"Challenged Hegemony is a tour de force. This is a major work of scholarship on the United States, primarily, along with China and Russia, as participants in the political economy and security of the Persian Gulf. Establishing the importance of the question of US hegemony in regional, as opposed to strictly global, terms, Challenged Hegemony sees more continuity than change in the role of the US in the Persian Gulf. It should be required reading for those with interests in American foreign policy, the Persian Gulf and international relations in general."—Patrick James, Dornsife Dean's Professor of International Relations, University of Southern California "This engaging book studies a key question that will be of enduring interest to academics, policymakers, and the broader public: the future of US relative power. Challenged Hegemony addresses this essential issue in a novel way, by analyzing US, Russian, and Chinese relative capabilities at the regional level. The data challenges what many analysts believe to be true and convincingly argues that the United States is not in relative decline, at least in the Middle East, but on the rise."—Mark L. Haas, Raymond J. Kelley Endowed Chair in International Relations, Duquesne University