Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

Note On Access To Articles:  Access to articles through the Texas State University Library available to all Texas State University students, requires a valid User Name and a Password.  Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.  For articles at sites with limited or restricted access and/or which cannot be accessed via the Texas State University Library a copy of the article (s) will be made accessible to students.

Password Protected Materials: Some materials on this web syllabus are password protected and are directly accessible @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. These materials are for student use. The password will be provided to students in the course. 

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Please see: Academic Honesty Statement for Texas State University @ http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html. 
Please also see: Student Conduct at the end of this syllabus.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Note on Browsers: For direct access to the Texas State University Library Chrome is recommended.

Course Title
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Occasional Postings of Writings on Current & Various Issues in American Foreign Policy

China
Eric Hendriks-Kim, "Why China Loves Conservatives", First Things, January 2023
@ https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/01/why-china-loves-conservatives
This article by Eric Hendriks-Kim is accessible on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Adam Tooze, "Whose Century? After the Shock", London Review of Books, Vol. 42 No. 15 - 30 July 2020
From this review essay:
"What​ Eric Hobsbawm called the ‘short 20th century’ is supposed to have ended in 1989 with the United States winning the Cold War. Yet today America faces a powerful and assertive China, a one-party state with an official ideology it calls 21st-century Marxism, which is busy building a powerful military on the back of an economy set to become the world’s biggest in the foreseeable future. This development has shaken the assumptions that have underpinned economic and national security decision-making in Washington for the last thirty years."
@ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n15/adam-tooze/whose-century
A copy of this essay by Adam Tooze is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.  

Minxin Pei, "China's Coming Upheaval: Competition, the Coronavirus, and the Weakness of Xi Jinping", Foreign Affairs, May/June 2020
Texas State University Library- User/Student ID and password required for access.
@ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=142781661&site=ehost-live&scope=site
A copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Michael Mandelbaum, "A New Cold War with China?", The American Interest, June 25, 2020
@ https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/06/25/a-new-cold-war-with-china/ (Access limited to 2 articles)
A copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Adam Garfinkle, "The Sino-American Rivalry in Cultural Context", The American Interest, July 24, 2020
@ https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/07/24/the-sino-american-rivalry-in-cultural-context/
Note: The American Interest site permits only one article without registration. 
A pdf copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

David P. Goldman, "The Chinese Challenge", Claremont Review of Books, Spring 2020
@ https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-chinese-challenge/
A copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Michael Doran and Peter Rough, "China's Middle Eastern Kingdom", Tablet, August 2, 2020
China's drive for supremacy is now underway in the Middle East and it won't end there.
(Note: This essay discusses American foreign policy strategies in relations with China. These strategies include "harmonic convergence", containment, and hard power politics.)
@ https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/china-middle-eastern-kingdom

Ukraine, Russia, America
Michael Hochberg & Leonard Hochberg, "An Endgame in Ukraine: American Strategic Options" Part III, December 14, 2022
(This is the third in a three part series separated by three strategic options for Ukraine.)
@ https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/12/14/an_endgame_in_ukraine_american_strategic_options_part_iii_870205.html
Note: Direct links to Parts I and II of this three part series are provided immediately preceding the the text of Part III.
A pdf version of this article, including the links to part I and II, is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Todd Prince, "Moscow's Invasion of Ukraine Triggers 'Soul-Searching' At Western Universities As Scholars Rethink Russian Studies",  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 1, 2023
@ https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-war-ukraine-western-academia/32201630.html
A pdf version of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.
_______________________________________________________________

Various Views on American Foreign Policy and the International Environment

Becca Wasser, "The Unmet Promise Of The Global Posture Review", War On The Rocks, December 30, 2021
 (America's Global Posture in the Biden Administration)
@ https://warontherocks.com/2021/12/the-unmet-promise-of-the-global-posture-review/
A pdf version of this article is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Josef Joffee, "The Decline of the West", The American Interest, August 13, 2020
@ https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/08/13/the-decline-of-the-west-new-and-improved/
Note: This is a gated site permitting access to only one article.
The full text of this article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "American Foreign Policy" and look for the author and title of this article.  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.  

Christopher Caldwell, "America's Fighting Faith",  First Things, February 2017.  This is a review essay of The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America's Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest (Yale University Press November 22, 2016) by Walter A. McDougall.   Texas State University Library permalink to this essay @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=120663314&site=ehost-live.  Texas State University User Name and password required.
From the conclusion of Christopher Caldwell's review essay:
"Civil religion may once have de­scribed a kind of ecumenism. It now means little. It is a set of oratorical and political habits that developed in societies built around transcendent truths—religious societies. In our time, those truths have been jostled from public view by various secular princi­ples, from hedonism to consumerism to human rights. The problem is that citizens are unlikely to rally to faddish principles as they once did to transcen­dent truths. Civil religion describes the effort to pass off the former as the latter. It cannot succeed indefinitely."

Michael J. Mazarr, "The Once and Future Order: What Comes After Hegemony", Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017, Vol. 96, No. 1.
@ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=120043012&site=ehost-live  Texas State University Library permalink.  A valid User Name and password are required for access.

Kiersten Schmidt and Bill Marsh, "Which Countries Have Nuclear Weapons and How Big Their Arsenals Are", NYT December 23, 2016
 @ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/23/world/nuclear-weapon-countries.html

Fred Kaplan, "Obama's Way: The President in Practice",  Foreign Affairs, Vol. 95, No. 1, January/February 2016, pp. 48-63.
@ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=111501183&site=ehost-live
Texas State University permalink.  A valid User Name and Password are required for access.

Abe Greenwald, "On His Watch", Commentary, January 2016, Vol. 141, No. 1, pp. 11-18.
@ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/on-his-watch/

Barry R. Posen, "Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy", Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, Vol. 92, No. 1., pp.116-128.
Texas State University Library permalink.  A valid Texas State User Name and password are required for access.

