Despite the increasing focus on the rising powers China and India, there are very few scholars today who possess the in-depth expertise, language skills, and fieldwork experience that would allow them to critically analyze and study both countries. Andrew Kennedy is one such scholar. Kennedy’s first book The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru (2012) was a meticulously researched volume that accounted for the differences in decision making of two hugely important leaders of China and India by using cognitive-psychological theories. In The Conflicted Superpower, Kennedy displays the same meticulousness, but also shows his expansion of interests as a scholar of international relations, and of China and India. The result is a carefully researched volume that examines the role of technology and innovation in the United States and its relationships with China and India.

In The Conflicted Superpower, Kennedy focuses on the United States and asks three broad questions: How does innovation support hegemony, specifically the dominance of the United States? What drives the United States’ approach to global innovation? And how does this approach affect the United States’ relationship with China and India, which have been its prominent partners in innovation? He locates the answers in the American “high-tech community” (HTC), which he treats as an interest group with both “corporate” and “academic” wings that influence government policy. How open the United States is to innovation flows of brain power and global R&D, Kennedy argues, is affected by the HTC community and its ability to deal with domestic resistance. Kennedy examines his theory through the cases of immigration, student visas, and outward foreign direct investment, all of which he highlights through the prism of China and India, both of which have increasingly cooperated with the United States in innovation.

The Conflicted Superpower makes three important implicit and explicit contributions to the international relations literature. First, the role of innovation in power transitions is understudied. That hegemons rise to power through innovation in technology has been argued by both political scientists and historians (see, for example, William R. Thompson, “Long Waves, Technological Innovation, and Relative Decline,” International Organization, 44 (2), 1990; George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Leading Sectors and World Powers: The Coevolution of Global Politics and Economics, 1996; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 1987). Less explored is the role of transnational innovation, or global innovation as Kennedy terms it, in power transitions. Global innovation, defined by Andrew Kennedy as both R&D activity and cross-border movements of high-tech labor, is a relatively new phenomenon. Second, studying this phenomenon matters because it shows that innovation does not necessarily yield zero-sum gains for the hegemon. That is, global innovation may help the global ascendancy and primacy of the hegemon, but equally it can help, as Kennedy shows, the rising powers that eventually disrupt the position of the hegemon. Both China and India are open, in his telling, to global innovation to spur economic growth.

Third, by both defining global innovation and using it to show the cooperative nexus between the hegemon and the rising power, Kennedy contradicts the power transition literature. Power transition theorists argue that conflict between the rising power and hegemon is inevitable because the rising power is dissatisfied with the position of the hegemon and the distribution of goods in the international system. Thus, the dichotomous outcome in power transition theory is between the status quo international order and an upended international order. The notions of cooperation between the rising power and hegemon, the idea that rising powers need not be dissatisfied with every aspect of the status quo, and that the hegemon could co-opt rising powers are missing from this theoretical picture. In Kennedy’s telling, the hegemon can be affected by political forces that drive it to be more open to cooperation with the rising power(s) than the power transition theorists would have us believe. This would also suggest that there are important aspects of the current international order that can be attractive or made attractive for rising powers. As Kennedy points out, global innovation can support the position of the hegemon and enable it to shore up its status and sustain its primacy (p. 51), which, in turn, increases its importance for rising powers, states that have been defined as those that are “on the path to becoming a great power” (Manjari Chatterjee Miller, “The Role of Beliefs in Identifying Rising Powers,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, 9 (2), 2016). And in fact, Kennedy writes, “Both China and India have come to see global innovation as an opportunity” (p. 28)– presumably not only because it is conducive to economic growth but also because it is essential to eventually becoming a great power. Therefore, even though each rising power’s approach to global innovation is distinct—China’s approach is more deliberate, activist, and strategic, whereas India’s is more ad hoc, relying heavily on its expatriate community of highly educated workers—both have developed cooperative and profitable relationships with the United States.

That being said, it was not entirely clear to me how Kennedy would characterize the inevitable change in the relationship as the United States’ hegemony declines. Particularly, it is not clear what role global innovation plays in power transition as opposed to power consolidation. He does not address the situation in which the risks to the hegemon of cooperating with the rising power outweigh the gains and when control of global innovation serves the interests of the rising power more than those of the hegemon. Kennedy roots global innovation and U.S. policies strongly in the American HTC. This means that he gives much less agency to factors within the United States’ partners, particularly China and India. Yet, he reiterates that global innovation is key to the rise of challengers, and both challengers therefore buy into partnering with the United States on global innovation. Thus, when do the loci of agency change? In other words, will the U.S. HTC inevitably begin to matter less than domestic imperatives in China and India? And if so, at what point does U.S. policy cease to reflect the impact of HTCs? In Kennedy’s theory the success or failure of HTCs is attributable entirely to the nature of the resistance from other organized domestic groups. Yet, one could plausibly argue that HTCs can be affected by factors exogenous to the hegemon and by the changing interests of the states with which the hegemon cooperates on global innovation.

Kennedy’s book is both timely and unique. The partnerships between the United States, China, and India have been rapidly deepening in the realm of technology and innovation and have also led to deep domestic debates within the United States. Yet any exploration of the topic has remained confined to either media and policy articles or niche volumes. By developing a general theory of what drives such cooperative partnerships underpinned by fluctuating U.S. policies of global innovation, Kennedy helps us understand both U.S. policy and its partner relationships in a new light.