Download or read book America in the World written by Robert B. Zoellick and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America has a long history of diplomacy–ranging from Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and James Baker–now is your chance to see the impact these Americans have had on the world. Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign policy, Zoellick identifies five traditions that have emerged from America's encounters with the world: the importance of North America; the special roles trading, transnational, and technological relations play in defining ties with others; changing attitudes toward alliances and ways of ordering connections among states; the need for public support, especially through Congress; and the belief that American policy should serve a larger purpose. These traditions frame a closing review of post-Cold War presidencies, which Zoellick foresees serving as guideposts for the future. Both a sweeping work of history and an insightful guide to U.S. diplomacy past and present, America in the World serves as an informative companion and practical adviser to readers seeking to understand the strategic and immediate challenges of U.S. foreign policy during an era of transformation.
Download or read book The Last American Diplomat written by George W. Liebmann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-27 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can John D. Negroponte be described as 'The Last American Diplomat'? In a career spanning 50 years of unprecedented American global power, he was the last of a dying breed of patrician diplomats - devoted to public service, a self-effacing and ultimate insider, whose prime duty was to advise, guide and warn - a bulwark of traditional diplomatic realism against ideologue excess. Negroponte served as US ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines and Iraq; he was US Permanent Representative to the UN, Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of State to George W. Bush. His was a high-flying and seemingly conventional career but one full of surprises. Negroponte opposed Kissinger in Vietnam, supported a 'proxy war' but opposed direct American military action against Marxists in Central America - facing bitter Congress opposition in the process. He swam against the floodtide of George W. Bush's neocon-dominated administration, warning against the Iraq war as a possible new 'Vietnam' and criticising aspects of Bush's 'War on Terror'. He disconcerted the administration by arguing that the re-establishment of Iraq would take as long as five years. And he was influential in international social and economic policy - working for the successful re-settlement of millions of refugees in Southeast Asia following the Vietnam War, issuing early warnings about the scourge of AIDS in Africa and successfully launching the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). George W. Liebmann's incisive account is based on personal and shared experience but it is no hagiography; beyond the author's discussions with Negroponte, this book is deeply researched in US state papers and includes interviews with leading actors. It will provide fascinating reading for anyone interested in the inside-story of American diplomacy, showing personal and policy struggles, and the underlying fissures present even in the world's last remaining superpower.
Download or read book Diplomacy for the 21st Century written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-07-08 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diplomacy for the 21st Century recommends steps that the Department of State should embrace to take full advantage of the leading science and technology (S&T) capabilities of the United States. These capabilities provide the department with many opportunities to promote a variety of the interests of the United States and its allies in a rapidly changing world wherein S&T are important drivers of economic development at home and abroad and help ensure international security. This report assesses and makes recommendations concerning the changing environment for the conduct of diplomacy in the years ahead, with a focus on the role of S&T in the development and implementation of U.S. policies and programs. According to this report, prompt steps by the department's leadership are essential to ensure adequate comprehension of the importance of S&T-related developments throughout the world and to incorporate this understanding within the nation's foreign policy for the 21st century. This report also urges the adoption by the department of a broader whole-of-society approach in carrying out its responsibilities at home and abroad - extending beyond traditional interagency coordination and the narrow band of current external partners to include foundations, universities, research centers, and other groups who are extending their international reach.
