1st Edition

Foreign Policy

Edited By Robert J. Lieber Copyright 2008

    The best writing on foreign policy integrates theory and policy in ways that address the principal questions about a country's place in the world and encourage the reader to think about contemporary questions from a long-term perspective. Accordingly, the essays in this volume have been chosen with an eye to whether they represent important and original thinking and are likely to remain relevant. The authors included here represent diverse views about foreign policy and the international context in which it takes place. While two dozen pieces chosen from a vast literature can never be definitive, nevertheless each of these articles offers a thoughtful, reasoned and often eloquent assessment that is likely to remain a reference point for those seriously interested in the subject. The work is organized into five sections: how to think about foreign policy, the domestic context, foreign policy and unipolarity, foreign policy after 9/11, and foreign policy and the future.

    Contents: Series preface; Introduction; Part I How to Think About Foreign Policy: Hypotheses on misperception, Robert Jervis; Conceptual models and the Cuban missile crisis, Graham T. Allison; Explaining cooperation under anarchy: hypotheses and strategies, Kenneth A. Oye; One world, rival theories, Jack Snyder. Part II The Domestic Context: Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of 2-level games, Robert D. Putnam; The Jacksonian tradition and American foreign policy, Walter Russell Meade; Still the exceptional nation?, Seymour Martin Lipset. Part III Foreign Policy and Unipolarity: The end of history, Francis Fukuyama; The clash of civilizations?, Samuel P. Huntington; Power shift, Jessica T. Mathews; Structural realism after the Cold War, Kenneth N. Waltz; Command of the commons: the military foundation of US hegemony, Barry R. Posen; History and the hyperpower, Eliot A. Cohen. Part IV Foreign Policy After 9/11: A grand strategy of transformation, John Lewis Gaddis; Bush's revolution, Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay; The neoconservative-conspiracy theory: pure myth, Robert J. Lieber; How to stop nuclear terror, Graham Allison; The decline of America's soft power: why Washington should worry, Joseph S. Nye Jr; In defense of democratic realism, Charles Krauthammer; Waiting for balancing: why the world is not pushing back, Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander. Part V Foreign Policy and the Future: Is American multilateralism in decline?, G.John Ikenberry; International relations theory and the case against unilateralism, Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth; The return of authoritarian great powers, Azar Gat; David's friend Goliath, Michael Mandelbaum; Name index.

    Biography

    Robert J. Lieber is Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University, where he has previously served as Chair of the Government Department and as Interim Chair of Psychology. He is an expert on American foreign policy and U.S. relations with the Middle East and Europe.