Vocabulary notes

1. shortcoming

2. past its prime

3. foreboding

4. repent of

5. undermine

6. head for

7. constitute

8. gross domestic product

9. a mainstay

10. arable land

11. wage war

12. the flip side

13. oblivious

14. a single entity

15. penal

16. a pivot

17. backwater

18. out-of-the-way

19. route

20. crucial

21. take over

22. truce

Do the following tasks in writing.

1. Translate and transcribe the words.

2. Find the words in the context. What other context can each word be used in? Build examples.

3. Find out, whether some words are cognate.

4. Find out, whether some words are synonyms.

5. Divide single words into several groups according to the part of speech.

Verbs:

Nouns:

Adjectives:

Adverbs:

Participles:

Which words have a prefix? What do they mean without the prefix? Which have a suffix? What part of speech are they?

6. Look at the collocations. Which of them are set expressions? Which can be used with a different word (build examples)?

7. Complete with words and phrases from Vocabulary notes.

1. The main ________________ of the book is that the author doesn’t give any overview of previous research – he seems to be either ignorant or ______________ of his older colleagues’ work. 2) Certainly, _____________ land here must be cultivated. It will help to raise the country’s _______________ ________________ product and lead it out of the region’s financial ________________. 3) Having ___________ so many wars in the past century, the state is definitely _________ its __________. But, fortunately, it is still a single __________, and the most ________________ task for the government now is not to let the state fall apart. 4) Fair elections are a ______________, or a _______________, of democracy. A government that allows votes to be rigged is certainly _____________ for a failure. 5) It turned out extremely difficult to find that _____________________ village, although we had planned our ____________ thoroughly. In the end we had a terrible _____________ of being completely lost. 6) A ___________ side of imprisonment is a burden, imposed on tax-payers. I think, ___________ servitude is a good alternative. Doing hard work, a criminal has time to think and to ___________ of his crimes. 7) When the capital of the country had been taken __________, the ____________ was by far the best option to avoid further bloodshed. 8) All those groups ______________ a single movement, that was seeking to _______________ autocracy.

The final battle of an old age

1. The United States emerged from World War I as a global power. That power was clearly in its infancy, however. Geopolitically, the Europeans had another fight in them, and psychologically the Americans were not yet ready for a permanent place on the global stage. But two things did happen. In World War I the United States announced its presence with resounding authority. And the United States left a ticking time bomb in Europe that would guarantee America’s power after the next war. That time bomb was the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I—but left unresolved the core conflicts over which the war had been fought. Versailles guaranteed another round of war.

2. And the war did resume in 1939, twenty- one years after the last one ended. Germany again attacked first, this time conquering France in six weeks. The United States stayed out of the war for a time, but made sure that the war didn’t end in a German victory. Britain stayed in the war, and the United States kept it there with Lend- Lease. We all remember the Lend part—where the United States provided Britain with destroyers and other matériel to fight the Germans—but the Lease part is usually forgotten. The Lease part was where the British turned over almost all their naval facilities in the Western Hemisphere to the United States. Between control of those facilities and the role the U.S. Navy played in patrolling the Atlantic, the British were forced to hand the Americans the keys to the North Atlantic, which was, after all, Europe’s highway to the world.

3. A reasonable estimate of World War II’s cost to the world was about fifty million dead (military and civilian deaths combined). Europe had torn itself to shreds in this war, and nations were devastated. In contrast, the United States lost around half a million military dead and had almost no civilian casualties. At the end of the war, the American industrial plant was much stronger than before the war; the United States was the only combatant nation for which that was the case. No American cities were bombed (excepting Pearl Harbor), no U.S. territory was occupied (except two small islands in the Aleutians), and the United States suffered less than 1 percent of the war’s casualties.

4. For that price, the United States emerged from World War II not only controlling the North Atlantic but ruling all of the world’s oceans. It also occupied Western Europe, shaping the destinies of countries like France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and indeed Great Britain itself. The United States simultaneously conquered and occupied Japan, almost as an afterthought to the European campaigns.

5. Thus did the Europeans lose their empire—partly out of exhaustion, partly from being unable to bear the cost of holding it, and partly because the United States simply did not want them to continue to hold it. The empire melted away over the next twenty years, with only desultory resistance by the Europeans. The geopolitical reality (that could first be seen in Spain’s dilemma centuries before) had played itself out to a catastrophic finish.

6. Here’s a question: Was the United States’ clear emergence in 1945 as the

7. decisive global power a brilliant Machiavellian play? The Americans achieved global preeminence at the cost of 500,000 dead, in a war where fifty million others perished. Was Franklin Roosevelt brilliantly unscrupulous, or did becoming a superpower just happen in the course of his pursuing the “four freedoms” and the UN Charter? In the end, it doesn’t matter. In geopolitics, the unintended consequences are the most important ones.