Stephen G. Brooks, G. John Ikenberry, and William C. Wohlforth, "Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement", Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, Vol. 92, No. 1., pp. 130-142.
Texas State University Library permalink.  A valid Texas State User Name and password are required for access.

Walter Russell Mead, "The President (Obama) Falls Through the Ice", Essays & Longer Thoughts in The American Interest, Published online September 13, 2013 @
http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/09/13/the-president-falls-through-the-ice/

Stephen Peter Rosen, "Blood Brothers: The Dual Origins of American Bellicosity", The American Interest July-August 2009 @ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2009/07/01/blood-brothers/
"What seems obvious about ourselves can become deeply puzzling if we actually stop to think about it. It is obvious to most Americans that the United States is a peace-loving country. Americans are natural if mostly unschooled Tocquevillians, understanding the security afforded by the U.S. position in the Western Hemisphere and implicitly endorsing the interests of the citizens of a mass democracy in peace and prosperity. But what is obvious is wrong, hence the puzzle. Not only has the United States been frequently involved in war, most of these wars are of the kind that, in theory, it should have been least likely to fight: aggressive wars, civil wars and imperial wars."
A copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Walter A. McDougall, "The Unlikely History of American Exceptionalism", The American Interest, March/April 2013, Vol. 8 Issue 4, p 6-15.
http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=85670292&site=ehost-live
Texas State University permalink. A valid User Name and Password are required for access.
The contemporary vocabulary of “American Exceptionalism” comes to us courtesy of doctrinaire Communists and Catholics, from as recently as the 1930s. Really.
"What does it mean to say the United States is exceptional?"
This essay may also be accessed @ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2013/02/12/the-unlikely-history-of-american-exceptionalism/.
A copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Henry R. Nau, "Why We Fight Over Foreign Policy: Different perspectives yield different conclusions",  Policy Review, April & May 2007
@ https://www.hoover.org/research/why-we-fight-over-foreign-policy
A copy of this essay is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

David Muir, "Against Democratic Defeatism: The Crisis of Liberalism", The American Interest, August 24, 2020
A review essay of David Stasavage's book The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today (Princeton University Press 2020)
@ https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/08/24/against-democratic-defeatism/
Note: This site permits access to only one article.  This article is accessible to students enrolled in American Foreign Policy/Political Science 4321.  It is posted in pdf in the Resources section on the Texas State University CANVAS site for American Foreign Policy/Political Science 4321.

Ian Buruma, "The End of the Anglo-American Order", NYT Sunday Magazine, November 29, 2016
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/magazine/the-end-of-the-anglo-american-order.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0
For decades, the United States and Britain’s vision of democracy and freedom defined the postwar world. What will happen in an age of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage?

NOTE: See CANVAS/Political Science 4321 on Texas State University website for posted materials.

OVERVIEW OF COURSE

Topics
I. An Overview & Approaches To The Study Of Foreign Policy
1.The National Interest
2. The Cold War (Historical Perspective & Legacy)
3. Nuclear War

II. The International Setting
1.Clash Of Civilizations?/The Huntington Thesis
2. American Power

III. Political Culture & The Ideological Setting Of American Foreign Policy Formulation
1. American Political Culture
a. Political Culture & Foreign Policy Behavior
b. The American Creed: Louis Hartz, S. Huntington, S. Hoffman, & Others
c. "Cowboy Ethics"
2. Democracy & "Illiberal Democracy"
a. The Case For Democracy
b. Promoting Democracy: Favorable Views
c. Promoting Democracy: Doubts & Criticism
d. Free Markets & Democracy

IV. Interest Groups, Symbols, Communication, & Congress

V. The State Department

VI. The Military

VII. Intelligence

VIII. The Presidency

Recommended Books:
Niall Ferguson/Colossus: The Price Of America's Empire (Peguin 2004)
Anatol Lieven/America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism (Oxford Univ. Press 2004)
Natan Sharansky/The Case For Democracy: The Power Of Freedom To Overcome Tyranny & Terror (PublicAffairs-PerseusBooks 2004)

Articles for reading and class discussion are listed in the appropriate sections of this syllabus.

Videos
Dr. Strangelove/(1964)[1 hour 33 min]/DVD View Dr. Strangelove video @ https://archive.org/details/DRStrangelove_20130616
High Noon(1952)[1hour 35 minutes]/DVD
Shane/(1953)[1 hour 57 minutes]/DVD

TOPICS FOR LECTURE, CLASS DISCUSSION, AND ASSIGNED READINGS
I. Overview & Approaches to the Study of Foreign Policy 

Eliot A. Cohen, "History Doesn’t Take Sides", The American Interest, December 7, 2015.
Khrushchev thought the Soviet Union was on the “right side of history,” too.  @ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/12/07/history-doesnt-take-sides/

1. The National Interest

2. The Cold War
George F. Kennan ("X"), "The Sources Of Soviet Conduct",  Foreign Affairs July 1947 

Post Cold War: Russia and Putin
Michael Kimmage, Matthew Rojansky, "The Problem With Putinology", New Republic, July 24, 2020
@ https://newrepublic.com/article/158616/problem-putinology

Ukraine, Russia, America
Michael Hochberg & Leonard Hochberg, "An Endgame in Ukraine: American Strategic Options" Part III, December 14, 2022
(This is the third in a three part series separated by three strategic options for Ukraine.)
@ https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/12/14/an_endgame_in_ukraine_american_strategic_options_part_iii_870205.html
Note: Direct links to Parts I and II of this three part series are provided immediately preceding the the text of Part III.
A pdf version of this article, including the links to part I and II, is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Christopher Walker, "The New Containment:Undermining Democracy", World Affairs Journal, May/June 2015.
@ http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/new-containment-undermining-democracy

Joseph S. Nye Jr., Work With China, Don’t Contain It: Asia’s internal balance of power should be the key to our strategy, an op-ed essay in the NYT January 25, 2013.

