Powers and Principles

What if the major global and regional powers of today’s world came into closer alignment to build a stronger international community and shared approaches to twenty-first century threats and challenges? The Stanley Foundation posed that question to thirty-three top foreign policy analysts in Powers and Principles: International Leadership in a Shrinking World. Contributing writers were asked to describe the paths that nine powerful nations, a regional union of twenty-seven states, and a multinational corporation could take as constructive stakeholders in a strengthened rules-based international order. Each chapter is an assessment of what is politically possible (and impossible)—with a description of the associated pressures and reference to the country’s geostrategic position, economy, society, history, and political system and culture. To provide a perspective from the inside and counterweight, each essay is accompanied by a critical reaction by a prominent analyst commentator from the given country. Powers and Principles is aimed at both reflective practitioners of policy and policy-relevant scholars.