Download or read book The Back Channel written by William Joseph Burns and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a distinguished and admired American diplomat of the last half century, Burns has played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time: from the bloodless end of the Cold War and post-Cold War relations with Putin's Russia to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. Here he recounts some of the seminal moments of his career, drawing on newly declassified cables and memos to give readers a rare, inside look at American diplomacy in action, and of the people who worked with him. The result is an powerful reminder of the enduring importance of diplomacy. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book Special Providence written by Walter Russell Mead and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America."--Otto von Bismarck America's response to the September 11 attacks spotlighted many of the country's longstanding goals on the world stage: to protect liberty at home, to secure America's economic interests, to spread democracy in totalitarian regimes and to vanquish the enemy utterly. One of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, Walter Russell Mead, argues that these diverse, conflicting impulses have in fact been the key to the U.S.'s success in the world. In a sweeping new synthesis, Mead uncovers four distinct historical patterns in foreign policy, each exemplified by a towering figure from our past. Wilsonians are moral missionaries, making the world safe for democracy by creating international watchdogs like the U.N. Hamiltonians likewise support international engagement, but their goal is to open foreign markets and expand the economy. Populist Jacksonians support a strong military, one that should be used rarely, but then with overwhelming force to bring the enemy to its knees. Jeffersonians, concerned primarily with liberty at home, are suspicious of both big military and large-scale international projects. A striking new vision of America's place in the world, Special Providence transcends stale debates about realists vs. idealists and hawks vs. doves to provide a revolutionary, nuanced, historically-grounded view of American foreign policy.
Download or read book Diplomacy written by Henry Kissinger and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 846 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Kissinger's absorbing book tackles head-on some of the toughest questions of our time . . . Its pages sparkle with insight' Simon Schama in the NEW YORKER Spanning more than three centuries, from Cardinal Richelieu to the fragility of the 'New World Order', DIPLOMACY is the now-classic history of international relations by the former Secretary of State and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Kissinger's intimate portraits of world leaders, many from personal experience, provide the reader with a unique insight into what really goes on -- and why -- behind the closed doors of the corridors of power. 'Budding diplomats and politicians should read it as avidly as their predecessors read Machiavelli' Douglas Hurd in the DAILY TELEGRAPH 'If you want to pay someone a compliment, give them Henry Kissinger's DIPLOMACY ... It is certainly one of the best, and most enjoyable [books] on international relations past and present ... DIPLOMACY should be read for the sheer historical sweep, the characterisations, the story-telling, the ability to look at large parts of the world as a whole' Malcolm Rutherford in the FINANCIAL TIMES
Download or read book A New Foreign Policy written by Jeffrey D. Sachs and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sobering analysis of American foreign policy under Trump, the award-winning economist calls for a new approach to international engagement. The American Century began in 1941 and ended in 2017, on the day of President Trump’s inauguration. The subsequent turn toward nationalism and “America first” unilateralism did not made America great. It announced the abdication of our responsibilities in the face of environmental crises, political upheaval, mass migration, and other global challenges. As a result, America no longer dominates geopolitics or the world economy as it once did. In this incisive and passionate book, Jeffrey D. Sachs provides the blueprint for a new foreign policy that embraces global cooperation, international law, and aspirations for worldwide prosperity. He argues that America’s approach to the world must shift from military might and wars of choice to a commitment to shared objectives of sustainable development. A New Foreign Policy explores both the danger of the “America first” mindset and the possibilities for a new way forward, proposing timely and achievable plans to foster global economic growth, reconfigure the United Nations for the twenty-first century, and build a multipolar world that is prosperous, peaceful, fair, and resilient.
Download or read book Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy written by Richard Haass and published by Council on Foreign Relations. This book was released on 1998 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What cannot be disputed is that economic sanctions are increasingly at the center of American foreign policy: to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, promote human rights, discourage aggression, protect the environment, and thwart drug trafficking.