Stephen Sestanovich, "Could It Have Been Otherwise?", The American Interest, May/June 2015.
Russian-American relations are in ruins. A look back at decisions made after the Cold War can help us understand what went wrong—and whether the United States had other options.
@ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/04/14/could-it-have-been-otherwise/

James Traub/Who Put the 'Cold' in Cold War?/NYT Sunday Book Review April 29, 2007 A review of John Lukacs/George Kennan: A Study of Character (Yale University Press April 2007).  Read the first chapter of Lukacs' book on George Kennan.

Karim Sadjadpour, "The Sources of (Soviet) Iranian Conduct",  Foreign Policy  November 2010 @ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=57221353&site=ehost-live.  Direct Texas State University Library permalink to this article.  A valid Texas State University ID and password are required for access.
How George Kennan is still the best guide to today's villain inside a victim behind a veil.

Report From Iron Mountain/Background & Description Of Report/museum of hoaxes.com/iron.html

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "Dictatorships & Double Standards", Commentary, November 1979
@ https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3-euw1-ap-pe-ws4-cws-documents.ri-prod/9781138824287/ch11/6._Jeane_J._Kirkpatrick,_Dictatorships_&_Double_Standards,_1979.pdf

The classic 1979 article which served as a reference point for many in the latter days of the Cold War and beyond.
Excerpt from this essay:
"Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances. This notion is belied by an enormous body of evidence based on the experience of dozens of countries which have attempted with more or less (usually less) success to move from autocratic to democratic government. Many of the wisest political scientists of this and previous centuries agree that democratic institutions are especially difficult to establish and maintain-because they make heavy demands on all portions of a population and because they depend on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions.
...
Since many traditional autocracies permit limited contestation and participation, it is not impossible that U.S. policy could effectively encourage this process of liberalization and democratization, provided that the effort is not made at a time when the incumbent government is fighting for its life against violent adversaries, and that proposed reforms are aimed at producing gradual change rather than perfect democracy overnight. To accomplish this, policymakers are needed who understand how actual democracies have actually come into being. History is a better guide than good intentions."

Ilan Wurman/"Dictatorships and Double Standards" Redux/Commentary December 2009, Vol. 128 Issue 5, pp. 38-41.
Permalink to the the Wurman article at the Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University user name and password are required.

"Jeane Kirkpatrick's seminal article and what it has to teach us about the condition of Obama's foreign policy
Thirty years ago, an article criticizing the Carter administration's foreign policy appeared in these pages under the title "Dictatorships and Double Standards." Its author was Jeane Kirkpatrick, then a professor of political science at Georgetown University. "Dictatorships and Double Standards" went on to become one of the most controversial and influential articles published in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century.

Kirkpatrick's central argument was very much focused on the singular events of the year 1979, one of the most difficult in American history, and therefore would seem to have limited application to the very different world order to be found in 2009. Nonetheless, "Dictatorships and Double Standards" remains a potent and devastating critique of how American progressives think about U.S. power and foreign policy. And the approach it condemns — the way in which the Carter administration viewed the world and conducted American policy — is worryingly similar to the approach of the Obama administration today."

3. Nuclear War
Video
Video: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
View video @ https://archive.org/details/DRStrangelove_20130616  There are numerous reviews of this film classic. 
See, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/15/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb-review-stanley-kubrick-peter-sellers
Eric Schlosser, "Almost Everything in Dr. Strangelove Was True", The New Yorker, January 17, 2014
@ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true.
See also the Wikipedia entry for this film @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

The famous Cold War film "Duck And Cover":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I
"In 1951, the newly established Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) commissioned production of a film to instruct children how to react in the event of a nuclear attack. The result was Duck and Cover, a film lasting nine minutes that was shown in schools throughout the United States during the 1950s and beyond. It featured a cartoon character, Bert the Turtle, who "was very alert" and "knew just what to do: duck and cover." At the sound of an alarm or the flash of a brilliant light signaling a nuclear explosion, Bert would instantly tuck his body under his shell. Below, in a photo from November 21,1951, sixth-grade students and their teacher at Public School 152 in the Queens borough of New York City, act out a scene depicted in the film by crouching under or beside their desks."

II.  The International Setting

1. Clash Of Civilizations? - The Huntington Thesis
Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?", Foreign Affairs Summer 1993, Vol. 72, Issue 3
This Huntington article is accessible on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy
The full text of this article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "American Foreign Policy" and look for the author and title of this article.  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Eric Hendriks-Kim, "Why China Loves Conservatives", First Things, January 2023
@ https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/01/why-china-loves-conservatives
This article by Eric Hendriks-Kim is accessible on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy. 

For additional links (some links may be "down") to essays and articles concerning the Huntington thesis see:
The Clash Of Civilizations?/Links/brothersjudd.com

2.American Power
`Barry Gewen, "The Book That Shaped Foreign Policy for a Generation Has More to Say", New York Times Book Review, May 9, 2020
A copy of this essay by Barry Gewen is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.
From this review essay of Hans Morgentau's 1948 classic study Politics-Among-Nations
"Politics Among Nations, a book that bears returning to today for the lessons it offers a contemporary America struggling once again to clarify its stance toward a volatile world.
...  Virtually as soon as it was published, “Politics Among Nations” became one of the most influential books of the 20th century."

Giuseppe Paparella, "What Comes After COVID-19? Political Psychology, Strategic Outcomes and Options for The Asia-Pacific Quad Plus",  Real Clear Defense, July 21, 2020
From this essay:
"What can political psychology tell us about the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the prospect of conflict in the Asia-Pacific?"
@ https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/07/21/what_comes_after_covid-19_political_psychology_strategic_outcomes_and_options_for_the_asia-pacific_quad-plus_115482.html

Robert Kagan, Of Paradise And Power: America and Europe in the New World Order,  the entire book.
For the original article which Kagan later developed into a book, see: Robert Kagan, "Power & Weakness", Policy Review, June-July 2002 @ http://www.hoover.org/research/power-and-weakness.

