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.

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.

In Barack Obama and the Arab Spring: A Successful Balancing Act of Foreign Policy and Diplomacy, Ahmed Zohny develops a well-blended marriage of history and political theories of U.S. foreign policy, diplomacy, public diplomacy, and national security. In this interdisciplinary research, he uses data and findings from both the Arabic and English languages by genealogically examining President Obama’s foreign policy and diplomacy in response to the chronology of the unfolding events of the 2011 Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. President Obama and his top diplomats’ performances in response to each country’s events are assessed, critically analyzed, and compared to one another in terms of the U.S. bilateral relations with each country, U.S. national interests, and her strategic goals in the Middle East region. The findings of this research indicate that President Obama’s foreign policy and public diplomacy toward the Arab Spring proved to be a successful balancing act, prudent and in the best national interests of the United States in the Middle East.

The emergence of Asia-Pacific regionalism, as witnessed by the increasing influence of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the annual ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, highlights one of the major trends in late twentieth-century geopolitics and international relations.