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chapter 1 Introduction It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. —Charles Dickens A decent respect to the opinions of mankind. —Declaration of Independence Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion. —Robert Burns The opening sentence of Charles Dickens’s classic novel of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities, could serve as an apt description of contemporary American foreign policy. In fact, each of these familiar quotations frames some central themes in this book, which studies the ways publics abroad have assessed the United States, its institutions, and its policies in recent years. By conventional measures of power and status, the United States unquestionably sits at the apex of the international pecking order. Its military capabilities outstrip those of any potential challenger or, indeed, those of any potential coalition of challengers. Because the Pentagon’s annual budget is higher than that of the next sixteen countries combined, accounting for 48 percent of global military spending in 2005, the American position at the top of the world’s military hierarchy seems certain to persist into the foreseeable future. The next four countries—Great Britain, France, China, and Japan—each contributed 4 to 5 percent of the world total.1 1. For extensive data on military capabilities and defense spending, see the annual reports of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance (London: Routledge); and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Military Expenditure Database, http://www.sipri.org/GlobalSecurity.org. When our attention turns to the economic realm, the picture is much the same. In 2000 the United States accounted for 29.3 percent of the world gross domestic product, a ‹gure that is estimated to have risen to 29.5 percent in 2005 and to decline only slightly to 28.8 percent in 2025, while the countries that two decades ago were sometimes identi‹ed as challengers to American economic superiority—the Soviet Union, Japan, and Germany—have either disintegrated (the Soviet Union) or have suffered serious economic dif‹culties (Japan and Germany) that have all but eliminated their chances of approaching, much less surpassing, the United States. To be sure, reckless American tax policies since 2001 have resulted in unprecedented budget and trade de‹cits that will almost surely have serious consequences at some point in the future. It is also possible, though by no means inevitable, that China’s economy will surpass the U.S. economy in several decades, but for the time being the American position as the world’s top economy is beyond serious debate.2 Given the disparity in the present sizes of the American and Chinese economies, even should China maintain its spectacular GDP growth rate of 9.3 percent annually while the United States continues growing at a pedestrian 3.3 percent, the gap between the two countries will grow rather than contract.3 Analysts have even come to rethink their views of two decades ago that as a result of “imperial overreach” the United States would follow the declining path of previous hegemonic powers —Spain, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain among them.4 These ‹gures clearly point to “the best of times” for the material bases of American foreign policy. How, then, can the phrase “the worst of times” possibly be used in any sentence or paragraph that deals with American foreign policy ? By another measure of power—the ability to get others to do one’s bidding —the situation is somewhat less clear. Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of episodes in which the United States found itself unable to achieve its foreign policy goals as other countries have balked at following America’s lead. That the United States has been unable to gain much cooperation from China on such issues as the future of Taiwan or Iran’s nuclear pro2 / to see ourselves as others see us 2. According to Department of Energy projections, China’s share of the world gross domestic product will rise from 3.5 percent in 2000 to 7.6 percent in 2025. Data on American and Chinese contributions to the world gross domestic product are drawn from Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook, 2004 (Washington , DC, 2004), table 4. These ‹gures are based on U.S. dollars and would be somewhat different if based on the Chinese yuan. 3. The economic growth rate data are from the Economist...

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