Reluctant Crusaders

Reluctant Crusaders PDF Author: Colin Dueck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827221
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
In Reluctant Crusaders, Colin Dueck examines patterns of change and continuity in American foreign policy strategy by looking at four major turning points: the periods following World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He shows how American cultural assumptions regarding liberal foreign policy goals, together with international pressures, have acted to push and pull U.S. policy in competing directions over time. The result is a book that combines an appreciation for the role of both power and culture in international affairs. The centerpiece of Dueck's book is his discussion of America's "grand strategy"--the identification and promotion of national goals overseas in the face of limited resources and potential resistance. One of the common criticisms of the Bush administration's grand strategy is that it has turned its back on a long-standing tradition of liberal internationalism in foreign affairs. But Dueck argues that these criticisms misinterpret America's liberal internationalist tradition. In reality, Bush's grand strategy since 9/11 has been heavily influenced by traditional American foreign policy assumptions. While liberal internationalists argue that the United States should promote an international system characterized by democratic governments and open markets, Dueck contends, these same internationalists tend to define American interests in broad, expansive, and idealistic terms, without always admitting the necessary costs and risks of such a grand vision. The outcome is often sweeping goals, pursued by disproportionately limited means.

Reluctant Crusaders

Reluctant Crusaders PDF Author: Colin Dueck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827221
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
In Reluctant Crusaders, Colin Dueck examines patterns of change and continuity in American foreign policy strategy by looking at four major turning points: the periods following World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He shows how American cultural assumptions regarding liberal foreign policy goals, together with international pressures, have acted to push and pull U.S. policy in competing directions over time. The result is a book that combines an appreciation for the role of both power and culture in international affairs. The centerpiece of Dueck's book is his discussion of America's "grand strategy"--the identification and promotion of national goals overseas in the face of limited resources and potential resistance. One of the common criticisms of the Bush administration's grand strategy is that it has turned its back on a long-standing tradition of liberal internationalism in foreign affairs. But Dueck argues that these criticisms misinterpret America's liberal internationalist tradition. In reality, Bush's grand strategy since 9/11 has been heavily influenced by traditional American foreign policy assumptions. While liberal internationalists argue that the United States should promote an international system characterized by democratic governments and open markets, Dueck contends, these same internationalists tend to define American interests in broad, expansive, and idealistic terms, without always admitting the necessary costs and risks of such a grand vision. The outcome is often sweeping goals, pursued by disproportionately limited means.

Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213-1221

Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213-1221 PDF Author: James M. Powell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812200829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
James M. Powell here offers a new interpretation of the Fifth Crusade's historical and social impact, and a richly rewarding view of life in the thirteenth century. Powell addresses such questions as the degree of popular interest in the crusades, the religious climate of the period, the social structure of the membership of the crusade, and the effects of the recruitment effort on the outcome.

The Absence of Grand Strategy

The Absence of Grand Strategy PDF Author: Steve A. Yetiv
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801896878
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Great powers and grand strategies. It is easy to assume that the most powerful nations pursue and employ consistent, cohesive, and decisive policies in trying to promote their interests in regions of the world. Popular theory emphasizes two such grand strategies that great powers may pursue: balance of power policy or hegemonic domination. But, as Steve A. Yetiv contends, things may not always be that cut and dried. Analyzing the evolution of the United States' foreign policy in the Persian Gulf from 1972 to 2005, Yetiv offers a provocative and panoramic view of American strategies in a region critical to the functioning of the entire global economy. Ten cases—from the policies of the Nixon administration to George W. Bush's war in Iraq—reveal shifting, improvised, and reactive policies that were responses to unanticipated and unpredictable events and threats. In fact, the distinguishing feature of the U.S. experience in the Gulf has been the absence of grand strategy. Yetiv introduces the concept of "reactive engagement" as an alternative approach to understanding the behavior of great powers in unstable regions. At a time when the effects of U.S. foreign policy are rippling across the globe, The Absence of Grand Strategy offers key insight into the nature and evolution of American foreign policy in the Gulf.

Remembering the Forgotten War

Remembering the Forgotten War PDF Author: Philip West
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317461037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In contrast to the many books that use military, diplomatic, and historic language in analyzing the Korean War, this book takes a cultural approach that emphasizes the human dimension of the war, an approach that especially features Korean voices. There are chapters on Korean art on the war, translations into English of Korean poetry by Korean soldiers, and American soldier poetry on the war. There is a photographic essay on the war by combat journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Max Desfor. Another chapter includes and analyzes songs on the Korean War - Korean, American, and Chinese - that illuminate the many complex memories of the war. There is a discussion of Korean films on the war and a chapter on Korean War POWs and their contested memories. More than any other nonfiction book on the war, this one shows us the human face of tragedy for Americans, Chinese, and most especially Koreans. June 2000 was the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War; this moving volume is intended as a commemoration of it.

Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump

Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump PDF Author: Benjamin Miller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022673515X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
American foreign policy is the subject of extensive debate. Many look to domestic factors as the driving forces of bad policies. Benjamin Miller instead seeks to account for changes in US international strategy by developing a theory of grand strategy that captures the key security approaches available to US decision-makers in times of war and peace. Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of competing grand strategies that accounts for objectives and means of security policy. Miller puts forward a model that is widely applicable, based on empirical evidence from post-WWII to today, and shows that external factors—rather than internal concerns—are the most determinative.

Wars of Revelation

Wars of Revelation PDF Author: Rebecca Lissner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197583210
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Rich in historical detail and theoretical insight, Wars of Revelation explains why the United States' military interventions have repeatedly transformed its global role - and what that means for the future of American grand strategy. More than seventy-five years since the end of World War II, military interventions - rather than major wars - have emerged as a defining feature of contemporary geopolitics. Yet, for all the fierce policy debates over interventions and their lessons, scholars have largely ignored the systematic linkages between these smaller-scale wars and transformations in the grand strategies of states that prosecute them. In Wars of Revelation, Rebecca Lissner explains why military interventions can be crucibles of grand strategy, testing strategic axioms on the battlefield and prompting combatant states to reconceive their global roles. Through detailed historical case studies of US involvement in the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars, Lissner shows how each intervention generated searing insights into the capabilities and intentions of America's international adversaries - as well as the potential and limits of its own national power. By focusing on these three "wars of revelation," Lissner presents a fresh perspective on the origins and evolutions of US grand strategy, from the dawn of the Cold War to its twilight. Persuasively argued and historically illuminating, Wars of Revelation is essential reading for anyone who crafts, studies, or follows international security policy.

The Revolution that Failed

The Revolution that Failed PDF Author: Brendan Rittenhouse Green
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108489869
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
A theoretical analysis and historical investigation of the Cold War nuclear arms race that challenges the nuclear revolution.

America Abroad

America Abroad PDF Author: Stephen G. Brooks
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190464259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Combining scholarly rigor and accessible prose, America Abroad will force us to rethink our assumptions about the nature and utility of US power in the global arena.

Cultures of Counterproliferation

Cultures of Counterproliferation PDF Author: Raphael BenLevi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000987868
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book argues that the nature of counterproliferation strengthens the effect of cultural factors in policy choices, and illustrates this by focusing on US and Israeli policy toward the Iranian nuclear program. The United States and Israel have been the two states most active in opposing Iran’s nuclear ambitions; however, the respective strategies of each of these states have changed repeatedly. This book explores how competing cultural schools of thought on grand strategy within each state inform and shape the key policy decisions in their attempts to prevent a nuclear Iran. Drawing on numerous interviews conducted with former high-level officials in each country as well as published memoirs, this book first describes in detail the belief systems of the competing schools and then analyses the internal debates and key decisions on policy toward the Iranian Nuclear Program, while critically assessing the extent to which these beliefs influenced policy in the face of material-structural pressures. This in-depth analysis of the internal debates and dilemmas within the national leadership of the two states most prominent in the effort to prevent a nuclear Iran constitutes an indispensable guide for scholars and policymakers who will inevitably face similar dilemmas in dealing with this ongoing challenge and additional cases of nuclear proliferation around the world. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, US and Israeli foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics and IR in general.

The Promise and Pitfalls of Grand Strategy (Enlarged Edition)

The Promise and Pitfalls of Grand Strategy (Enlarged Edition) PDF Author: Hal Brands
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1304057011
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
What is "grand strategy," and why is it seemingly so important and so difficult? This monograph explores the concept of grand strategy as it has developed over the past several decades. It explains why the concept is so ubiquitous in discussions of present-day foreign policy, examines why American officials often find the formulation of a successful grand strategy to be such an exacting task, and explores the ways in which having a grand strategy can be both useful and problematic. It illustrates these points via an analysis of two key periods in modern American grand strategy--the Truman years at the outset of the Cold War, and the Nixon-Kissinger years in the late 1960s and 1970s--and provides several suggestions for how U.S. officials might approach the challenges of grand strategy in the 21st century.