The Policy Makers: Shaping American Foreign Policy from 1947 to the Present

The Policy Makers: Shaping American Foreign Policy from 1947 to the Present Review

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The Policy Makers: Shaping American Foreign Policy from 1947 to the Present Feature

This book is about U.S. policy makers who have wielded enormous influence, largely behind the scenes, since the end of World War II. The advent of the Cold War brought new problems of national security for the United States. As a result, U.S. presidents no longer sat down with their secretaries of state to determine the nation's foreign policy. Instead, postwar chief executives reached out to individuals in the intelligence and military organizations and, increasingly, to advisers in the White House. The Policy Makers examines seven such advisers_from public servants in the state department to CIA directors and U.S. senators_and the policies each adviser influenced. By focusing on individuals whose policy making role was often unknown to the public, Anna Kasten Nelson and her contributors shed light on the myriad ways in which the postwar foreign policy of the United States has been shaped, sometimes in ways very damaging to the nation's security.

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Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba

Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba Review

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Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba Feature

Expertly researched and deftly reported, Dateline Havana is a probing exposé of U.S. policy and the future of Cuba on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. Covering art, music, and Cuban politics, Reese Erlich creates a tableau that is at once moving and informative.

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The Pathology of the U.S. Economy Revisited: The Intractable Contradictions of Economic Policy

The Pathology of the U.S. Economy Revisited: The Intractable Contradictions of Economic Policy Review

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The Pathology of the U.S. Economy Revisited: The Intractable Contradictions of Economic Policy Feature

This book describes the deep contradictions plague market economies. It shows how the influence of these contradictions sometimes subsides, allowing the economy to perform relatively well. But in time, these contradictions accumulate and economy declines as if it suffers from some degenerative disease. The policies designed to rise above these contradictions often spawn even more severe contradictions. This book describes how these contradictions have affected the economy of the United States in the past and the dangers that the future poses. For example, policies to stimulate the economy eventually lead to stagnation. Policies to make hold down wages make business even more uncompetitive. It also analyzes the destructive consequences of the military, finance, and the Federal Reserve. Finally, it debunks the mythological promise of a New Economy.

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Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy

Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy Review

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Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy Feature

Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Lenczowski, offers a solution to one of the greatest weaknesses in U.S. foreign policy that has exacerbated the unprecedented anti-Americanism of recent years—the U.S. Government's inability to conduct the "full spectrum" of diplomatic arts and to integrate them with the other arts of statecraft at the level of grand strategy. The analysis presents a critique of how the Department of State's focus on traditional, government-to-government diplomacy comes at the expense of public diplomacy. "Public Diplomacy" is defined in the broadest sense as including all those arts that involve relations with, and influence over, foreign publics and opinion leaders, including: cultural diplomacy, exchanges, information policy, strategic communications, psychological strategy, political action, political warfare, and wars of ideas. Author John Lenczowski, one of the first modern advocates for the strategic integration of all the instruments of national power, calls for the development of an "influence culture" in U.S. foreign policy, and provides a roadmap for the reform of the structure and culture of American diplomacy. While addressing contemporary U.S. foreign policy, this study presents lessons in statecraft and grand strategy that are applicable for all times and places. Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy thus raises issues that are relevant not only to diplomats, but to practitioners of intelligence, counterintelligence, military strategy, and economic statecraft.

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The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy

The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy Review

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The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy Feature

"For years," William Pfaff writes, "there has been little or no critical reexamination of how and why the successful postwar American policy of 'patient but firm containment of Soviet expansionist tendencies...has over decades turned into a vast project for ending tyranny in the world. We defend this position by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities. This is where the problem lies. It has become somewhat of a national heresy to suggest the U .S. does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not."

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Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Routledge Series: Military History and Policy)

Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Routledge Series: Military History and Policy) Review

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Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Routledge Series: Military History and Policy) Feature

This book is a study of the circumstances leading to British intervention in Vietnam in 1945, and the course and consequences of this intervention.

The first part of the work links French colonialism with the native communist insurgency, while examining British and Foreign Office attitudes towards French Indochina. The study then looks at the key Anglo-American wartime relationship concerning Indochina and its impact. The second half of the book focuses on the local problems faced by the British in Southern Indochina, and whether commanding general Douglas Gracey was guilty (as critics have suggested) of collusion with French colonialism. It also examines the wider problems linked to available military resources, and the controversial issues of the role of the OSS and the use of Japanese troops to preserve law and order. Finally, the book makes a groundbreaking link between British intervention and the outbreak of the French-Vietminh war in 1946.

Britain in Vietnam will be of interest to students of British foreign policy, military history and South-East Asian history in general.

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