Brilliantly and engagingly written, "EMBATTLED Or the MATTER and FORM of the LEGITIMATE POWER and AUTHORITY of a NEW AMERICAN COUNTRY and CIVIL"answers the question most likely to dominate American politics in the twenty-first century: Can the United States prevent its legitimate power and authority and the policy making in the world stage since a decade after the Cold War ended?
Written in clear and persuasive prose spiked with interesting anecdotes and whimsical detail, Robert Betancourt explains why the answer is NO! The diminishing power and authority of the United States in the international arena is inevitable, and we are likely to feel less secure. The rising and increasing legitimate powers and authorities worldwide will continue to dominate and influence the public policies of the United States. However, determined to remain a world power, the United States will go to great lengths to prevent its diminishing legitimate power and authority from continuing to happen. The calamity of the United States' legitimate power and authority seems unavoidable.
Betancourt is an excellent political outspoken critic of rival views. He contends that powerful forces skew U.S. foreign policy against the "country's" national interests by often securing unconditional support from those American limousine liberals, globalists, cosmopolitans, and corporate bureaucrats with extreme views of geopolitics that have grown up after the end of the cold war in 1989. He demolishes all primary components of such liberal political narratives that have permeated and fractured American society. Admirably, he seems to be happiest when walking the prevailing surfaces across the vast stretches of tundra low-lying, coldest of the intolerant and dark liberal academic orthodoxy where most academic experts reside. And Betancourt draws inspiration and critical thinking from this American political environment.
Backed by impressive theoretical, historical, and philosophical research and a refreshing systematic analysis of the diminishing legitimate power and authority of the United States is sure to provoke debate among mainstream scholars and the general American public at large about how precisely these issues would soon be resolved.
It is an ambitious undertaking and an impressive level of writing skills. Robert Betancourt is a fellow American citizen and a self-guided, self-disciplined critical thinker who attempts to observe, reason, reflect and communicate to guide belief and action. Above all else, he is a political scientist and an international relations theorist. More explicitly, he is a realist, which implies that he believes that the different actors in the international scene dominate the anarchical international system. Betancourt maintains that many (if not all) human actions are prompted by self-interest. They are continuously engaged in seeking and preserving their interests, which is currently causing the diminishing legitimate power and authority of the United States.
He adamantly believes that social science theories are indispensable for making and analyzing foreign policy. They offer valuable tools for predicting what lies ahead. For instance, he is a withering critic of U.S. foreign policy. Betancourt makes a profound distinction from the U.S. leadership in areas such as trade and diplomacy and an across-the-board toughening on immigration policies. He opposed the 2003 Iraq War even before it happened and the protracted Afghanistan War and Russia-Ukraine war.
"EMBATTLED Or the LEGITIMATE POWER and AUTHORITY of a NEW AMERICAN COUNTRY and CIVIL" will change how you look at – and understand the United States' legitimate power and authority in today's world.
