Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Overview
- CHAPTER ONE Introduction: The Inertia of Foreign Policies
- CHAPTER TWO Cold War Assumptions and Changing Realities
- CHAPTER THREE Regional Trends
- CHAPTER FOUR Asia's Big Powers: Japan and China
- CHAPTER FIVE Smaller Places, Decisive Pivots: Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia
- CHAPTER SIX The Aspiring Power and Its Near Abroad: India and South Asia
- CHAPTER SEVEN Russia and Its Near Abroad
- CHAPTER EIGHT The United States and the New Asia
- CHAPTER NINE Scenarios for the Future
- CHAPTER TEN Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER NINE - Scenarios for the Future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Overview
- CHAPTER ONE Introduction: The Inertia of Foreign Policies
- CHAPTER TWO Cold War Assumptions and Changing Realities
- CHAPTER THREE Regional Trends
- CHAPTER FOUR Asia's Big Powers: Japan and China
- CHAPTER FIVE Smaller Places, Decisive Pivots: Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia
- CHAPTER SIX The Aspiring Power and Its Near Abroad: India and South Asia
- CHAPTER SEVEN Russia and Its Near Abroad
- CHAPTER EIGHT The United States and the New Asia
- CHAPTER NINE Scenarios for the Future
- CHAPTER TEN Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The benign American world order conceived by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and launched by President Harry Truman in 1945 has been responsible for the unprecedented global peace and prosperity of the past 60 years. Despite its enormous contribution to humankind, this world order is likely to die in our lifetime.
—Kishore MahbubaniThe previous chapters described the major features of the Cold War period in Asia and the major features of the post–Cold War era. In the post–Cold War era, most of the images and institutions of the earlier era persist despite the disappearance of the Cold War itself. What might a post-post–Cold War Asia look like in 10 to 20 years?
When we attempt to peer that far into the future, we have no hope of predicting exactly what will happen. Our vision of the future is not like a laser beam, which could pinpoint one exact outcome; rather, it is like a wide-angle flashlight illuminating a range of different possibilities. Instead of trying to predict, I shall try to tell a few stories that span much of the range of possibilities. It isn't even possible to provide probabilities for the different scenarios. Which story/scenario eventuates will be decided by political leaders, and the central purpose of writing scenarios is to induce leaders to ponder which path they want their country or the world to travel.
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- Asia, America, and the Transformation of Geopolitics , pp. 263 - 294Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007