For Robert Kagan's remarks in 2012 on his above noted 2002 article "Power & Weakness" and the larger theme of his work at the time, see:
Robert Kagan, "A Comment on Context", March 30, 2012 @ http://www.hoover.org/research/comment-context.

Michael J. Mazarr, "The Once and Future Order: What Comes After Hegemony", Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017, Vol. 96, No. 1.
@ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=120043012&site=ehost-live  Texas State University Library permalink.  A valid User Name and password are required for access.

The world has not been transformed, however. Nations remain as strong as ever, and so too the nationalist ambitions, the passions, and the competition among nations that have shaped history. The world is still “unipolar,” with the United States remaining the only superpower. But international competition among great powers has returned, with the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, Iran, and others vying for regional predominance. Struggles for honor and status and influence in the world have once again become key features of the international scene. Ideologically, it is a time not of convergence but of divergence. The competition between liberalism and absolutism has reemerged, with the nations of the world increasingly lining up, as in the past, along ideological lines. Finally, there is the fault line between modernity and tradition, the violent struggle of Islamic fundamentalists against the modern powers and the secular cultures that, in their view, have penetrated and polluted their Islamic world."

See also: Robert Kagan/The End Of The End Of History/The New Republic April 23, 2008, Vol. 238, No. 4, 834, pp. 40-47
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library A valid Texas State University User Name/ID and password are required.

Daniel W. Drezner, "Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy?", Foreign Affairs, Jul/Aug 2011, Vol. 90, Issue 4.
Joseph M. Parent, Paul K. MacDonald, "The Wisdom of Retrenchment", Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2011, Vol. 90, Issue 6.
The two articles above are Texas State University Library permalinks.  A valid Texas State User Name/ID and password are required for access.

Max Boot, "Slashing America's Defense: A Suicidal Trajectory", Commentary, January 2012; 133(6):14p.
Texas State University Library permalink.  A valid Texas State User Name and password are required for access. 

Alan Ryan, "What Happened to the American Empire?", The New York Review of Books, October 23, 2008, Vol. LV, No. 16. (Note: This review essay is also referenced below in Section IX American Empire? of this syllabus.)
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "American Foreign Policy" and look for the author and title of this article.  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
"...
Setting aside the problem of how peaceful the Pax Britannica truly was, and how far the empire’s subjects—or the majority of the British themselves—benefited from its existence, this hankering after a world made safe by a benign imperialism raises a very large question. Could the United States replicate the Victorian British Empire and establish a Pax Americana? ...  the possibility that some subtler version of a Pax Americana might emerge, that the United States can become the leading player in a pluralistic international system rather than a “hyperpower” or hegemon, whose persuasiveness extends only as far as its military reach.
... Reaching for Immanuel Kant’s wonderful and prescient sketch of a league of nations in his essay Perpetual Peace, Kagan tells us that the goal of a concert of nations devoted to peace, cooperation, and the spread of liberal, representative institutions is a noble ideal, and one that the United States should certainly promote. Indeed, as Zakaria and Chua agree, the promotion of this goal by peaceful, cooperative means is exactly where the United States’ comparative advantage should be. We simply should not kid ourselves that the process will, at best, be anything more than partial. As Kant himself observed,  from such crooked timber as humanity is made of, no straight thing was ever constructed.”

Tyler Cowen/Some Countries Remain Resistant to American Cultural Exports/NYT February 22, 2007

Samuel P. Huntington/The U.S. - Decline Or Renewal?/Foreign Affairs, Winter 1988-1989, Vol. 67, Issue 2, pp. 76-96.
Abstract:
Predominantly of a liberal-leftist hue, declinist writings propose that the U.S. is declining economically compared to other market economy countries, that the economic decline will affect other dimensions of national power, and that the decline is caused by too much spending for military purposes. In 1988 the U.S. reached the zenith of its fifth wave of declinism since the 1950s. The roots of this phenomenon lie in the political economy literature of the early 1980s that analyzed the fading American economic hegemony and attempted to identify the consequences of its disappearance. Declinist literature sets forth images of a nation winding down economically, living beyond its means, losing its competitive edge to more dynamic peoples, sagging under the burdens of empire, and suffering from a variety of intensifying social, economic and political ills. With some exceptions, declinist writings do not elaborate testable propositions involving independent and dependent variables.
Note: Older browsers may not work for access to periodicals at the Texas State University Library. New or recent browsers are best. On some browsers, it may be necessary or more convenient to save the article to desktop as pdf with the extension .pdf following the title of the article.  A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required.

Revisionist powers are on the move. ‎From eastern Ukraine and the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea, large rivals of the United States are modernizing their military forces, grabbing strategic real estate, and threatening vulnerable U.S. allies. Their goal is not just to assert hegemony over their neighborhoods but to rearrange the global security order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War.  (boldface added)

Robert D. Kaplan, "The Art of Avoiding War",  The Atlantic Magazine,  June 2015.
Why it’s so hard to defeat an enemy that won’t fight you, and what this means for U.S. strategy on everything from the Islamic State to China.
@ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/the-art-of-avoiding-war/3920

Audrey Kurth Cronin, "ISIS Is Not a Terrorist Group", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 94, Issue 2, March 2015, pp. 87-98.
Why Counter terrorism Won't Stop the Latest Jihadist Threat.  
@ http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=100961105&site=ehost-live 
Texas State University permalink.  A valid User Name and Password are required for access.

Charles Krauthammer/Decline Is a Choice: The New Liberalism and the end of American ascendancy/Weekly Standard October 19, 2009, Vol 015, Issue 05
This article is accessible @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
"The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable external forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline--or continued ascendancy--is in our hands."

