Compound Containment

A Reigning Power's Military-Economic Countermeasures against a Challenging Power

Subjects: Political Science, Political Economy, International Relations
Paperback : 9780472039005, 212 pages, 3 charts, 15 tables, 6 x 9, March 2022
Open Access : 9780472902804, 212 pages, 3 charts, 15 tables, 6 x 9, March 2022
Hardcover : 9780472132980, 212 pages, 3 charts, 15 tables, 6 x 9, March 2022

This open access version is made available thanks in part to the support of libraries participating in Knowledge Unlatched.
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Using military and economic measures to contain rising threats in great power relationships

Table of contents

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1        Introduction
Chapter 2        A Theory of Compound Containment
Chapter 3        The Absence of Britain’s Compound Containment against Germany, 1898-1914
Chapter 4        U.S. Compound Containment of Japan, 1939-1941
Chapter 5        U.S. Compound Containment of the Soviet Union, 1947-1950
Chapter 6        Fluctuations in U.S. Response to the Soviet Union, 1979-1985
Chapter 7        The Absence of U.S. Compound Containment against China, 2009-2016
Chapter 8        Conclusion
 

Description

When does a reigning great power of the international system supplement military containment of a challenging power by restricting its economic exchanges with that state? Scholars of great power politics have traditionally focused on examining a reigning power’s military containment of a challenging power. In direct contrast, Compound Containment demonstrates that these conventional studies are flawed without a sound understanding of the multilayered aspects of containment strategy in great power politics. Since economic capacity and military power are intimately linked to one another, countering a challenging power requires addressing both economic and military dimensions. Nonetheless, this nexus of security and economy in a reigning power’s response to a challenging power cannot be explained by traditional theories that dominate research in international security. Author Dong Jung Kim fills a gap in the scholarship on great power competition by investigating when a reigning power will make its military containment of a challenging power “compound” by simultaneously employing restrictive economic measures. Its main theoretical claims are corroborated by an analysis of key historical cases of reigning power-challenging power competition. This book also offers policy prescriptions for the United States by examining whether the United States is in a position to complement military containment of China with restrictive economic measures.

Dong Jung Kim is Associate Professor, Graduate School of International Studies, Korea University.
 

“Excellent scholarship on a very pertinent topic. [Kim’s exploration of] the root causes of difficulties in imposing economic containment on China is very useful for both policy and theory.”
—T.V. Paul, McGill University

- T.V. Paul