The End of Engagement
America's China and Russia Experts and U.S. Strategy Since 1989
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:20th Dec '24
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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- Paperback£19.99(9780197765210)
After the Cold War, America's leaders hoped Russia and China could be integrated into the rules-based international order and might even become more like the West. By the late 2010s, their optimism was dead. In The End of Engagement, David M. McCourt traces the intense personal, professional, and policy struggles over China and Russia in U.S. foreign policy since 1989. Drawing on 200 original interviews with America's China and Russia experts--from former policymakers and diplomats to prominent think tankers and academics--McCourt chronicles the rise and recent fall of "engagement" with Beijing and Moscow. While there are numerous explanations for why America moved away from engagement with China and Russia in the last decade, McCourt shows that none consider how important foreign policy knowledge communities have been in impacting policy. Adopting a unique, sociological perspective, this book offers an intimate look into the world of America's national security experts as they have struggled to make sense of changes in China and Russia and the remaining question of what comes next.
The End of Engagement is an astonishing and pathbreaking study. Sociologist David McCourt digs beneath the veneer of Sino-American and US-Russia relations to examine the twin communities of America's leading China and Russia specialists themselves. He astutely reveals how these experts have grappled with the repressive and revisionist turns of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin--but, more importantly, how the longstanding American policies of 'engagement' of each power have been shaken and forced to adapt to disturbing new realities. This is political sociology at its best, the comparative perspective is illuminating, and it should be carefully read inside and outside the Washington Beltway. * David Shambaugh, George Washington University and The Hoover Institution *
The End of Engagement stands as a landmark contribution to the study of U.S. foreign policy. Its sociological lens challenges established narratives, providing nuanced insights into the intersections of expertise, power, and international strategy. For scholars, policymakers, and readers seeking a deeper understanding of the mechanisms shaping policy decision-making, McCourt's work is both essential and thought-provoking, opening new avenues for exploring how epistemic communities influence the architecture of global relations. * STEFAN MESSINGSCHLAGER, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte *
McCourt provides an interesting perspective, and his interviews add an important dimension to the still-unfolding story of the end of engagement and its consequences. * L. M. Lees, CHOICE *
McCourt's painstaking efforts to go beyond the 'hawks versus doves' classification and to examine the divisions within America's China and Russia fieldsis admirable. * Olivia Cheung, International Affairs *
ISBN: 9780197765203
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 1270g
320 pages