See also: Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Moment Revisited", TheNational Interest, Winter 2002-2003.
"The future of the unipolar era hinges on whether America is governed by those who wish to retain, augment, and use unipolarity to advance not just American but global ends, or whether America is governed by those who wish to give it up either by allowing unipolarity to decay as they retreat to Fortress America, or by passing on the burden by gradually transferring power to multilateral institutions as heirs to American hegemony."

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Fareed Zakaria/Our Way:The Trouble With Being The World's Only Superpower/The New Yorker/October 14, 2002
Zakaria's essay Includes remarks on Robert Kagan/Power & Weakness/Policy Review/June-July 2002

William Safire/On Language-Realism: The Comeback word in foreign policy/NYT Sunday Magazine, December 24, 2006
"Realism, as word and policy, had its ups and down through the Clinton years, but in the first term of Bush II was battered by what the historian Robert Kagan calls “Americans’ belief in the possibility of global transformation — the ‘messianic’ impulse.” As public impatience grew with “the long, hard slog” in Iraq, however, the stock of Wilsonian idealism fell out of bed, and realism came back into oratorical vogue and, in last month’s elections, into shared political power.

Realism & "Democratic Realism"
Francis Fukuyama, "The Neoconservative Moment", The National Interest, Summer, 2004
Charles Krauthammer, "In Defense of Democratic Realism", The National Interest, Fall, 2004
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Return to beginning of syllabus.
Return to Overview of Course & Topics
 

III. Political Culture & The Ideological Setting of American Foreign Policy Formulation

1. American Political Culture
Stephen Peter Rosen, "Blood Brothers: The Dual Origins of American Bellicosity", The American Interest July-August 2009 @ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2009/07/01/blood-brothers/
"What seems obvious about ourselves can become deeply puzzling if we actually stop to think about it. It is obvious to most Americans that the United States is a peace-loving country. Americans are natural if mostly unschooled Tocquevillians, understanding the security afforded by the U.S. position in the Western Hemisphere and implicitly endorsing the interests of the citizens of a mass democracy in peace and prosperity. But what is obvious is wrong, hence the puzzle. Not only has the United States been frequently involved in war, most of these wars are of the kind that, in theory, it should have been least likely to fight: aggressive wars, civil wars and imperial wars."

Henry R. Nau, "Why We Fight Over Foreign Policy", Policy Review April-May 2007 @ http://www.hoover.org/research/why-we-fight-over-foreign-policy

a. Political Culture & Foreign Policy Behavior
Ian Buruma, "The End of the Anglo-American Order", NYT Sunday Magazine, November 29, 2016
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/magazine/the-end-of-the-anglo-american-order.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0
For decades, the United States and Britain’s vision of democracy and freedom defined the postwar world. What will happen in an age of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage?

An Example From America:
Paul T. McCartney/American Nationalism and US Foreign Policy from September 11 to the Iraq War/Political Science Quarterly, Fall 2004, Vol. 119, Issue 3. (pdf)
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b. The American Creed: Louis Hartz, S. Huntington, S. Hoffman, & Others
Samuel P. Huntington, "American Ideals versus American Institutions", Political Science Quarterly, Spring, 1982, Vol. 97, No. 1, pp. 1-37.
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George McKenna/The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism/Yale University Press (2007)
Click on Excerpts for the text of the first eight pages of the Introduction, "The Puritan Legacy". (pdf)
From Yale University Press:
"In this absorbing book, George McKenna ranges across the entire panorama of American history to track the development of American patriotism. That patriotism — shaped by Reformation Protestantism and imbued with the American Puritan belief in a providential “errand” — has evolved over 350 years and influenced American political culture in both positive and negative ways, McKenna shows. The germ of the patriotism, an activist theology that stressed collective rather than individual salvation, began in the late 1630s in New England and traveled across the continent, eventually becoming a national phenomenon. Today, American patriotism still reflects its origins in the seventeenth century.

By encouraging cohesion in a nation of diverse peoples and inspiring social reform, American patriotism has sometimes been a force for good. But the book also uncovers a darker side of the nation’s patriotism — a prejudice against the South in the nineteenth century, for example, and a tendency toward nativism and anti-Catholicism. Ironically, a great reversal has occurred, and today the most fervent believers in the Puritan narrative are the former “outsiders” — Catholics and Southerners. McKenna offers an interesting new perspective on patriotism’s role throughout American history, and he concludes with trenchant thoughts on its role in the post-9/11 era."

Robert Kagan/Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776/World Affairs Spring-2008 (pdf)
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Stanley Hoffman, "More Perfect Union: Nation & Nationalism In America", Harvard International Review, Winter 1997, Vol. 20, Issue 1.
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Jack Critin, Ernst B. Haas, Christopher Muste, "Is American Nationalism Changing? Implications for Foreign Policy", International Studies Quarterly (1994) 38, 1-31.
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Scott McConnell/Not So Huddled Masses: Muticulturalism and Foreign Policy/World Affairs Spring 2009
The modest contemporary literature on the connection between America’s immigration and foreign policies contains this assertion by Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, from the introduction to their 1974 volume Ethnicity: Theory and Experience: “The immigration process is the single most important determinant of American foreign policy . . . This process regulates the ethnic composition of the American electorate. Foreign policy responds to that ethnic composition. It responds to other things as well, but probably first of all to the primary fact of ethnicity.”

