Worse Than a Monolith
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A01=Thomas J. Christensen
Aaron Friedberg
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Al-Qaeda
Armistice
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Barry Posen
Beijing
Carl Kaysen
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Chiang Kai-shek
China
China-United States relations
Coercive diplomacy
Cold War
Collective security
Communist Alliance
Communist Party of China
Communist revolution
Containment
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Cross-Strait relations
Defense pact
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Diplomacy
East Asia
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Foreign policy
Foreign relations
Foreign relations of China
Geneva Accords (1988)
Ho Chi Minh
Indochina
International relations
International security
Japan Self-Defense Forces
Kim Il-sung
Korea
Korean conflict
Korean War
Kuomintang
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Laos
Liu Shaoqi
Lucian Pye
Mao Zedong
Mutual Defense Treaty (United States - Philippines)
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Nikita Khrushchev
North Korea
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Politics
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Princeton University Press
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Randall Schweller
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Robert Jervis
Samuel P. Huntington
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Shen Zhihua
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Stephen Peter Rosen
Stephen Van Evera
Taiwan independence movement
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Taylor Fravel
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United States Department of State
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Zhou Enlai
Product details
- ISBN 9780691142616
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 03 Apr 2011
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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In brute-force struggles for survival, such as the two World Wars, disorganization and divisions within an enemy alliance are to one's own advantage. However, most international security politics involve coercive diplomacy and negotiations short of all-out war. Worse Than a Monolith demonstrates that when states are engaged in coercive diplomacy--combining threats and assurances to influence the behavior of real or potential adversaries--divisions, rivalries, and lack of coordination within the opposing camp often make it more difficult to prevent the onset of conflict, to prevent existing conflicts from escalating, and to negotiate the end to those conflicts promptly. Focusing on relations between the Communist and anti-Communist alliances in Asia during the Cold War, Thomas Christensen explores how internal divisions and lack of cohesion in the two alliances complicated and undercut coercive diplomacy by sending confusing signals about strength, resolve, and intent. In the case of the Communist camp, internal mistrust and rivalries catalyzed the movement's aggressiveness in ways that we would not have expected from a more cohesive movement under Moscow's clear control.
Reviewing newly available archival material, Christensen examines the instability in relations across the Asian Cold War divide, and sheds new light on the Korean and Vietnam wars. While recognizing clear differences between the Cold War and post-Cold War environments, he investigates how efforts to adjust burden-sharing roles among the United States and its Asian security partners have complicated U.S.-China security relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Thomas J. Christensen is the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the author of "Useful Adversaries" (Princeton). From 2006-2008, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
