Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Product Information

The regime of Xi Jinping is much more authoritarian and insecure than we generally understand, leading us to both underestimate the Chinese Communist Party’s ambition and overestimate its capabilities for world domination. In a concluding chapter to her book, the author cautions the Biden Administration and the Congress against taking any further steps that would make China turn even more resolutely inward—because the more the mandarins in Zhongnanhai heed the clamor of the Chinese public—clamor they’ve generated with their own propaganda—to strike out against their perceived enemies, the greater the risk of war between China and the West. However, Dr. Shirk advocates a series of thoughtful steps American leaders might take to reduce this risk. Steps that, sadly, many loud voices in Washington seem unwilling to take. Of course, history tells us that whenever one great power’s influence is fading and a rival’s is growing, conflict is inevitable. But the competition doesn’t necessarily require military action. Yet the risk of a military clash between the US and China has grown markedly over the past two decades. Certainly, the US shares some responsibility for this shift. But, as Dr. Shirk makes clear, a series of missteps in Chinese policy—none of them inevitable—has been the determining factor. And the first of those missteps predated the ascension of Xi Jinping by a decade. It was under his predecessor as General Secretary, Hu Jintao, that the pattern was set. And in Overreach, the author explains how this new course in Chinese foreign and military policy emerged from the bureaucratic muddle at the top of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Defective or bad form will predispose a horse to overreach. Bad shoeing will also be liable to cause the hind-foot to catch the forward one.

OVERREACH | Kirkus Reviews OVERREACH | Kirkus Reviews

An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.b) A country so corrupt that the new bridge built for a state of the art high-speed train collapses within a couple years because its builders opted to use low-grade concrete and pay out enormous bribes to get the contract? It may not be much of a stretch to say that there had always been something comforting about the earlier periods of judicial activism. [...] Ideology aside, one may concede that such Supreme Court activism was far less frightening in its institutional overreach than a wholesale creation of new and public law by the judicial branch would be.

Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine

T]hat's something that I think everyone in the White House understood was danger. We thought it was necessary, But I'm sympathetic to folks who looked at it and said, this is looking like potential overreach. transitive, intransitive ) To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree. [from 14th c.] Synonyms: see Thesaurus: transcenddeclining superpower, one China was well on its way to supplanting. Internationally, China began to act more belligerently with its neighbors. Internally, circumstances have enabled Xi Jinping to consolidate more power than any leader since Mao Zedong. Wood therefore cannot, in equity, be permitted to proceed in his ejectment suit, to recover possession of the land under the title he has acquired from the state, by the attorney general's sale, and which at law overreaches the complainant's title. transitive , archaic ) To get the better of, especially by artifice or cunning; to outwit. [from 16th c.] Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated to the point that, in Susan Shirk's assessment, we are now fully embroiled in Cold War II. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese history and policy, focuses on this