The Great Delusion
Liberal Dreams and International Realities
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Beschreibung des Verlags
A renowned scholar argues that liberal hegemony—the policy America has pursued since the Cold War ended—is doomed to fail
Named a Financial Times Best Book of 2018
“Idealists as well as realists need to read this systematic tour de force.”—Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Return of Marco Polo’s World
It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America’s image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home.
In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony—the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended—is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.
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In this accessible treatise, Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, outlines how U.S. foreign policy pursuing what he calls "liberal hegemony" has backfired to the point of recoil. The U.S.'s literal fight for peace, he argues, has antagonized states whose identities rest in strongman nationalism, resulting in more wars and greater militarism and nationalism at home to U.S. social coffers' detriment. Pointing to the recent conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan as examples, Mearsheimer notes that spending billions of dollars on the latest in munitions is not an effective path to being the world's moral arbiter. Rather, he posits that, to maintain a "unipolar" world centered on U.S. interests, American foreign policy should base its actions in "realism," a strategy that pursues self-preservation via a balance of power between sovereign nations. A country that is internally sound, economically and democratically, will be one the world will want to emulate and a nation strong enough to stay ahead of a rising China. The author's prose is accessible, if not free of jargon such as "night-watchman," a phrase he uses to denote a state that seeks to play the role of moral arbiter. Mearsheimer's disquieting critique will appeal to diplomacy aficionados, especially those looking for wonkish contrarianism on the political status quo.