Download or read book Outpost written by Christopher R. Hill and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An "inside the room" memoir from one of our most distinguished ambassadors who--in a career of service to the country--was sent to some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy. From the wars in the Balkans to the brutality of North Korea to the endless war in Iraq, this is the real life of an American diplomat. Hill was on the front lines in the Balkans at the breakup of Yugoslavia. He takes us from one-on-one meetings with the dictator Milosevic, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to the Dayton conference, where a truce was brokered. Hill draws upon lessons learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon early on in his career and details his prodigious experience as a US ambassador. He was the first American Ambassador to Macedonia; Ambassador to Poland, where he also served in the depth of the cold war; Ambassador to South Korea and chief disarmament negotiator in North Korea; and Hillary Clinton's hand-picked Ambassador to Iraq. Hill's account is an adventure story of danger, loss of comrades, high stakes negotiations, and imperfect options. There are fascinating portraits of war criminals (Mladic, Karadzic), of presidents and vice presidents (Clinton, Bush and Cheney, and Obama), of Secretaries of State (Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton), of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and of Ambassadors Richard Holbrooke and Lawrence Eagleburger. Hill writes bluntly about the bureaucratic warfare in DC and expresses strong criticism of America's aggressive interventions and wars of choice."--
Download or read book Guide to U S Foreign Policy written by Robert J. McMahon and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At no time in American history has an understanding of the role and the art of diplomacy in international relations been more essential than it is today. Both the history of U.S. diplomatic relations and the current U.S. foreign policy in the twenty-first century are major topics of study and interest across the nation and around the world. Spanning the entire history of American diplomacy—from the First Continental Congress to the war on terrorism to the foreign policy goals of the twenty-first century—Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy traces not only the growth and development of diplomatic policies and traditions but also the shifts in public opinion that shape diplomatic trends. This comprehensive, two-volume reference shows how the United States gained "the strength of a giant" and also analyzes key world events that have determined the United States’ changing relations with other nations. The two volumes’ structure makes the key concepts and issues accessible to researchers: The set is broken up into seven parts that feature 40 topical and historical chapters in which expert writers cover the diplomatic initiatives of the United States from colonial times through the present day. Volume II’s appendix showcases an A-to-Z handbook of diplomatic terms and concepts, organizations, events, and issues in American foreign policy. The appendix also includes a master bibliography and a list of presidents; secretaries of state, war, and defense; and national security advisers and their terms of service. This unique reference highlights the changes in U.S. diplomatic policy as government administrations and world events influenced national decisions. Topics include imperialism, economic diplomacy, environmental diplomacy, foreign aid, wartime negotiations, presidential influence, NATO and its role in the twenty-first century, and the response to terrorism. Additional featured topics include the influence of the American two-party system, the impact of U.S. elections, and the role of the United States in international organizations. Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy is the first comprehensive reference work in this field that is both historical and thematic. This work is of immense value for researchers, students, and others studying foreign policy, international relations, and U.S history. ABOUT THE EDITORS Robert J. McMahon is the Ralph D. Mershon Professor of History in the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. He is a leading historian of American diplomatic history and is author of several books on U.S. foreign relations. Thomas W. Zeiler is professor of history and international affairs at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is the executive editor of the journal Diplomatic History.
Download or read book War on Peace written by Ronan Farrow and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: US foreign policy is undergoing a dire transformation, forever changing America’s place in the world. Institutions of diplomacy and development are bleeding out after deep budget cuts; the diplomats who make America’s deals and protect its citizens around the world are walking out in droves. Offices across the State Department sit empty, while abroad the military-industrial complex has assumed the work once undertaken by peacemakers. We’re becoming a nation that shoots first and asks questions later. In an astonishing journey from the corridors of power in Washington, DC, to some of the most remote and dangerous places on earth—Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Korea among them—acclaimed investigative journalist Ronan Farrow illuminates one of the most consequential and poorly understood changes in American history. His firsthand experience as a former State Department official affords a personal look at some of the last standard bearers of traditional statecraft, including Richard Holbrooke, who made peace in Bosnia and died while trying to do so in Afghanistan. Drawing on recently unearthed documents, and richly informed by rare interviews with whistle-blowers, a warlord, and policymakers—including every living former secretary of state from Henry Kissinger to Hillary Clinton to Rex Tillerson—and now updated with revealing firsthand accounts from inside Donald Trump’s confrontations with diplomats during his impeachment and candid testimonials from officials in Joe Biden’s inner circle, War on Peace makes a powerful case for an endangered profession. Diplomacy, Farrow argues, has declined after decades of political cowardice, shortsightedness, and outright malice—but it may just offer America a way out of a world at war.
