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Building on the preceding chapter, Chapter 3 analyzes U.S. and Soviet responses to the decline of the United Kingdom. This portion of the book shows that the United States and Soviet Union each adopted supportive strategies towards Britain in 1945-1947, calculating that each could use Great Britain to compete against the other. However, once Britain decisively aligned with the United States after mid-1947, U.S. and Soviet efforts diverged: U.S. strategy remained highly supportive, whereas the Soviet Union turned toward predation. These results provide strong evidence in support of the argument, matching predictions derived from predation theory (see Chapter 3) while disconfirming the course of events expected by alternative arguments.

Chapter 5 discusses the course of U.S. foreign policy during the Soviet Union’s decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Leveraging recently declassified materials, it shows that the United States persistently preyed on the Soviet Union over the course of the latter’s decline. Moreover, the intensity of U.S. predation varied depending on the Soviet military threat: at times when the Soviet Union was able to military threaten the United States, U.S. leaders capped the intensity of their predation; conversely, U.S. predation intensified at times – most notably, following the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989-1990 – when the Soviet military looked impotent. These findings provide strong evidence for predation theory while challenging alternative accounts of rising state strategy.

Chapters 2 and 3 examine the U.S. and Soviet response to the decline of the United Kingdom in the mid-to-late 1940s. Chapter 2 first reviews the course of the United Kingdom’s decline in the early post-war period, and details efforts by the United States and Soviet Union to assess Britain’s changing relative position. Subsequently, it discusses the existing literature on U.S. and Soviet policy toward Great Britain, and relates this work to the alternative arguments discussion in the Introduction. From there, it uses extensive archival research to derive predictions of U.S. and Soviet strategy in light of predation theory. These predictions are evaluated against the alternative arguments in Chapter 3.

Chapters 2 and 3 helped confirm that rising states support declining great powers when decliners can help rising states against other great power threats. In contrast, Chapters 4 and 5 assess the logic of rising state predation by examining the United States’ response to the Soviet Union’s decline in the 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 4 first provides an overview of the Soviet Union’s waning relative position and discusses U.S. efforts to monitor the trend. Next, it reviews existing research on the course of U.S. strategy and relates this work to alternative accounts of rising state policy. The bulk of the chapter then uses extensive archival research to evaluate the factors central to predation theory and predict U.S. strategy given the argument. These predictions are analyzed in Chapter 5.

The Conclusion summarizes the volume and extends its findings. The chapter first reviews the evidence in chapters 2-5, emphasizing that there is significant empirical support for the argument developed in chapter 1. In contrast, alternative explanations do not fare well in the case studies. Next, the chapter provides additional tests of the theory by discussing the British, Russian, and German responses to the declines of Austria-Hungary and France from the mid nineteenth century through World War I in light of predation theory; again, the history offers significant support for the core argument. Lastly, the Conclusion discusses implications of the volume for scholarship, policy debates – particularly surrounding the rise of China – and future research.

This chapter looks at how relatively blurry notions of culture and the imagination play a critical role in envisioning the future. In the case of Bush's war on terror, deterrence had been abandoned in favor of pre-emption, in which uncertainty became a reason for action. The abandonment of the commitment to act on hard empirical evidence is the fueling point for a particular kind of imagination. Maintenance of hegemony became the goal of pre-emption, which must always seek out threat in order to reanimate itself. It exists in the gray zone between the empirical and the possible, shuttling between reaffirmations of both strength and weakness, of both invincibility and vulnerability. The main point of this chapter is that in the tortuous playing out of these contradictions, recent United States foreign and domestic policies have appropriated and instrumentalized the basic humanistic and ethical character of the imagination.

This chapter, which provides a preliminary blueprint for future information and communication technology (ICT) governance policies, uses theory of how global governance changes to connect shifts in United States policy to global policy decisions. It explains the principles for governance at the inflection point, which are high-level theories about cause and effect that organize problem solving through governance. The chapter then emphasizes ten norms that implement the principles and advance “trading rights” as an approach to problem solving through specific policies and delegations of authority. It suggests that there are strong political and economic motives to act, and so governments will affect the ICT infrastructure in some important ways.

This concluding chapter offers six recommendations for increasing the sphere of religious freedom in the Muslim-majority world and in the globe in general. These are drawn from the book’s foregoing analysis. The chapter calls for a “gestalt” shift by which religious freedom is recognized as a universal principle, not a Western value; for a recognition of Islam’s capacity for religious freedom; for a rejection of negative secularism; and for an expansion of religious freedom in the Muslim world. Then, the chapter turns its attention to the rise of religious freedom in the foreign policy of the United States and other Western states, recommending that these states “mainstream” religious freedom in their foreign policies. It also recommends building transnational networks involving religious freedom constituencies.

How the Muslim Brothers in Egypt have ceased the opportunity provided by the Arab Spring to put their ideology in the field of international affairs into practice? What have been the diplomatic rationale that have determined the Morsy presidency’s foreign action and discourse? It turns out that their ideological stances have led them to nurture a very specific understanding of the role of Egypt in the Middle East. This attempt to build, under very specific constraints, an Islamist diplomacy has reinforced the weaknesses of Morsy’s power. The desire to break up with Mubarak’s legacy has allowed a new turn in the field of foreign policy that has made Morsy’s power appearing more interested in promoting the Umma’s interest than the Egyptian one.

The introduction explains why the partnership between hip hop diplomacy is unlikely and risky but also potentially productive. Hip hop is a powerful platform for US cultural diplomacy because it is globally popular, widely accessible, readily combined with a variety of artistic styles and practices, and immediately and positively associated with the United States. Hip hop diplomacy can serve US foreign policy objectives by enhancing the image of the United States and promoting US interests abroad. The introduction concludes with a reflection on the author’s identity as a white man and considers its implications for working in hip hop, a genre and culture that arose out of African American communities.