The Five Keys to a Safer World

What separates successful statecraft from catastrophic foreign policy failures?The Five Keys to a Safer World presents the five core principles of international politics that should guide the thinking of every player on the global stage, but all too often do not. These time-tested ideas provide a framework for foreign policy based on the enduring forces that shape how states behave—a “foreign policy checklist” of key questions that leaders should ask when making vital strategic decisions. What are the main security concerns of the other states involved? What is the current balance of power, how is it changing, and how can we align it in our favor? Will existing norms and institutions help or hinder us, and what price will we pay if we violate them? If we go to war, will it really end as quickly and neatly as its proponents maintain? Careful attention to such questions can help leaders manage challenges and avoid catastrophic blunders. The stakes could not be higher. As insecurity increases around the globe and China, Russia, and the United States vie for strategic advantage, today’s leaders ignore these principles at their peril—and our own. Informed by history and grounded in realism and restraint, each of the book’s chapters shows how the leaders who grasped these ideas and based their conduct upon them achieved better results than those leaders who ignored or rejected them. Written in clear and compelling prose, The Five Keys to a Safer World reveals the foreign policy strategies that work and those that are doomed to fail. It is the essential primer for navigating the complexities of an uncertain and dangerous world, and a book that points the way to a more hopeful future.