New presidents have no honeymoon when it comes to foreign policy. Less than three months into his presidency, for example, John F. Kennedy authorized the disastrous effort to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs. More recently, George W. Bush had been in office for less than eight months when he was faced with the attacks of September 11. How should an incoming president prepare for the foreign policy challenges that lie immediately ahead? That's the question Kurt Campbell and James Steinberg tackle in this compelling book. Drawing on their decades of government service—in the corridors of Capitol Hill, the intimate confines of the White House, the State Department, and the bare-knuckles Pentagon bureaucracy—Campbell and Steinberg identify the major foreign policy pitfalls that face a new presidential administration. They explain clearly and concisely what it takes to get foreign policy right from the start. The authors set the scene with a historical overview of presidential transitions and foreign policy including case studies of such prominent episodes as the "Black Hawk Down" tragedy in Somalia that shook the Clinton administration in its first year and the Bush administration's handling of the collision between a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter jet in the spring of 2001. They pinpoint the leading causes of foreign policy fiascos, including the tendency to write off the policies of the outgoing administration and the failure to appreciate the differences between campaign promises and policy realities. Most important, they provide a road map to help the new administration steer clear of the land mines ahead. America's next president will confront critical foreign policy decisions from day one. Dif ficult Transitions provides essential guidance for getting those choices right.

Difficult Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Presidential Power

Politics & Social Sciences

Campbell, Kurt M.

Steinberg, James B.

Politics & Government

Brookings Institution Press

In light of China's deepening economic slowdown, "China's foreign policy may well be driven increasingly by the risk of domestic political instability," write Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Kurt M. Campbell, the Asia Group's chairman and chief executive officer, in a new Council Special Report. "Economic growth and nationalism have for decades been the two founts of legitimacy for the Communist Party, and as the former wanes, [Chinese leader Xi Jinping] will likely rely increasingly on the latter."  Xi's "dominance of the decision-making process [has] made him a powerful but potentially exposed leader," the authors note. To protect his position, Xi will "most probably stimulate and intensify Chinese nationalism—long a pillar of the state's legitimacy—to compensate for the political harm of a slower economy, to distract the public, to halt rivals who might use nationalist criticisms against him, and to burnish his own image."  The report—Xi Jinping on the Global Stage: Chinese Foreign Policy Under a Powerful but Exposed Leader—notes that China's economy, which had expanded at an annual rate of 10 percent for three decades, is entering a new era of considerably slower growth.  To strengthen his position at home, Xi "will probably intensify his personality cult, crack down even harder on dissent, and grow bolder in using the anticorruption campaign against elites who oppose him." Internationally, Xi "may provoke disputes with neighbors, use increasingly strident rhetoric in defense of China's national interests, and take a tougher line in relations with the United States and its allies to shift public focus away from economic troubles."  To deal with Xi's more assertive foreign and defense policies, the authors call for a new American grand strategy for Asia that "seeks to avoid a U.S.-China confrontation and maintain U.S. primacy in Asia."  The authors, both former senior government officials with extensive experience in the region, recommend passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership—an Asia-centered trade deal with countries that represent approximately 40 percent of the global economy—lifting constraints on U.S. exports of oil to Asian allies, and maintaining a commitment to deploy at least 60 percent of the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the Asia Pacific.  They identify the U.S. pivot or rebalance to Asia as "the indispensable ingredient in a successful U.S. policy to participate and project strength more consequentially in the region and to deal with Chinese power and influence under Xi Jinping."  To interview the authors, please contact Global Communications and Media Relations at communications@cfr.org or 212.434.9888.

Xi Jinping on the Global Stage: Chinese Foreign Policy Under a Powerful but Exposed Leader (Council Special Report)

History

Blackwill, Robert D.

Asia

Council on Foreign Relations Press

From the former assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell: the definitive analysis and explanation of the major shift--the Pivot--in American foreign policy, its interests and assets, to Asia.There is a quiet drama playing out in American foreign policy, far from the dark contours of upheaval in the Middle East and South Asia and the hovering drone attacks of the war on terror. The United States is in the midst of a substantial and long-term national project, which is proceeding in fits and starts, to reorient its foreign policy to the East. The central tenet of this policy shift, aka the Pivot, is that the United States will need to do more with and in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere to help revitalize its own economy, to realize the full potential of the region's dramatic innovation, and to keep the peace in the world's most dynamic region where the lions' share of the history of the twenty-first century will be written.This book is about a necessary course correction for American diplomacy, commercial engagement, and military innovation during a time of unrelenting and largely unrewarding conflict. While the United States has intensified its focus on the Asia-Pacific relative to previous administrations, much more remains to be done. The Pivot is about that future. It explores how the United States should construct a strategy that will position it to maneuver across the East and offers a clarion call for cunning, dexterity, and ingenuity in the period ahead for American statecraft in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Pivot Lib/E: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia

Twelve

From the former assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell: the definitive analysis and explanation of the major shift -- the Pivot -- in American foreign policy, its interests and assets, to Asia. There is a quiet drama playing out in American foreign policy, far from the dark contours of upheaval in the Middle East and South Asia and the hovering drone attacks of the war on terror. The United States is in the midst of a substantial and long-term national project, which is proceeding in fits and starts, to reorient its foreign policy to the East. The central tenet of this policy shift, aka the Pivot, is that the United States will need to do more with and in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere to help revitalize its own economy, to realize the full potential of the region's dramatic innovation, and to keep the peace in the world's most dynamic region where the lions' share of the history of the twenty-first century will be written. This book is about a necessary course correction for American diplomacy, commercial engagement, and military innovation during a time of unrelenting and largely unrewarding conflict. While the United States has intensified its focus on the Asia-Pacific relative to previous administrations, much more remains to be done. The Pivot is about that future. It explores how the United States should construct a strategy that will position it to maneuver across the East and offers a clarion call for cunning, dexterity, and ingenuity in the period ahead for American statecraft in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia

Campbell, Kurt

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