Download or read book The Dissent Channel written by Elizabeth Shackelford and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young diplomat's account of her assignment in South Sudan, a firsthand example of US foreign policy that has failed in its diplomacy and accountability around the world. In 2017, Elizabeth Shackelford wrote a pointed resignation letter to her then boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She had watched as the State Department was gutted, and now she urged him to stem the bleeding by showing leadership and commitment to his diplomats and the country. If he couldn't do that, she said, "I humbly recommend that you follow me out the door." With that, she sat down to write her story and share an urgent message. In The Dissent Channel, former diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford shows that this is not a new problem. Her experience in 2013 during the precarious rise and devastating fall of the world's newest country, South Sudan, exposes a foreign policy driven more by inertia than principles, to suit short-term political needs over long-term strategies. Through her story, Shackelford makes policy and politics come alive. And in navigating both American bureaucracy and the fraught history and present of South Sudan, she conveys an urgent message about the devolving state of US foreign policy.
Download or read book Revitalizing the State Department and American Diplomacy written by Uzra S. Zeya and published by Council on Foreign Relations Press. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "America's network of international relationships is its foremost strategic asset, even as the agency charged with advancing U.S. interests through diplomacy-the Department of State (DOS)-has fallen into a deep and sustained period of crisis," write former diplomats Uzra S. Zeya and Jon Finer. In Revitalizing the State Department and American Diplomacy, they argue that "left unaddressed, the challenges that DOS faces risk causing irreparable damage to America's standing and influence in the world, ability to advance its interests overseas, and security and prosperity at home." The authors note that "despite the decades-long failure to implement essential reforms-and even in the face of sustained hostility from the [Donald J. Trump] administration-diplomacy remains the best tool the United States has to advance its foreign policy interests." "But many of the challenges facing the DOS have existed for decades," they explain. "Deficits in diversity, institutional culture, and professionalization are endemic to the State Department as an institution, and a diminished policy role for career officials persisted under previous administrations." Zeya and Finer identify areas in greatest need of reform and offer the following recommendations for the next secretary of state: Twenty-First-Century Statecraft. The State Department should develop "greater expertise in the range of issues that will be essential to American leadership in the twenty-first century," which include climate change, pandemic disease, shifting global power, economic competitiveness, equity, anticorruption, and technological transformation. Institutional Reform. "Make the State Department a diverse, equitable, and inclusive institution" by underscoring diversity as a national security priority, overcoming a risk-averse culture, delayering and decentralizing decision-making, and bridging the career-noncareer divide. Workforce Expansion. "Urgent attention needs to be devoted to revitalizing the professional path and retention of the current DOS workforce," which has seen "a brain drain of senior talent" and "Civil Service staffing frozen at 2017 levels." The authors suggest greater flexibility in career paths and enabling return, as well as rebooting and expanding training and continuous learning. Beyond the Near Term. "The State Department would also benefit from some longer-term thinking" including amending the Foreign Service Act, implementing unified national security budgeting, and establishing a Diplomatic Reserve Corps. "When properly empowered and entrusted with significant responsibilities, American diplomats play essential roles in consequential outcomes for the country," the authors write. Revitalizing the State Department and restoring diplomacy "means addressing deficiencies in DOS policy focus and capacity, institutional culture, and workforce diversity and flexibility, while laying the groundwork to cement these and other changes through legislation," the authors conclude. Finer was chief of staff and director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State. He is currently on leave as an adjunct senior fellow at CFR. Zeya is CEO and president of the Alliance for Peacebuilding and previously had a twenty-seven-year diplomatic career.
