Looking Backward and Forward: Policy Issues in the Twenty-first Century

Publication Date: May 2008

Publisher: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace

Author(s):

Research Area: Economics; International relations; Military and defense; Politics

Keywords: Economics; Military and defense; Political Science; Government

Type: Book

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

This collection of twenty-five essays written over the past five years by international economic policy expert Charles Wolf Jr. covers a range of worldwide economic, political, security, and diplomatic issues. Wolf looks at the challenges facing the United States at home and around the globe including critical issues regarding China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Iraq, and other key locales.

Throughout the book, the author offers his often-controversial viewpoints, such as his assertion that "unilateralism" in U.S. national security policy may sometimes be preferable to multilateralism or that the erroneous expectation that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons does not imply that the intelligence leading to this expectation was flawed. Wolf reexamines each essay in the light of later developments with a "postaudit" comment to address whether the original argument is still valid and relevant compared with when it was first written.