The Strategic Quadrangle: Russia, China, Japan, and the United States in East Asia [Paperback]

Michael Mandelbaum (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

In The Strategic Quadrangle five experts on East Asia explore the new shape of power among the major players in the region - Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. The authors examine the web of alliances, historical rivalries, and conflicting worldviews that define the relations among these four powers and analyze how the interactions among them will affect East Asia and the international system as a whole. Robert Legvold, surveying the sweeping changes that have taken place in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, contends that genuine integration into East Asia requires the kind of economic changes that have just begun in Russia and will take years to complete. David Lampton, in his chapter on China, examines the Chinese leadership's policy of military detente and economic cooperation with the other three powers in order to sustain the remarkable economic performance of the last two decades. In his chapter on Japan, Michael Mochizuki discusses the uncertainty that the end of the Soviet-American rivalry has produced in Japan's domestic politics and foreign policy. Michael Mandelbaum discusses the bilateral relationships between the United States and the three other countries and the differing issues that loom large for each: security, economics, and human rights. Finally, Richard Solomon attempts to answer the pivotal question of who will shape and wield power in the new East Asia.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A number of scholars have been brought together in this collection to tackle the subtitled nations, and all dilate on the sudden shifting in the North Pacific power relations now that the single certainty in the region, Russia's antagonism toward China, Japan, and the U.S., no longer holds true. Now the U.S. tends to be seen as the pressure-builder, berating Japan to open its domestic market or hectoring China on human rights. In the shifting possibilities of future alignments, one of the analysts even foresees a U.S./China cold war. But most of the informed prognostication points to scenarios not quite so dire. All will have to accommodate an economically dynamic China that might, at last, advance to the front rank of nations, the relations between Japan and Russia in indefinite abeyance over the northern territories issue, and all four countries wary about a nuclear-armed Korea. As an issue-of-the-day pamphlet, these articles will have limited shelf life, but their sensibleness and their citations can be a boon to report writers needing background and essential facts on recent currents in this critical geopolitical region. Gilbert Taylor

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations Press (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876091680
• ISBN-13: 978-0876091685
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,837,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. and is the director of the American Foreign Policy Program there. He has also held teaching posts at Harvard and Columbia Universities, and at the United States Naval Academy.

His most recent book, written with co-author Thomas L. Friedman, is THAT USED TO BE US: HOW AMERICA FELL BEHIND IN THE WORLD IT INVENTED AND HOW WE CAN COME BACK. Its publication date is September 5, 2011.

He serves on the board of advisors of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington-based organization sponsoring research and public discussion on American policy toward the Middle East.

A graduate of Yale College, Professor Mandelbaum earned his Master's degree at King's College, Cambridge University and his doctorate at Harvard University.

Professor Mandelbaum is the author or co-author of numerous articles and of 13 books: That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (2011) with co-author Thomas L. Friedman; The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era (2010); Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government (2007); The Case For Goliath: How America Acts As The World's Government in the Twenty-first Century (2006); The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football and Basketball and What They See When They Do (2004); The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century (2002); The Dawn of Peace in Europe (1996); The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1988); The Global Rivals, (co-author, 1988); Reagan and Gorbachev (co-author, 1987); The Nuclear Future (1983); The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics Before and After Hiroshima (1981); and The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976 (1979). He is also the editor of twelve books.