JHU SAIS Professor Michael Mandelbaum Publishes New Book on the Coming Economic Constraints on American Foreign Policy

SAIS to Host Book Discussion on September 20

Washington, D.C. – September 16, 2010 – Michael Mandelbaum, Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy and director of the American Foreign Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has recently published The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era. PublicAffairs in New York is the book’s publisher.

SAIS will host a discussion about Mandelbaum’s new book on Monday, September 20 at 5:30 p.m. Mandelbaum will make some introductory remarks, followed by a panel discussion about the book. Panelists include:

• Eliot Cohen, director of the SAIS Strategic Studies Program
• Eric Edelman, visiting scholar at the Phillip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at SAIS and former under secretary of Defense for Policy
• Walter Shapiro, author and political columnist at Politics Daily

In The Frugal Superpower, Mandelbaum sees a looming, fundamental shift in the U.S.’s approach to foreign policy, one driven by economic factors. He makes the case that the country’s soaring deficits, fueled by the huge costs of the financial crash and of the nation’s entitlement programs – Social Security and health care – will compel a more modest American international presence in the 21st century.

He believes that the ultimate impact of the U.S.’s restricted foreign policy on the rest of the world is likely to be significant. Mandelbaum notes that “other countries have come to depend on a robust, ambitious and extensive American foreign policy,” and have benefitted greatly from the peacekeeping role the United States has taken around the world in the past half-century. No other country is ready to step in to fill the U.S.’s shoes. Yet Russia, China, and Iran – all relatively deep-pocketed at the moment – have the capacity to disturb the current order and some motivation to do so.

Whether or not these countries choose to “take advantage of the new limits on American foreign policy is the most important question hanging over international relations in the second decade of the twenty-first century” Mandelbaum writes. He also recommends a new policy, centered on a reduction in the nation’s dependence on imported oil, which can do for America and the world in this century what containment of the Soviet Union did in the last one.

In his September 5 column in The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman called The Frugal Superpower “very timely.” Reviewing the book in the Financial Times, Christopher Caldwell described it as “reasonable and clear.” George Walden, writing in the London Observer, termed it “cool and concise.” In the Huntington (West Virginia) News David M. Kinchen wrote of The Frugal Superpower, “I hope that President Barack Obama and his Cabinet and advisors and Congress will follow the sensible policies advocated by its author.”

Mandelbaum, one of America’s leading foreign policy thinkers, is the author of 11 previous books, including The Ideas That Conquered the World, The Case for Goliath and Democracy’s Good Name.

SAIS is one of the country’s leading graduate schools devoted to the study of international relations. Located along Embassy Row in Washington’s Dupont Circle area, the School enrolls approximately 600 full-time graduate students and mid-career professionals and has trained more than 15,000 alumni in all aspects of international affairs. SAIS also has campuses in Bologna, Italy, and Nanjing, China.

The September 20 event, hosted by the SAIS American Foreign Policy Program, will be held in the first-floor auditorium of the school’s Rome Building, 1619 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. The forum is free and open to the public. Members of the public should RSVP to 202.663.5790 or [email protected].

To request a review copy of the book, contact Jaime Leifer, director of publicity at PublicAffairs, at 917.849.6012 or[email protected].