David Gelernter, "Americanism-and Its Enemies",  Commentary, January 2005.
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Colin Kidd, "My God was bigger than his", London Review Of Books, 4 November 2004, Vol. 26, No. 21.
A review essay of several recently published books on American political culture and nationalism with lengthy comments on Anatol Lieven/America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism.
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Paul Starobin, "State Of The Union: Misfit America", The Atlantic Monthly, January-February, 2006.
"Many of the values and cultural attributes that once made the United States unique have eroded; those that remain look increasingly ugly to some foreigners. Is our evolving national character a liability in our foreign relations?"
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Recommended Additional Articles On American Political Culture & The American Creed:
Anatol Lieven, "Taking Back America", London Review of Books, 2 December 2004, Vol. 26, No. 3.
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Jonathan Tepperman/The Anti-Anti-Americans/NYT/December 12, 2004

John Gerring, "The Perils of Particularism: Political History After Hartz",  Journal of Policy History 11.3 (1999) 313-322.
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Robert Bonner/Star-Spangled Sentiment/tcommon-place.org/vol-03/no-02/January 2003
"It is worth considering why Americans have invested their flags with such importance and how the United States has become more saturated with patriotic color than any other country in the world. The comparative intensity of American loyalties is less noteworthy than the country's fixation on a single symbol, which has come to be associated with a remarkably wide range of emotions."

J.Hoberman/It's Always 'High Noon' at the White House/NYT/April25.2004
Gary Cooper as the lone man of courage, dispensing violent justice despite the cowardice of the townspeople, in "High Noon," the film most often requested for screening by American presidents.
Kyle Smith/The Real Political Message of High Noon/pajamasmedia.com/June 10, 2008

Robert Kagan/Cowboy Nation/The New Republic/October 14, 2006-updated January 13, 2007
"These days, we are having a national debate over the direction of foreign policy. Beyond the obvious difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a broader sense that our nation has gone astray. We have become too militaristic, too idealistic, too arrogant; we have become an "empire." Much of the world views us as dangerous. In response, many call for the United States to return to its foreign policy traditions, as if that would provide the answer.   ...   What exactly are those traditions?"

Recommended:
Chris Orr, "Home Movies: Into The Sunset", The New Republic, May 25, 2004.
A review of the film "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1989), a film "about not only the end of the West but the end of the Western."
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Thomas S. Engeman/In Defense of Cowboy Culture/Claremont Review of Books/Summer 2003

Lucy Ash/Wild, wild east/newstatesman.com/29 November 2007
"Soviet-era cowboy films have inspired politicians, writers and cosmonauts alike."  Listen to a reading of this article at this location.

Max Boot, "In Search of Monsters?", Commentary, May 2004.
A review essay on John Lewis Gaddis' book Surprise, Security, & The American Experience (Harvard Univ. Press 2004)
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"... Gaddis’s major contribution is to treat the Bush Doctrine as a set of ideas worthy of scholarly examination rather than as a subject for ritualistic denunciation. He does not denigrate the President as a cowboy ..."  

Videos
High Noon/DVD/.amazon.com
HighNoonfilmsite.org/high.html

Shane

2. Democracy & "Illiberal Democracy"
Robert Kagan, "The Ungreat Washed: Why Democracy Must Remain America's Goal" (a review essay on Fareed Zakaria's The Future Of Freedom), The New Republic, July 3, 2003.  For direct access to this article, see: http://www.powells.com/review/2003_07_03.html.
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Also see:  Fareed Zakaria/The Rise Of Illiberal Democracy/Foreign Affairs/November 1997.
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Links For Reviews Of Zakaria's The Future Of Freedom & Links For Other Zakaria Writings/brothers.judd.com-Scroll to Links (Some links may be "down".)
John Lewis Gaddis/Ending Tyranny: The past and future of an idea/The American Interest, Vol. IV, No. 1, September-October 2008.
"The objective of ending tyranny, therefore, is as deeply rooted in American history as it is possible to imagine. President Bush, in a time of crisis for the future of democratization, followed Lincoln’s example in a much greater crisis for the future of the Union: He looked back for guidance to the Founders. That’s one good reason for thinking that the 'end of tyranny' idea may extend beyond the end of the Bush Administration, and into those that will follow."
Peter Baker/Pushing Democracy:Handling With Care (A Quieter Approach to Spreading Democracy Abroad)/NYT Week in Review Sunday, February 22, 2009, pp. 1&7.
"Four years after President George W. Bush declared it the mission of America to spread democracy with the goal of 'ending tyranny in our world,' his successor’s team has not picked up the mantle. Since taking office, neither Mr. Obama nor his advisers have made much mention of democracy-building as a goal. While not directly repudiating Mr. Bush’s grand, even grandiose vision, Mr. Obama appears poised to return to a more traditional American policy of dealing with the world as it is rather than as it might be.

The shift has been met with relief in Washington and much of the world, which never grew comfortable with Mr. Bush’s missionary rhetoric, seeing it as alternately cynical or naïve. But it also underlines a sharp debate in Democratic circles about the future of Mr. Bush’s vision. Idealists, for lack of a better word, agree that democracy-building should be a core American value but pursued with more modesty, less volume and better understanding of the societies in question. The realists, on the other hand, are skeptical of assumptions that what works in America should necessarily be exported elsewhere, or that it should eclipse other American interests."

a. The Case For Democracy
Recommended Book:
Natan Sharansky, The Case For Democracy, the entire book.
Gary Rosen, "Freedom From Fear", Newsweek, December 20 2004.
 "One of the more curious leaks from the White House right after the election was word that U.S. President George W. Bush had been reading a book. Notable in itself—the president isn't exactly a bookworm—the story was made still more interesting by the fact that the work in question was "The Case for Democracy" (PublicAffairs. 303 pages) by Natan Sharansky, who had even been summoned to the Oval Office for a chat. Supporters of Bush's policies in the Middle East took heart from this bit of news, while critics found yet another reason to grind their teeth. Sharansky's message, as he declares in his subtitle: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror. " (boldface added)

b. Promoting Democracy: Favorable Views
Gary J. Bass/Despot Watch/NYT Sunday Book Review October 12, 2008.  A review of James Traub/The Freedom Agenda (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux 2008).
This review includes a link to the first chapter of James Traub's book.

