The verdict of the 2004 US presidential elections put to rest the hopes of many governments around the world that there would be a change of guard in the White House.
These governments would have preferred a United States that was more willing to listen to their concerns and less intent on taking the unilateralist path, as the Bush Administration did even before 9/11.
Though most countries backed the US after the attacks of 9/11, and supported its actions in Afghanistan, subsequent American actions in Iraq and elsewhere, again taken unilaterally, indicate that the US is taking on the avatar of a global hegemon, intent on using its power to further its national interests.
This presents some difficult choices for governments around the world.
The book compiles nine national perspectives on what a second Bush term means for the world.
Taken on one yardstick, five of the countries chosen (including the US) are members of the Security Council; using another, four are members of the BRIC quartet, emerging economies whose potential is such that they are expected to dominate the world economy in the years to come.
All these countries have a difficult job of fashioning their foreign policy responses to the US while keeping in view their own national objectives as well as a host of other factors.
In this volume are nine perspectives, each operating within the context of a separate country, on what a second Bush term portends.
The contributors analyse not only the tangible factors involved but also the various intangibles -- the personal equations the leaders of these countries have with their American counterparts as well as domestic equations within the United States.
{{/usCountry}}The contributors analyse not only the tangible factors involved but also the various intangibles -- the personal equations the leaders of these countries have with their American counterparts as well as domestic equations within the United States.
{{/usCountry}}Contextually focused and yet global in scope, this volume comprises the following works:
• An Exciting Second Innings? The Second Bush Administration and India by Amit Gupta
• Duet with the Dragon: The Development of Sino-US Relations; The Chinese Angle by Liu Xuecheng
• Towards Real World Leadership: George W Bush's Possible Legacy; A View from Russia by Tatiana A Shakleina
• A Special Relationship: Bridging the Europe-America Divide; A British View by Alan P Dobson
• Old Enmities or New Beginnings? After George W Bush's Re-election; Through the French Window by Celia Belin
• Faith in Foreign Policy: George W Bush's Transatlantic Relations; A German Perspective by Josef Braml
• What Next? American Foreign Policy and the 2004 US Elections; An American Viewpoint by Daniel Sneider
• Adjusting America: Expectations and Strategies for the Second Bush Presidency; A Next-door Neighbour's View by John Kirton
• Dubya and Lula: Autonomy Through Global Concert; Brazil arid the Second Bush Administration by Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues