The book analyses the origins of the idea of interference in the internal affairs of other states and preventive strike in international law, beginning with the Monroe Doctrine (1823). American diplomacy has not changed in principle in the last two centuries, and is still based on the Monroe doctrine. This is proven here through the study of the foreign policy of the vast majority of US presidents, from Monroe to Trump. As the book shows, one of the main tools of American domination throughout the world in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st is the doctrine of the preventive strike and interference in the affairs of other states.

With nuclear proliferation essentially eliminating full-scale warfare, governments have increasingly turned to what Richard W. Cottam calls competitive interference. This type of policy invokes counter-insurgency, political, economic, and psychological manipulations, and often involves looking deeply into the internal affairs of a country, often secretly. Cottam describes and defines competitive interference, explores the United States' institutional adjustment to it, and provides a theoretical framework for projection and evaluation of foreign policy in this changing diplomatic arena. He uses case studies of international relationships involving the United States, India, China, Vietnam, Iran, and the former USSR and East Germany to evaluate his theoretical stance, and proposes long-term institutionalization of policy, rather than covert operations.

This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by the Government Printing Office in Washington, 1903.

In Killing Hope, William Blum, author of the bestselling Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, provides a devastating and comprehensive account of America's covert and overt military actions in the world, all the way from China in the 1940s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and - in this updated edition - beyond. Is the United States, as it likes to claim, a global force for democracy? Killing Hope shows the answer to this question to be a resounding 'no'.