Michael Ignatieff/Democratic Providentialism/NYT Sunday Magazine/December 12 2004
"...it remains true that the promotion of democracy by the United States has proved to be a dependably good idea. America may be more unpopular than ever before, but its hegemony really has coincided with a democratic revolution around the world. For the first time in history, a majority of the world's peoples live in democracies. In a dangerous time, this is about the best news around, since democracies, by and large, do not fight one another, and they do not break up into civil war. As a result -- and contrary to the general view that the world is getting more violent -- ethnic and civil strife have actually been declining since the early 1990's, according to a study of violent conflicts by Ted Robert Gurr at the University of Maryland. Democratic transitions can be violent -- when democracy came to Yugoslavia, majority rule at first led to ethnic cleansing and massacre -- but once democracies settle in, once they develop independent courts and real checks and balances, they can begin to advance majority interests without sacrificing minority rights."

Janine Di Giovanni/Democratic Vistas/NYT Sunday Book Review January 20, 2008  A review of Larry Diamond/The Spirit Of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Henry Holt 2008).

c. Promoting Democracy: Doubts & Criticism
David Muir, "Against Democratic Defeatism: The Crisis of Liberalism", The American Interest, August 24, 2020
A review essay of David Stasavage's book The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today (Princeton University Press 2020)
@ https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/08/24/against-democratic-defeatism/
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Edward D. Mansfeld and Jack Snyder, "Prone to Violence", The National Interest Winter 2005-2006.
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"THE BUSH Administration has argued that promoting democracy in the Islamic world, rogue states and China will enhance America's security, because tyranny breeds violence and democracies co-exist peacefully. But recent experience in Iraq and elsewhere reveals that the early stages of transitions to electoral politics have often been rife with violence.

These episodes are not just a speed bump on the road to the democratic peace. Instead, they reflect a fundamental problem with the Bush Administration's strategy of forced-pace democratization in countries that lack the political institutions needed to manage political competition. Without a coherent state grounded in a consensus on which citizens will exercise self-determination, unfettered electoral politics often gives rise to nationalism and violence at home and abroad.

Absent these preconditions, democracy is deformed, and transitions toward democracy revert to autocracy or generate chaos. Pushing countries too soon into competitive electoral politics not only risks stoking war, sectarianism and terrorism, but it also makes the future consolidation of democracy more difficult."

Clay Shirky/The Political Power of Social Media/ Foreign Affairs, Jan - Feb 2011, Vol. 90, Issue 1, pp. 28-41.
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James Harkin/Cyber-Con/ London Review of Books, December  2, 2010, Vol. 32, No. 23, pp. 19-21.
A review essay on the following books: Death to the Dictator!: Witnessing Iran’s Election and the Crippling of the Islamic Republic by Afsaneh Moqadam, Bodley Head, 134 pp, May 2010; The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov, Allen Lane, 408 pp, January 2011; Blogistan: The Internet and Politics in Iran by Annabelle Sreberny and Gholam Khiabany, I.B. Tauris, 240 pp, September 2010.

Julian Sanchez/The Limits of Democratization: Will promoting democracy bolster national security?/reason.com/February 15 2005
This article contains a number of links to materials related to this topic.

Ian Buruma/An Islamic Democracy For Iraq?/NYT Sunday Magazine/December 05 2004
"Is Islamic democracy really possible?  Or is it something meaningless, like 'Jewish science', say, or contradictory, like 'people's democracy' under Communism?  This is the question that will determine the future of Iraq, ..."

Fareed Zakaria, "Islam, Democracy, & Constitutional Liberalism", Political Science Quarterly, Spring, 2004, Vol. 119.
“Although it is easy to impose elections on a country, it is more difficult to push constitutional liberalism on a society. The process of genuine liberalization and democratization, in which an election is only one step, is gradual and long term.
… the absence of free and fair elections should be viewed as one flaw, not the definition of tyranny. Elections are an important virtue of governance, but they are not the only virtue. It is more important that governments be judged by yardsticks related to constitutional liberalism. Economic, civil, and religious liberties are at the core of human autonomy and dignity. If a government with limited democracy steadily expands these freedoms, it should not be branded a dictatorship.”
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Gary J. Bass/Independence Gaze/NYT Sunday Magazine January 6, 2008
"Who deserves statehood?"

Gerard Alexander, "The Authoritarian Illusion", The National Interest, Fall, 2004, Issue 77.
"While it is true that several authoritarian societies have bred anti-Western extremism, many others have not. Sympathy for democracy does not constitute sufficient grounds for a sweeping policy of worldwide democratization.
...The United States does not require a fully democratic world in order to achieve security.  Indeed, the threats we currently face are generated by causes that transcend regime type."
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d. Free Markets & Democracy
Patricia Cohen/An Unexpected Odd Couple: Free Markets and Freedom/NYT June 14, 2007
"From China, where astounding economic growth persists despite Communist Party rule, to Russia, where President Vladimir V. Putin has squelched opposition, to Venezuela, where dissent is silenced, developments around the world have been tearing jawbreaker-size holes in what has been a remarkably powerful idea, not only in academic circles but also in both Republican and Democratic administrations — that capitalism and democracy are two sides of a coin."

Hilton L. Root/Capitalism and Democracy/The American Interest, Vol. 3, No. 3, January-February 2008
A review essay on Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government by Michael Mandelbaum (Public Affairs 2007) and Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life by Robert B. Reich (Knopf 2007).
"The expectation that market capitalism will create social foundations for the spread of Western-style democracy fails to anticipate the capture of weak democratic institutions in emerging states by wealthy minorities. Many of the business deals that benefit these wealthy minorities are fashioned from a combination of foreign policy and government power. They almost invariably involve what amounts to insider trading between government officials in the capital city, abetted by increasingly close connections and movements between domestic and transnational capital, often at the expense of the majority of people."
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Return to beginning of syllabus.
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IV. Interest Groups, Symbols & Communication, & Congress
Robert Bonner/Star-SpangledSentiment/tcommon-place.org/vol-03/no-02/January2003
"It is worth considering why Americans have invested their flags with such importance and how the United States has become more saturated with patriotic color than any other country in the world. The comparative intensity of American loyalties is less noteworthy than the country's fixation on a single symbol, which has come to be associated with a remarkably wide range of emotions."

