Martin A. Smith – författare

Power has been compared to the weather: people discuss it all the time, but very few really understand it. This book seeks to demystify this complex concept by providing students with an incisive and engaging introduction to the shifting configurations of power in the contemporary global order.

Drawing on the work of leading international relations scholars, philosophers and sociologists, the analysis goes beyond simplistic views of power as material capability, focusing also on its neglected social dimensions. These are developed and explored through a detailed examination of the changing international role, status and capacities of the United States, Russia and China since the end of the Cold War. Far from achieving multipolarity, the book concludes that the contemporary world remains essentially unipolar; America having moved to correct the mistakes of George W. Bush’s first term in office, while China and Russia have, in different ways, limited their own abilities to challenge American primacy.

This book will be essential reading for students of international relations and politics, as well as anyone with an interest in the shifting balance of power in the global system.

NATO, the most successful alliance in history, is beset by unresolved tensions and divergent interests that are undermining its cohesion, credibility and capability.

In this new book, Mark Webber, James Sperling and Martin Smith explore four key post-Cold War developments that threaten NATO''s survival: an overextended geostrategic reach and an unwieldly security policy portfolio; a failure to address capability short-falls and meet defence spending benchmarks; US weariness and European wariness that call NATO into question; and intra-alliance discord over Russia’s place in the European security order and how to deal with Moscow’s destabilization of Georgia and Ukraine. The authors propose in response a range of policy options that could reinvigorate NATO, but conclude with a note of caution. Alliances come and go and most are cast into the dustbin of history. If NATO is to avoid this fate, it must not only address the major problems that trouble it, but also get to grips with future challenges to alliance cohesion and credibility, from Brexit to the emerging contest with China.

This book offers a comparative analysis of the approaches, policies and records of the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, through an examination of key foreign policy issues that caused controversy and debate both during the 1990s and in the years since 9/11.

In the post 9/11 security environment, three issues were identified by the Bush administration as being at the heart of a threat ‘nexus’ – issues that had also preoccupied the Clinton administration. These were the threats and challenges posed by international terrorism, particularly of the militant Islamist type, the so called ‘rogue states’, and the US response to the actual and potential proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Smith explores the responses to these issues and the debates surrounding the nature of US engagement with key regions and states, teasing out areas of similarity and difference in the policies and approaches of the Clinton and Bush administrations. Attention is also given to the contrast frequently drawn between Clinton’s alleged predilection for multilateral approaches to international relations and Bush’s supposed hard-edged unilateralism.

This book will prove useful to scholars and students in the fields of US foreign policy, politics, international relations, security studies and public policy.

This book offers a fresh assessment of George W. Bush’s foreign policies.

It is not designed to offer an evaluation of the totality of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Instead, the analysis will focus on the key aspects of his foreign and security policy record, in each case considering the interplay between principle and pragmatism. The underpinning contention here is that policy formulation and implementation across Bush’s two terms can more usefully be analysed in terms of shades of grey, rather than the black and white hues in which it has often been painted. Thus, in some key policy areas it will be seen that the overall record was more pragmatic and successful than his many critics have been prepared to give him credit for. The president and his advisers were sometimes prepared to alter and amend their policy direction, on occasion significantly. Context and personalities, interpersonal and interagency, both played a role here. Where these came together most visibly – for instance in connection with dual impasses over Iraq and Iran – exigencies on the ground sometimes found expression in personnel changes. In turn, the changing fortunes of Bush’s first term principals presaged policy changes in his second. What emerges from a more detached study of key aspects of the Bush administration – during a complicated and challenging period in the United States’ post-Cold War history, marked by the dramatic emergence of international Islamist terrorism as the dominant international security threat – is a more complex picture than any generalization can ever hope to sustain, regardless of how often it is repeated.

This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, international politics and security studies.