The Highest Stakes: The Economic Foundations of the Next Security System

By John Zysman, Michael Borrus, Wayne Sandholtz

Book Overview

Will markets, investments, and technology--rather than tanks and missiles--be the bargaining chips of the new world order? This timely and sobering analysis explores how the momentous dislocations of economic power in the world--the growing might of Asia, the impending unification of Europe, the relative decline of the United States--will reshape global security issues. The authors contend that the United States is especially unprepared for a twenty-first century in which the control of markets and technology is a principal battleground. They go on to demonstrate how America's loss of industrial and technological leadership is slowly but surely eroding its influence abroad, and how America will soon have to accept the kinds of constraints it has been so accustomed to imposing on others.
This joint research project by seven members of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE)--a group influential in national trade development and security debates--moves beyond a discussion of America's decline to examine how the emergence of regional trading blocs may carve out new international security arrangements. Complementing another project produced by BRIE, Laura D'Andrea Tyson's acclaimed Who's Bashing Whom?, The Highest Stakes convincingly argues that "only a cooperative government-industry effort to restore U.S. economic might can guarantee Washington's pre-eminence."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195086678
• ISBN13: 9780195086676
• Release Date: October 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 0.7" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Still relevant and interesting

In this book, published in 1992, a group of academics from the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy have written a series of brilliant and provocative essays on the economic foundations of the next security system, that is, of the XXI century. They define three broad scenarios: a) Controlled multilateralism; b) coexistence of blocks; and c) neomercantilism. So far, it seems that they were right in predicting that the most likely and desirable outcome would be some form of controlled multilateralism. Certainly, it could be said that coexistence of blocks is also a reality, but we are seeing a lot more interrelation between these blocks than what the scenario took into account. Some countries have built institutional bridges across the blocks, like Mexico, which belongs to NAFTA, but also has a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union, several Latin American countries, Israel, and is now negotiating one with Japan, beyond its membership in APEC.The security system seems to stay also within controlled multilateralism, as actions on the former Yugoslavia and Irak show. Summing up, the book's arguments and points are still relevant to analyze the world's options regarding this new century. The interplay between the economic and the security systems are clearly defined, and the tone of the book is objective, neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic. It's good analysis, even if not each and every detail is still accurate. Recommended for students of very different specialties: international economics, national security, prospective studies, etc.