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America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After (The American Moment) Paperback – February 1, 1995
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Did the United States "win" the Cold War? In its self-congratulatory euphoria, argues Thomas McCormick in this new edition of his highly acclaimed study, America neglected a twenty-year process of political and economic devolution―the real threat to global peace and prosperity. Revised andupdated through 1993, it describes how the end of the Cold War affected the United States's global role as well as suggesting what possibilities lie ahead for a restructured world-system.
- Print length312 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherJohns Hopkins University Press
- Publication dateFebruary 1, 1995
- Dimensions6 x 0.81 x 9 inches
- ISBN-109780801850110
- ISBN-13978-0801850110
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"You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.
Now, with respect to the first one, two of the items from this particular area that the world uses are tin and tungsten. They are very important. There are others, of course, the rubber plantations and so on. Then with respect to more people passing under this domination, Asia, after all, has already lost some 450 million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship, and we simply can't afford greater losses.
But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that not only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are talking really about millions and millions and millions of people.
Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many things. It turns the so-called island defensive chain of Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it moves in to threaten Australia and New Zealand.
It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in turn, will have only one place in the world to go-that is, toward the Communist areas in order to live. So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world."
Needless to say, the domino theory informed American foreign policy in a profound way during the entire cold war. And it is clear from the quote above that American political leaders framed the domino principle in primarily economic terms. In the most simple sense, this is one of the key points that McCormick makes in his book.
Any reader with an open mind, any reader who wants to achieve a better, more comprehensive understanding of US foreign policy, therefore, will have something to learn from this book. And, again, even if you don't buy the entire argument, this does not mean that it is clap trap or mumbo jumbo.
America's Half-Century explores the historical origins of American hegemony, from1895-1945, and then examines the subsequent fifty years wherein America achieved, fought to retain, and experienced the devolution of its status as the chief global hegemon. McCormick traces the trajectory of American foreign policy and various military strategies over these decades and effectively uses the recurring theme of economic internationalism and the hegemonic project to explain the rationale behind policymakers' decisions. For example, he claims that looking through the lens of the hegemonic project better explains Franklin D. Roosevelt's delay in opening a second European front in 1942-43 to relieve the Russians who were fighting the German Wehrmacht alone. American military leaders, such as General Dwight Eisenhower, criticized the delay and the decision to focus military action on North Africa, Sicily, and Italy arguing that a cross-Channel invasion of Western Europe made more military sense. According to McCormick, since American political leaders were making military decisions with an eye to the hegemonic project, focusing action on the Mediterranean fringe ameliorated their goal of sharing--or usurping--Great Britain's dominant power "in an area rich in oil and situated at the crossroads of world trade." Furthermore, since U.S. political leaders did not want a rival hegemon in the new world order, it made sense to let their Russian allies and the Germans kill each other off. Viewed in this light, seemingly wrong-headed military decisions suddenly make sense.
McCormick also shows that foreign policy financial decisions can be explained by the hegemonic project. He explains that U.S. policymakers believed that Britain could be co-opted into the new American-led world order. This proved true when Britain accepted American technology, raw materials, and 3.8 billion in loans for its postwar reconstruction, and agreed, under American pressure, to pay for these things by making pounds sterling (previously only redeemable for British goods) fully convertible to U.S. dollars. This had the desired effect of reducing Britain to a second-rate power under the U.S. since, as expected, Britain's overseas dependencies, such as Egypt, India, and Australia chose to spend their pounds sterling on comparable, but less expensive, U.S. imports.
Because McCormick interprets U.S. foreign policy decisions within the framework of free-trade economics and its stress on the need for global markets to ensure domestic prosperity, his analysis dovetails with the scholarship of William Appleman Williams. But unlike Williams, who stresses the role of American ideology, or Weltanschauung, McCormick sees an organized, economic system in place with specific components and functions.
America's Half-Century is heavily researched and includes a seventeen-page bibliographic essay consisting of a rich selection of secondary sources. Prominent authors in the field, such as John Dover, Walter LaFeber, and William Appleman Williams are credited with vetting McCormick's work prior to publication, lending their credibility to America's Half-Century as a reliable source for scholars.
Criticism for America's Half-Century would include its narrow focus on the economy to the exclusion of other possible casual factors, such as cultural or social issues, that may also have played a role in the rise and decline of American hegemony, and the presence of some sweeping generalizations. An example of the latter can be found on page two where McCormick states that by the late twentieth century "the remaining isolated pockets of subsistence systems had virtually disappeared from the face of the earth." It can be argued that they did not, and have not, disappeared, but have been relegated to the poor and to women and children whose unpaid labor is not accounted for in the GDP and not measurable by WSA.
Furthermore, though McCormick asserts that WSA is the most plausible theory or mode of analysis for interpreting the rise and decline of major powers, other competing theories are not necessarily incompatible with it. For example, modernization theory, which states that nations follow a linear evolutionary path on their way to modernization, can co-exist alongside WSA. The set backs that countries outside the core experience due to exploitation or assigned specification by core countries can simply be seen as delays in the evolutionary path, and accelerations in the path can be caused by a declining core country that has lost hegemony but has left behind infrastructures or invested capital that will help the non-core country advance. Nevertheless, America's Half-Century presents a clear, macro analysis of America's hegemonic project and is a significant contribution to the field of U.S. foreign relations.
The only criticsm I can offer is that it is a sweeping look at 50 years of colorful history, and thus leaves ot some details important to serious scholars of USFP. However, if you are unknowledgeable about the subject and want to know how the current war in Iraq fits into the US overarching scheme for a liberal capitalist world give this book a spin. I couldn't put it down.



