Christopher Layne

Christopher Layne is professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M University’s George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service. His current book project, to be published by Yale University Press, is After the Fall: International Politics, U.S. Grand Strategy, and the End of the Pax Americana.


Essays

Society

The Global Power Shift from West to East

| 04.25.12

Pax Americana and the age of Western dominance are fading. Washington can manage this decline, but first it must acknowledge its reality. History moves forward with a crushing force and does not wait for the unprepared.

Security

America as European Hegemon

| 06.01.03

Despite broad acceptance of the view that the United States has been an "offshore balancer" with regard to Europe over the past several decades, the facts don't fit the theory--the facts of the past dozen years most particularly.

Global Governance

NATO and Kosovo

| 12.01.99

The writer accuses Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz of blaming the victims and exonerating the perpetrators in Kosovo.  The authors respond.

Global Governance

For the Record

| 09.01.99

As we contemplate the results of victory in Kosovo, it is time to sort fact from fiction concerning American intervention.

Security

Less is More: Minimal Realism in East Asia

| 03.01.96

Historically, in both practical and theoretical debates about American foreign policy, the great divide has been between proponents of liberal internationalism--sometimes called Wilsonianism--and realism.

Reviews

Security

The Contradictions of George Kennan

| 01.04.12

George Kennan presents a study in paradox. With penetrating scholarship, John Lewis Gaddis explores Kennan’s complex psychology and provides an intellectual history of the Cold War in his comprehensive and wonderfully written biography.

Commentary

Economics

The (Almost) Triumph of Offshore Balancing

| 01.27.12

The fact of U.S. decline is undeniable. A new grand strategy is in order.

The Balancing Act: America and Europe

| 07.02.03

 Forty years later, the United States and Europe still are playing the same game.

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May 19, 2013