America's Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline?

by Alfredo Toro Hardy

Overview

This book focuses on ascertaining what distinguishes the Cold War that the U.S. sustained with the USSR from the one now emerging with China. By comparing their characteristics, it elaborates on how well prepared the US is to undertake this fresh challenge.

In doing so, the book analyses six fundamental differences between both cold wars; ideology, alliances, strategic consistency, military, economics, and containment.

While the configuration of factors benefited the US during its first Cold War, they now point in the opposite direction. While the first Cold War was instrumental in projecting the US to the pinnacle, the second can only accelerate its dwindling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789811695025
Publisher:	Springer Nature Singapore
Publication date:	03/21/2022
Edition description:	1st ed. 2022
Pages:	209
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alfredo Toro Hardy is a Venezuelan retired diplomat, scholar and author. He has a PhD on International Relations and several master and postgraduate degrees, including a Master in Law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Before resigning from the Venezuelan Foreign Service in protest for the authoritarian outreach of the government, he served as Ambassador to the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Singapore, Chile and Ireland. He directed the Diplomatic Academy of his country as well as other Venezuelan academic institutions, while being Visiting Professor at the universities of Princeton, Barcelona and Brasilia. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, Academic Advisor of the University of Westminster, and a two-time Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident Scholar. Author of twenty books and co-author of fifteen more, he has also published thirty peer reviewed papers, all of them on international affairs.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- 2. The brief history of the end of history.- 3. From hiding strengths to assertive showcasting.- 4. From ideology to efficiency.- 5. From hegemony to the squandering of alliances.- 6. From strategic consistency to zigzagging.- 7. From economic high ground to economic lowland.- 8. From reasonable containment to unattainable containment.- 9. Conclusion.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Readers will find Toro Hardy’s historical and conceptual grasp of big power geopolitics the perfect guide to provide context to a shifting US foreign policy whose contours are still in the making. In this sense, his book not only becomes an important addition to the ongoing debate on what the future of such foreign policy should be but, even more significantly, a guide to decode its complexities and need of choices”.

— James M. Dorsey,  Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of the Nanyang Technological University and author of China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.