Danger Zone - BookWyrm

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published Aug. 16, 2022 by W. W. Norton & Company.

ISBN:: 978-1-324-02130-8
OCLC Number:: 1294282895

No rating (1 review)

A provocative and urgent analysis of the U.S.–China rivalry.

It has become conventional wisdom that America and China are running a “superpower marathon” that may last a century. Yet Hal Brands and Michael Beckley pose a counterintuitive question: What if the sharpest phase of that competition is more like a decade-long sprint?

The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the 21st century. But both history and China’s current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s.

China is at a perilous moment: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet losing confidence that time is on its side. Numerous examples from antiquity to the present show that rising powers become most aggressive when their fortunes fade, their difficulties multiply, and they realize they must achieve their ambitions now …

A provocative and urgent analysis of the U.S.–China rivalry.

It has become conventional wisdom that America and China are running a “superpower marathon” that may last a century. Yet Hal Brands and Michael Beckley pose a counterintuitive question: What if the sharpest phase of that competition is more like a decade-long sprint?

The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the 21st century. But both history and China’s current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s.

China is at a perilous moment: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet losing confidence that time is on its side. Numerous examples from antiquity to the present show that rising powers become most aggressive when their fortunes fade, their difficulties multiply, and they realize they must achieve their ambitions now or miss the chance to do so forever. China has already started down this path. Witness its aggression toward Taiwan, its record-breaking military buildup, and its efforts to dominate the critical technologies that will shape the world’s future.

Over the long run, the Chinese challenge will most likely prove more manageable than many pessimists currently believe―but during the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real. America, Brands and Beckley argue, will still need a sustainable approach to winning a protracted global competition. But first, it needs a near-term strategy for navigating the danger zone ahead.

3 editions

Tilde Lowengrimm reviewed Danger Zone by Hal Brands

China's window of opportunity might be closing — and that's dangerous for everyone.

No rating

Through comparison with recent major conflicts & wars since industrialization, the authors make the case that the danger posed by China isn't one of a rising power, but a stagnating or declining one. China faces numerous geopolitical, economic, & demographic challenges over the coming decades. These might mean that the window for China's ascendancy is closing, prompting the CCP to take riskier moves as desperate gambles to achieve long lauded goals like the reintegration of Taiwan's democratic Republic of China. All of this threatens instability, including escalating espionage, mercantilism & other economic weaponization, and of course military buildups leading to armed conflict between nuclear-armed great powers. To mitigate these global hazards, the authors lay out a raft of proposals & strategies aimed at US policymakers. They hope that some of these interventions might manage this global risk and create opportunities for non-destructive mutual success, taking the end of the Cold …

Through comparison with recent major conflicts & wars since industrialization, the authors make the case that the danger posed by China isn't one of a rising power, but a stagnating or declining one. China faces numerous geopolitical, economic, & demographic challenges over the coming decades. These might mean that the window for China's ascendancy is closing, prompting the CCP to take riskier moves as desperate gambles to achieve long lauded goals like the reintegration of Taiwan's democratic Republic of China. All of this threatens instability, including escalating espionage, mercantilism & other economic weaponization, and of course military buildups leading to armed conflict between nuclear-armed great powers. To mitigate these global hazards, the authors lay out a raft of proposals & strategies aimed at US policymakers. They hope that some of these interventions might manage this global risk and create opportunities for non-destructive mutual success, taking the end of the Cold War as their model.

I find the description of the problem credible, but I am not convinced of the the US' capability to achieve the hoped-for stability & peace.