8. The U.S.–Soviet confrontation—known as the Cold War—was a truly global conflict. It was basically a competition over who would inherit Europe’s tattered global empire. Although there was vast military strength on both sides, the United States had an inherent advantage. The Soviet Union was enormous but essentially landlocked. America was almost as vast but had easy access to the world’s oceans. While the Soviets could not contain the Americans, the Americans could certainly contain the Soviets. And that was the American strategy: to contain and thereby strangle the Soviets. From the North Cape of Norway to Turkey to the Aleutian Islands, the United States created a massive belt of allied nations, all bordering on the Soviet Union—a belt that after 1970 included China itself. At every point where the Soviets had a port, they found themselves blocked by geography and the United States Navy.

9. Geopolitics has two basic competing views of geography and power. One view, held by an Englishman, Halford John Mackinder, argues that control of Eurasia means the control of the world. As he put it: “Who rules East Europe [Russian Europe] commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World- Island [Eurasia]. Who rules the World-Island commands the world.” This thinking dominated British strategy and, indeed, U.S. strategy in the Cold War, as it fought to contain and strangle European Russia. Another view is held by an American, Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, considered the greatest American geopolitical thinker. In his book The Influence of Sea Power on History, Mahan makes the counterargument to Mackinder, arguing that control of the sea equals command of the world.

10. History confirmed that both were right, in a sense. Mackinder was correct in emphasizing the significance of a powerful and united Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union elevated the United States to the level of sole global power. But it was Mahan, the American, who understood two crucial factors. The collapse of the Soviet Union originated in American sea power and also opened the door for U.S. naval power to dominate the world. Additionally, Mahan was correct when he argued that it is always cheaper to ship goods by sea than by any other means. As far back as the fifth century BC, the Athenians were wealthier than the Spartans because Athens had a port, a maritime fleet, and a navy to protect it. Maritime powers are always wealthier than nonmaritime neighbors, all other things being equal. With the advent of globalization in the fifteenth century, this truth became as near to absolute as one can get in geopolitics.

11. U.S. control of the sea meant that the United States was able not only to engage in but to define global maritime trade. It could make the rules, or at least block anyone else’s rules, by denying other nations entry to the world’s trade routes. In general, the United States shaped the international trading system more subtly, by using access to the vast American market as a lever to shape the behavior of other nations. It was not surprising, then, that in addition to its natural endowments, the United States became enormously prosperous from its sea power and that the Soviet Union couldn’t possibly compete, being landlocked.

12. Second, having control of the seas gave the United States a huge political advantage as well. America could not be invaded, but it could invade other countries—whenever and however it chose. From 1945 onward, the United States could wage wars without fear of having its lines of supply cut. No outside power could wage war on the continent of North America. In fact, no other nation could mount amphibious operations without American acquiescence. When the British went to war with Argentina over the Falklands in 1982, for example, it was possible only because the United States didn’t prevent it. When the British, French, and Israelis invaded Egypt in 1956 against U.S. wishes, they had to withdraw.

13. Throughout the Cold War, an alliance with the United States was always more profitable than an alliance with the Soviet Union. The Soviets could offer arms, political support, some technology, and a host of other things. But the Americans could offer access to their international trading system and the right to sell into the American economy. This dwarfed everything else in importance. Exclusion from the system meant impoverishment; inclusion in the system meant wealth. Consider, as an example, the different fates of North and South Korea, West and East Germany.

14. It is interesting to note that throughout the Cold War, the United States was on the defensive psychologically. Korea, McCarthyism, Cuba, Vietnam, Sputnik, left- wing terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s, and harsh criticism of Reagan by European allies all created a constant sense of gloom and uncertainty in America. Atmospherics gave the United States the continual sense that its advantage in the Cold War was slipping away. Yet underneath the hood, in the objective reality of power relations, the Russians never had a chance. This disjuncture between the American psyche and geopolitical reality is important to remember for two reasons. First, it reveals the immaturity of American power. Second, it reveals a tremendous strength. Because the United States was insecure, it generated a level of effort and energy that was overwhelming. There was nothing casual or confident in the way the Americans—from political leaders to engineers to military and intelligence officers—waged the Cold War.

15. That is one of the primary reasons the United States was surprised when it won the Cold War. The United States and its alliance had the Soviet Union surrounded. The Soviets could not afford to challenge the Americans at sea and had instead to devote their budget to building armies and missiles, and they could not match American economic growth rates or entice their allies with economic benefits. The Soviet Union fell further and further behind. And then it collapsed.

16. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, 499 years after Columbus’s expedition, ended an entire age in history. For the first time in half a millennium, power no longer resided in Europe, nor was Europe the focal point of international competition. After 1991, the sole global power in the world was the United States, which had become the center of the international system.

