international responsibility, working with others to preserve peace and advance civilization. The story of American foreign policy in the first four decades of the twentieth century is about the effort to do both - "to adjust the nation to its new position without sacrificing the principles developed in the past," as one contemporary put it. This would prove a difficult task. The collapse of British naval power, combined with the rise of Germany and Japan, suddenly placed the United States in a pivotal position. American military power helped defeat Germany in the First World War, and the peace that followed was significantly shaped by a U.S. president. But Americans recoiled from their deep involvement in world affairs, and for the next two decades, they sat by as fascism and tyranny spread unchecked, ultimately causing the liberal world order to fall apart. Americas resulting intervention in the Second World War marked the beginning of a new era, for the United States and for the world.Brilliant and insightful, The Ghost at the Feast shows both the perils of American withdrawal from the world and the price of international responsibility.

European leaders, increasingly disturbed by U.S. policy and actions abroad, feel they are headed for a moment of truth. After years of mutual resentment and tension, there is a sudden recognition that the real interests of America and its allies are diverging sharply and that the trans-atlantic relationship itself has changed, possibly irreversibly. Europe sees the United States as high-handed, unilateralist, and unnecessarily belligerent; the United States sees Europe as spent, unserious, and weak. The anger and mistrust on both sides are hardening into incomprehension. Tracing the widely differing histories of Europe and America since the end of World War II, Kagan makes clear how for one the need to escape a bloody past has led to a new set of transnational beliefs about power and threat, while the other has perforce evolved into the guarantor of that "postmodern paradise" by dint of its might and global reach.

El lector tiene en sus manosá los capítulos centrales delá grueso volumen Peligros Presentes, autentica "ábibliaá" para los intelectuales y políticos neoconservadores que sostienen al Gobierno Bush. La revolucion neoconservadora basa su discurso en una elaborada linea de pensamiento y en un discurso ideologico que ha sido capaz de volver a triunfar en las pasadas elecciones USA y que tiene una enorme influencia en el mundo entero. a El lector podra conocer de primera mano las lineas programaticas que inspiraran al segundo mandato republicano. Comprendera la logica que lo inspira y podra anticipar los acontecimientos que se avecinan, dado que lo escriben los principales representantes del pensamiento neoconservador estadounidense. Figurasa clave comoa Paul Wolfowitz (numero dos de la jerarquia del Pentagono) William Bennett (antiguo ministro de Educacion de Estados Unidos) William Kristol (editor del enormemente influyente Weekly Standard), Robert Kagan (autor del best-seller Fuerza y debilidad) y James Ceaser (reputado academico estadounidense) desgranan las claves del pensamiento y de la estrategia que cimienta al nuevo orden politico internacional americano: sagrada mision de Estados Unidos en su lucha contra el eje del mal, unilateralismo en las relaciones internacionales,

Tras años de mutuo resentimiento y tensiones, hoy está claro que los intereses de Europa y Estados Unidos divergen cada vez más, y que la relación transatlántica ha cambiado notablemente, posiblemente de forma irreversible. Europa cree que Estados Unidos es una potencia arbitraria, unilateral e innecesariamente beligerante; Estados Unidos piensa que Europa es un continente cansado, poco riguroso y debil. La indignacion y la desconfianza por ambas parte esta desembocando en una incomprension total. Este libro provocador ofrece un analisis unico, fundamental para comprende el presente y el futuro de la relacion entre Europa y Estados Unidos.

From a leading scholar of this country's foreign policy comes the brilliant essay about America and the world that has caused a storm in international circles--now expanded into book form.

Robert Kagan, uno de los más notables expertos en política mundial, demuestra que el avance hacia el liberalismo era contingente y que la gran falacia de nuestra era ha consistido en creer que ese orden respondia al simple triunfo de la mejor vision del mundo, o al desarrollo natural del progreso humano. La idea, dominante a principios de los años noventa, de que el mundo habia entrado en una era de concordia mundial ha resultado ser erronea: hemos entrado de pleno en un periodo de divergencia. Los expertos en ciencia politica, de acuerdo con una vision determinista de la historia, hablaban de una dialectica global que imaginaban como una batalla ideologica con sucesivas etapas que culminaria definitiva e ineludiblemente en el orden liberal y democratico internacional. En los años inmediatamente posteriores a la Guerra Fria, el derrumbamiento del imperio comunista y la aparente llegada de la democracia a Rusia auguraban una nueva era de convergencia mundial. Los grandes adversarios de la Guerra Fria compartian repentinamente numerosos objetivos, incluido el deseo de integracion politica y economica. En ese contexto, el optimismo era comprensible. Hoy en dia, la reaparicion de grandes potencias autocraticas y la fuerza reaccionaria del radicalismo islamico han debilitado ese orden liberal, y amenazan con debilitarlo mas aun en las proximas decadas.