Abstract
A strategic shift has occurred in great power competition. The Pentagon says this strategic shift calls for an emphasis on U.S. grand strategy (linking economics and security) and geopolitics. Unfortunately, the U.S. keeps failing in its great power competition in the Greater Middle East. A militarized U.S. foreign policy marginalizes economics against Russia in Syria, against Iran in Iraq and against China in Afghanistan. Peaceful foreign policy opportunities are squandered. Therefore, the current U.S. administration’s economic nationalism is problematic. A better approach would be to turn enemies into friends by using shared prosperity in intra-state relations to reduce the demand for violence in the Syrian and Afghan civil wars. The French and Germans did much the same thing in inter-state relations after World War II.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, the Syrian construction of the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River. While the dam brought benefits to a privileged few, families living in the area were driven off their land. They were forced to migrate into tents outside Damascus.
- 2.
At this time, Michael Gfoeller was the Political Advisor at CENTCOM, his Deputy was Lewis Elbinger and I was Chief Economist. The three of us attended that frustrating and unsuccessful meeting with the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Council at the US State Department.
- 3.
For a graphic of these rural small business centers, see https://thinkrenewables.com/sbiz-centre/.
- 4.
For more on C/RS, see https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/crs/c12936.htm.
- 5.
For more on CSO see https://www.state.gov/j/cso/.
- 6.
- 7.
The relationship between France and Germany, since 1871, according to Ulrich Krotz [1], has three grand periods: “hereditary enmity” (up to 1945), “reconciliation” (1945–63) and the “special relationship” embodied in a cooperation called Franco-German Friendship (since 1963). See Ulrich Krotz.
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Rosenberger, L. (2021). The Downside of the U.S. Marginalizing Economics in Great Power Competition. In: Farhadi, A., Masys, A.J. (eds) The Great Power Competition Volume 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64473-4_14
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