FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2009

Contact: Felisa Neuringer Klubes 202.663.5626
E-mail: fklubes@jhu.edu

JHU SAIS Professor David Calleo Publishes Book on New Approach to U.S. Foreign Policy

Washington, D.C.—May 21, 2009 – David P. Calleo, Dean Acheson University Professor and director of the European Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has released his latest book, Follies of Power: American’s Unipolar Fantasy, recently published by Cambridge University Press.

In Follies of Power, Calleo asserts that America’s political elites have been blinded by a “unipolar” geopolitical vision where the United States is a unique global power and should behave accordingly.  These elites have failed to recognize the evolving geopolitical landscape since the end of the Cold War, notably the emergence of powers such as China, India and an enlarged European Union.   Calleo discusses the dangers of this “unipolar” view, noting the damage it has done to America’s relationships in Europe and the Middle East, and the role it has played in weakening America’s economic base. 

Calleo assesses the real strengths and weaknesses of American power—“soft,” military, economic and moral.  He then contrasts the federal systems of “Old America” and “New Europe” as models for governing today’s increasingly plural global system. America’s own constitutional equilibrium, Calleo argues, requires friendly balancing from Europe.  Both sides of the West must liberate their imaginations from past triumphs to face their responsibilities to the new world and to each other.

Calleo, who previously served as a consultant to the under secretary of State for Political Affairs,  has written numerous other books, including Rethinking Europe’s Future, The Bankrupting of America: How the Federal Deficit Is Impoverishing the Nation and Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance.

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.