About

Aaron L. Friedberg is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1987. He is also co-director of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs’s Center for International Security Studies. Friedberg is a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a Senior Advisor to the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on international security, globalization, political economy, East Asia, and foreign and defense policy. He is the author of several books, including The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905, and In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America's Anti-Statism and its Cold War Grand Strategy. His third book, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia, was published in 2011 and has been translated into multiple languages. His most recent monograph, Beyond Air-Sea Battle: The Debate Over U.S. Military Strategy in Asia, was published in 2014. Friedberg’s articles and essays have appeared in numerous prominent publications, and he has held distinguished research positions at various institutions, including the Library of Congress, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Harvard University. He served as Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs in the office of the Vice President from June 2003 to June 2005 and has been involved in advisory roles for the Defense Policy Board and the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion. Friedberg holds an AB and a PhD from Harvard University and is a member of several editorial boards and strategic studies organizations.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Industrial organization
• Economics
• Business
• Economic geography

Selected publications

• The Weary Titan

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-06-08 · 2 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
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• Afterword to the 2010 Edition

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-06-08

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Frontmatter

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2020

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  DOI

• Partial Disengagement: A New US Strategy for Economic Competition with China

  The Washington Quarterly · 2020 · 24 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Industrial organization

  The United States and China economically engage each other with different objectives and expectations, and they seek to advance their interests and pursue their goals by following very different st...

  PublisherDOI

• Contents

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2020-08-27

  paratextOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Frontmatter

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2020

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  DOI

• The Changing Relationship Between Economics and National Security

  2019-10-16 · 4 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter suggests that although the relationship may have grown more complex, economics and national security are and will continue to be intimately intertwined. Economic forces are changing not only the structure of the international system but the manner in which it functions. National security policy therefore may come to encompass measures designed to reduce a country's vulnerability to economic influence attempts as well as the more traditional forms of preparation for military defense. To an ever greater degree, the wealth of nations has come to depend on their ability to engage successfully in international economic competition. Representative of industries as diverse as semiconductors and textiles have proclaimed the essential importance of their industries to the nation's defense and have called on the federal government to protect them against intense foreign competition. In the United States, the case for benign mercantilism generally takes the form of appeals for government action to preserve the nation's economic security.

  PublisherDOI

• Will Defense Cuts Make America More Competitive?

  2019-04-08

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The question for Americans is not whether their economy can be saved by defense cuts, but whether those reductions will lead to improvements in national productivity and international economic competitiveness. Comparing the United States (US) to Japan, for example, critics of defense spending have pointed out that America had been devoting a far larger portion of its Gross National Product to the military and a far smaller portion to private investment. Cuts in defense budgets should lead inevitably to jumps in investment, productivity, and competitiveness. Private consumption and government spending on nondefense programs have typically been considerably higher in the US than in Japan. To speak of a simple, inverse relationship between defense and investment is to ignore the larger and more complex four-way trade-off among defense, investment, consumption, and nondefense government spending that took place in the past.

  PublisherDOI

• Did America Get China Wrong

  Foreign Affairs · 2018-06-14 · 4 citations

  article
  Publisher

• Globalisation and Chinese Grand Strategy

  Survival · 2018-01-02 · 57 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  China is taking steps intended to reduce its exposure to Western economic coercion, while enhancing its leverage over others.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• E Anderson

  162 shared

• R. Conley

  SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

  162 shared

• W. Carlson

  162 shared

• Hagai Cohen

  162 shared

• Shey‐Ying Chen

  National Taiwan University Hospital

  162 shared

• K Altman

  162 shared

• Judith Goldstein

  Princeton University

  116 shared

• Atul Kohli

  96 shared

Awards & honors

• Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress (2001-20…