17. We have examined how the United States came to power in the twentieth century. There is one additional accompanying fact—a little- studied statistic that I mentioned earlier and that speaks volumes. In 1980, as the U.S.– Soviet duel was moving to its climax, transpacific trade rose to equal transatlantic trade for the first time in history. A mere ten years later, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, transpacific trade had soared to a level 50 percent greater than transatlantic trade. The entire geometry of international trade, and therefore of the global system, was undergoing an unparalleled shift.

18. How did this affect the rest of the world? Quite simply, the cost of sea lane control is enormous. Most trading countries can’t bear the cost of controlling sea lanes and therefore depend on nations that do have the resources to do so. Naval powers therefore acquire enormous political leverage, and other nations don’t want to challenge them. The cost of controlling an adjacent body of water is expensive. The cost of controlling a body of water thousands of miles away is overwhelming. Historically, there have been only a handful of nations that have been able to bear that expense—and it’s no easier or cheaper today. Take a look at the U.S. defense budget and the amount spent on the navy and on related space systems. The cost of maintaining carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf is a greater outlay than the total defense budgets of most countries. Controlling the Atlantic or the Pacific without a shoreline on both would be beyond the economic capability of just about any nation.

19. North America alone can house a transcontinental nation capable of projecting power simultaneously into the Atlantic and the Pacific. Therefore North America is the center of gravity of the international system. At the dawn of the American age, the United States is far and away the dominant power in North America. It is a country that simultaneously invaded Europe and Japan in 1944–45. It took military control of both bodies of water and retains it to this day. This is why it is in a position to preside over the new age.

20. But it is important to recall that Spain once dominated Europe and presided over the opening century of the European Age. While I expect that North America will be the center of gravity of the global system for the next few centuries, I also expect the United States to dominate North America for at least a century. But as with Spain, the assertion that North America is the center of gravity does not guarantee that the United States will always dominate North America. Many things can happen—from civil war to defeat in a foreign war to other states emerging on its borders over the centuries.

21. For the short term, however—and by that I mean the next hundred years—I will argue that the United States’ power is so extraordinarily overwhelming, and so deeply rooted in economic, technological, and cultural realities, that the country will continue to surge through the twenty- first century, buffeted though it will be by wars and crises.

22. This isn’t incompatible with American self- doubt. Psychologically, the United States is a bizarre mixture of overconfidence and insecurity. Interestingly, this is the precise description of the adolescent mind, and that is exactly the American condition in the twenty- first century. The world’s leading power is having an extended adolescent identity crisis, complete with incredible new strength and irrational mood swings. Historically, the United States is an extraordinarily young and therefore immature society. So at this time we should expect nothing less from America than bravado and despair. How else should an adolescent feel about itself and its place in the world?

23. But if we think of the United States as an adolescent, early in its overall history, then we also know that, regardless of its self- image, adulthood lies ahead. Adults tend to be more stable and more powerful than adolescents. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that America is in the earliest phase of its power. It is not fully civilized. America, like Europe in the sixteenth century, is still barbaric (a description, not a moral judgment). Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions.

24. Cultures live in one of three states. The first state is barbarism. Barbarians believe that the customs of their village are the laws of nature and that anyone who doesn’t live the way they live is beneath contempt and requiring redemption or destruction. The third state is decadence. Decadents cynically believe that nothing is better than anything else. If they hold anyone in contempt, it is those who believe in anything. Nothing is worth fighting for.

25. Civilization is the second and most rare state. Civilized people are able to balance two contradictory thoughts in their minds. They believe that there are truths and that their cultures approximate those truths. At the same time, they hold open in their mind the possibility that they are in error. The combination of belief and skepticism is inherently unstable. Cultures pass through barbarism to civilization and then to decadence, as skepticism undermines self- certainty. Civilized people fight selectively but effectively. Obviously all cultures contain people who are barbaric, civilized, or decadent, but each culture is dominated at different times by one principle.

26. Europe was barbaric in the sixteenth century, as the self- certainty of Christianity fueled the first conquests. Europe passed into civilization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and then collapsed into decadence in the course of the twentieth century. The United States is just beginning its cultural and historical journey. Until now it has not been sufficiently coherent to have a definitive culture. As it becomes the center of gravity of the world, it is developing that culture, which is inevitably barbaric. America is a place where the right wing despises Muslims for their faith and the left wing despises them for their treatment of women. Such seemingly different perspectives are tied together in the certainty that their own values are self- evidently best. And as with all barbaric cultures, Americans are ready to fight for their self- evident truths. This is not meant as criticism, any more than an adolescent can be criticized for being an adolescent. It is a necessary and inevitable state of development. But the United States is a young culture and as such it is clumsy, direct, at times brutal, and frequently torn by deep internal dissension—its dissidents being united only in the certainty that their values are best. The United States is all of these things, but as with Europe in the sixteenth century, the United States will, for all of its apparent bumbling, be remarkably effective.