Preface Introduction Ignorance 2 Executive Branch Dominance 3 Over Reliance on the Military 4 Unilateralism 5 Isolationism 6 Lack of Empathy 7 Arrogance Conclusion Notes Index.

American foreign policy often looks like a trail of man-made debris and disaster. Of course, the explanations for many poorly-made decisions are rather complex. In this brief and cogent analysis, Houghton shows us that understanding American foreign policy often comes down to recognizing the cognitive limitations of the decision-makers, which affects the foreign policy process. Then there is the nature of the decisions themselves. Quite a few decisions in American foreign policy involve ‘tragic’ choices, where leaders are effectively confronted with a series of progressively bad or uncomfortable options. And it is equally clear that some policies are not the product of any one individual’s preferences, but emerge as a consequence of the way in which complex modern governments with large bureaucracies operate. Written with the interested layperson in mind, as well as students of international affairs, this Citizen’s Guide to American Foreign Policy asks questions like, "Why do presidents so often do things which seem to be directly against the national interests of the United States – not just in retrospect, but even at the time?" "Why do there seem to be so many fiascoes in US foreign policy?" "Why does Congress sometimes tie the hands of the president in foreign affairs?" "Why do presidents seem to respond more to opinion polls or to what’s on CNN and Fox News than they do to the core interests of the United States?" Houghton’s overview helps us see past the partisan in-fighting that too often obscures the central issues in foreign affairs. This is vital, required reading for all readers who wish to better understand America’s involvement in the world.

No nation has maintained such an immense stature in world politics as the United States has since the Cold War’s end. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, prompting the global war on terrorism and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with American economic and "soft power" primacy, there has been increased interest in and scrutiny of American foreign policy. The Routledge Handbook of American Foreign Policy brings together leading experts in the field to examine current trends in the way scholars study the history and theories of American conduct in the world, analysis of state and non-state actors and their tools in conducting policy, and the dynamics of a variety of pressing transnational challenges facing the United States. This volume provides a systematic overview of all aspects of American foreign policy and drives the agenda for further, cutting edge research. Contributors bring analytic depth and breadth to both the ways in which this subject is approached and the substance of policy formulation and process. The Handbook is an invaluable resource to students, researchers, scholars, and journalists trying to make sense of the broader debates in international relations.

This absorbing collection of essays subjects such popular commentators as Thomas Friedman, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kaplan, and Dinesh D'Souza to cold, hard scrutiny and finds that their writing is often misleadingly simplistic, culturally ill-informed, and politically dangerous. Mixing critical reflection with insights from their own fieldwork, twelve distinguished anthropologists respond by offering fresh perspectives on globalization, ethnic violence, social justice, and the biological roots of behavior. They take on such topics as the collapse of Yugoslavia, the consumer practices of the American poor, American foreign policy in the Balkans, and contemporary debates over race, welfare, and violence against women. In the clear, vigorous prose of the pundits themselves, these contributors reveal the hollowness of what often passes as prevailing wisdom and passionately demonstrate the need for a humanistically complex and democratic understanding of the contemporary world.

The pattern of multilateral engagement and unilateral retrenchment in American foreign policy from the Cold War through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama years presents a puzzle. What accounts for the unilateralist turn? Is it a passing aberration attributable to the neoconservative ideology of the Bush administration? What then of the disengagement evident earlier during Clinton’s presidency, or its continuation under Obama? Was the U.S. investment in multilateral institutions following World War II an anomaly? Or is the more recent retreat from international institutions the irregularity? Skidmore traces U.S. unilateralism to the structural effects of the end of the Cold War, both domestically and abroad, to argue that the United States was more hegemonic than multilateralist—a rule-maker, not a rule-taker. An "institutional bargain" existed under the Cold War threat from the Soviets, but absent those imperatives the United States has been less willing to provide collective goods through strong international institutions and other states are less willing to defer to U.S. exemptions. On the home front, the post-Cold War political environment has made it more difficult for presidents to resist the appeals of powerful interests who are threatened by multilateral commitments. This book demonstrates that American unilateralism has deeper roots and more resilience than many expect. The unilateral temptation can only be overcome through new political bargains domestically and internationally that permit multilateral engagement, even the absence of great power rivalry.

While American national security policy has grown more interventionist since the Cold War, Washington has also hoped to shape the world on the cheap. Misled by the stunning success against Iraq in 1991, administrations of both parties have pursued ambitious aims with limited force, committing the country's military frequently yet often hesitantly, with inconsistent justification. These ventures have produced strategic confusion, unplanned entanglements, and indecisive results. This collection of essays by Richard K. Betts, a leading international politics scholar, investigates the use of American force since the end of the Cold War, suggesting guidelines for making it more selective and successful. Betts brings his extensive knowledge of twentieth century American diplomatic and military history to bear on the full range of theory and practice in national security, surveying the Cold War roots of recent initiatives and arguing that U.S. policy has always been more unilateral than liberal theorists claim. He exposes mistakes made by humanitarian interventions and peace operations; reviews the issues raised by terrorism and the use of modern nuclear, biological, and cyber weapons; evaluates the case for preventive war, which almost always proves wrong; weighs the lessons learned from campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam; assesses the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia; quells concerns about civil-military relations; exposes anomalies within recent defense budgets; and confronts the practical barriers to effective strategy. Betts ultimately argues for greater caution and restraint, while encouraging more decisive action when force is required, and he recommends a more dispassionate assessment of national security interests, even in the face of global instability and unfamiliar threats.

Acts of contrition and transitional justice—admission of wrong, apology, and reparations—have become fashionable in the discourse of international affairs. Using a case-study approach that inspires student discussion of concrete examples, this text addresses important questions about the politics of apology in relation to some of the most controversial cases of US foreign policy over the past fifty years: Vietnam, Nicaragua, and the most recent war in Iraq. Loramy Gerstbauer offers an original, transdisciplinary, and accessible argument for the practical value of contrition, forgiveness, and reconciliation in international relations while examining why the United States has been a less than contrite nation and offering a prescription for how to change this state of affairs.