Regional Solutions

Abstract

When Americans speak of defeating transnational terrorism, deterring Russian aggression, or managing China’s rise, their phrasing reveals not only a certain arrogance but also a geopolitical mindset that sets an image of regional realities in the background, and bilateral or unilateral relations in the foreground, or at the center, with the United States. This chapter advances a different approach, which gives priority to functional cooperation as a means to superseding regional and global conflicts, with rivals, as Jean Monnet used to say, joining one another on the same side of the table and facing their problems together, rather than at cross-purposes.