Is the West in Decline? is a collection of ten essays by prominent scholars of international relations and current history, many of them associated with the European Studies program of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The essays explore the question of decline from several perspectives: theoretical, historical, counterfactual, and contemporary. Thomas Row's essay uses alternative history to show how an unfallen Habsburg Empire might have evolved into a state system resembling the European Union. Benjamin Rowland's essay on Oswald Spengler considers how the German historian's theory of decline could be applied to the West today. Several of the essays are country studies. Not all conclude that countries or state systems are in decline, or that the condition, if present, is irreversible. Writing about Germany, Stephen Szabo notes that only fifteen years ago, this currently robust country could have been seen as a clear exemplar of decline. Dana Allin's essay on the U.S. asks whether a course change, including retrenchment and overseas rebalancing, might reverse decline or eliminate it altogether. David Calleo's essay, among other things, looks at America's reserve currency status as a principal sustainer of American exceptionalism, and asks what might happen should the U.S. lose its "exorbitant privilege" as reserve currency provider to the international system.

Soviet Risk-Taking and Crisis Behavior, first published in 1982, examines the question: for what purposes and under what conditions were Soviet leaders prepared to take risks in international relations? The first part of the book sets out to define the concept of risk and to examine its analytical relevance for foreign policy, its measurement and its relation to the dynamics of crisis. The second part consists of in-depth analysis of Soviet behavior in the Berlin crises of 1948 and 1961. The third and last part compares Soviet policy in the two crises, and the actions of the two different leaderships, as well as relating it to Soviet behavior in other geographical areas.

Is the West in Decline? is a collection of ten essays by prominent scholars of international relations and current history, many of them associated with the European Studies program of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The essays explore the question of decline from several perspectives: theoretical, historical, counterfactual, and contemporary. Thomas Row's essay uses alternative history to show how an unfallen Habsburg Empire might have evolved into a state system resembling the European Union. Benjamin Rowland's essay on Oswald Spengler considers how the German historian's theory of decline could be applied to the West today. Several of the essays are country studies. Not all conclude that countries or state systems are in decline, or that the condition, if present, is irreversible. Writing about Germany, Stephen Szabo notes that only fifteen years ago, this currently robust country could have been seen as a clear exemplar of decline. Dana Allin's essay on the U.S. asks whether a course change, including retrenchment and overseas rebalancing, might reverse decline or eliminate it altogether. David Calleo's essay, among other things, looks at America's reserve currency status as a principal sustainer of American exceptionalism, and asks what might happen should the U.S. lose its "exorbitant privilege" as reserve currency provider to the international system.