Download or read book A World in Disarray written by Richard Haass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A valuable primer on foreign policy: a primer that concerned citizens of all political persuasions—not to mention the president and his advisers—could benefit from reading.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times An examination of a world increasingly defined by disorder and a United States unable to shape the world in its image, from the president of the Council on Foreign Relations Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. The rules, policies, and institutions that have guided the world since World War II have largely run their course. Respect for sovereignty alone cannot uphold order in an age defined by global challenges from terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to climate change and cyberspace. Meanwhile, great power rivalry is returning. Weak states pose problems just as confounding as strong ones. The United States remains the world’s strongest country, but American foreign policy has at times made matters worse, both by what the U.S. has done and by what it has failed to do. The Middle East is in chaos, Asia is threatened by China’s rise and a reckless North Korea, and Europe, for decades the world’s most stable region, is now anything but. As Richard Haass explains, the election of Donald Trump and the unexpected vote for “Brexit” signals that many in modern democracies reject important aspects of globalization, including borders open to trade and immigrants. In A World in Disarray, Haass argues for an updated global operating system—call it world order 2.0—that reflects the reality that power is widely distributed and that borders count for less. One critical element of this adjustment will be adopting a new approach to sovereignty, one that embraces its obligations and responsibilities as well as its rights and protections. Haass also details how the U.S. should act towards China and Russia, as well as in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He suggests, too, what the country should do to address its dysfunctional politics, mounting debt, and the lack of agreement on the nature of its relationship with the world. A World in Disarray is a wise examination, one rich in history, of the current world, along with how we got here and what needs doing. Haass shows that the world cannot have stability or prosperity without the United States, but that the United States cannot be a force for global stability and prosperity without its politicians and citizens reaching a new understanding.
Download or read book Foreign Policy Begins at Home written by Richard N Haass and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A concise, comprehensive guide to America's critical policy choices at home and overseas . . . without a partisan agenda, but with a passion for solutions designed to restore our country's strength and enable us to lead." -- Madeleine K. Albright A rising China, climate change, terrorism, a nuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, and a reckless North Korea all present serious challenges to America's national security. But it depends even more on the United States addressing its burgeoning deficit and debt, crumbling infrastructure, second class schools, and outdated immigration system. While there is currently no great rival power threatening America directly, how long this strategic respite lasts, according to Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass, will depend largely on whether the United States puts its own house in order. Haass lays out a compelling vision for restoring America's power, influence, and ability to lead the world and advocates for a new foreign policy of Restoration that would require the US to limit its involvement in both wars of choice, and humanitarian interventions. Offering essential insight into our world of continual unrest, this new edition addresses the major foreign and domestic debates since hardcover publication, including US intervention in Syria, the balance between individual privacy and collective security, and the continuing impact of the sequester.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy written by Andrew Fenton Cooper and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 990 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including chapters from some of the leading experts in the field this Handbook provides a full overview of the nature and challenges of modern diplomacy and includes a tour d'horizon of the key ways in which the theory and practice of modern diplomacy are evolving in the 21st Century.
Download or read book Innocent Abroad written by Martin Indyk and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making peace in the long-troubled Middle East is likely to be one of the top priorities of the next American president. He will need to take account of the important lessons from past attempts, which are described and analyzed here in a gripping book by a renowned expert who served twice as U.S. ambassador to Israel and as Middle East adviser to President Clinton. Martin Indyk draws on his many years of intense involvement in the region to provide the inside story of the last time the United States employed sustained diplomacy to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and change the behavior of rogue regimes in Iraq and Iran. Innocent Abroad is an insightful history and a poignant memoir. Indyk provides a fascinating examination of the ironic consequences when American naïveté meets Middle Eastern cynicism in the region's political bazaars. He dissects the very different strategies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to explain why they both faced such difficulties remaking the Middle East in their images of a more peaceful or democratic place. He provides new details of the breakdown of the Arab-Israeli peace talks at Camp David, of the CIA's failure to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and of Clinton's attempts to negotiate with Iran's president. Indyk takes us inside the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the palaces of Arab potentates, and the offices of Israeli prime ministers. He draws intimate portraits of the American, Israeli, and Arab leaders he worked with, including Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon; the PLO's Yasser Arafat; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak; and Syria's Hafez al-Asad. He describes in vivid detail high-level meetings, demonstrating how difficult it is for American presidents to understand the motives and intentions of Middle Eastern leaders and how easy it is for them to miss those rare moments when these leaders are willing to act in ways that can produce breakthroughs to peace. Innocent Abroad is an extraordinarily candid and enthralling account, crucially important in grasping the obstacles that have confounded the efforts of recent presidents. As a new administration takes power, this experienced diplomat distills the lessons of past failures to chart a new way forward that will be required reading.