"The central distinction between the public and elites is not isolationism versus internationalism, but nationalism versus cosmopolitanism.
 . . .  Growing differences between the leaders of major institutions and the public on domestic and foreign policy issues affecting national identity form a major cultural fault line cutting across class, denominational, racial, regional and ethnic distinctions. In a variety of ways, the American establishment, governmental and private, has become increasingly divorced from the American people. Politically, America remains a democracy because key public officials are selected through free and fair elections. In many respects, however, it has become an unrepresentative democracy because on crucial issues--especially those involving national identity--its leaders pass laws and implement policies contrary to the views of the American people. Concomitantly, the American people have become increasingly alienated from politics and government."

Abstract: The scholar Edward Corwin famously described the separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches set out in the U.S. Constitution as “an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.” With different parties controlling different branches of government, partisan politics tends to intensify this struggle, and the consequences can be ugly. These days, for example, hardly a week seems to go by without vicious sniping between the Obama administration and Republicans in Congress over one issue or another—from China to Russia, Iran to Syria, Cuba to Israel. And on most issues, process as well as discourse has broken down, with each side openly trying to thwart or bypass the other.

This is not the first time things have descended to such a level. What the current situation most resembles, in fact, is the early Cold War era, when Republicans in Congress made foreign policy central to their attacks on President Harry Truman. Then, as now, the gop condemned a Democratic president for being too soft, letting down key allies, and leaving the nation ill equipped to deal with its adversaries. And then, as now, congressional hard-liners sought greater control over foreign policy, proposing all manner of resolutions and hearings to rein in and embarrass the president.

Daniel Drezner/Mind the Gap/The National Interest/No. 87, Jan-Feb 2007
Why policymaking elites and foreigners alike distrust the judgment of Americans.
"When it comes to American foreign policy, U.S. policymakers and citizens from the rest of the world would not be expected to see eye to eye. They do, however, agree on one thing—they both mistrust how ordinary Americans think about international relations."

Walter Russell Mead/God's Country?: Evangelicals And Foreign Policy/Foreign Affairs September-October 2006, Vol. 85, No. 5.
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Matthew A. Baum, "Sex, Lies, and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public",  The American Political Science Review, March, 2002, Vol. 96, No. 1., pp. 91-109.
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See also: Matthew A. Baum/Soft News Goes to War : Public Opinion and American Foreign  Policy in the New Media Age (Princeton  2003)
The full text of Chapter I, "War and Entertainment" is accessible @ http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7655.html.  

Lawrence R. Jacobs, Benjamin I. Page, "Who Influences U.S. Foreign Policy?", American Political Science Review, February 2005, Vol. 99, No. 1.
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Walter Russell Mead/Jerusalem Syndrome/Decoding"The Israel Lobby"/Foreign Affairs November-December 2007
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This is a review essay on John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007).

Christopher Gelpi and John Mueller/The Cost of War: How Many Casualties Will Americans Tolerate? - An Exchange/Foreign Affairs January-February 2006, Vol. 85, No. 1.

VI. The Military

Fred Kaplan, "The End of the Age of Petraeus",  Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, Vol. 92, No. 1., pp. 75-90.
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Thanassis Cambanis, "How We Fight", NYT Sunday Book Review, January 27, 2013. a review essay on the book The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan (2013).
"... a small fraternity of independent thinkers nurtured a running critique of the way America conceived of, and actually fought, war. Though few in number, they were sprinkled throughout the Pentagon bureaucracy, the military ranks and the world of research institutions. This network grew into a powerful cabal, and Kaplan traces their work in meetings, military journals, commands and conflict zones over four decades. Their poster boy was David H. Petraeus, who distinguished himself by ambition, self-promotion and intellect. Eventually he almost single-handedly elevated counterinsurgency doctrine (known by its military acronym COIN) into a sort of gospel. For a brief period, COIN held sway in Washington."

Dexter Filkins/The Next Impasse, NYT Book Review Sunday, February 27, 2011 a review of: Bing West, Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan (Random House 2011)
"... idealistic theories about counterinsurgency have bogged us down for a decade. The official rhetoric denies reality. Instead of turning the population against the Taliban, our lavish aid has created a culture of entitlement and selfishness.  (From the publisher, boldface added)

From the review by Dexter Filkins:
"In the nine years since the first American troops landed in Afghanistan, a new kind of religion has sprung up, one that promises success for the Americans even as the war they have been fighting has veered dangerously close to defeat. Follow the religion’s tenets, give yourself over to it and the new faith will reward you with riches and fruits.

The new religion, of course, is counterinsurgency, or in the military’s jargon, COIN. The doctrine of counterinsurgency upends the military’s most basic notion of itself, as a group of warriors whose main task is to destroy its enemies. Under COIN, victory will be achieved first and foremost by protecting the local population and thereby rendering the insurgents irrelevant. Killing is a secondary pursuit. The main business of American soldiers is now building economies and political systems. ...
...
... the central premise of counterinsurgency doctrine holds that if the Americans sacrifice on behalf of the Afghan government, then the Afghan people will risk their lives for that same government in return. They will fight the Taliban, finger the informants hiding among them and transform themselves into authentic leaders who spurn death and temptation.

This isn’t happening. What we have created instead, West shows, is a vast culture of dependency ..."
(boldface added)

Robert D. Kaplan, "The Media & The Military",The Atlantic Monthly, November 2004.
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On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests. But those interests are not described to NBC’s viewers. He is held out as a dispassionate expert, not someone who helps companies win contracts related to the wars he discusses on television."

Max Boot/The Paradox Of Military Technology/NewAtlantis/Number 14, Fall 2006
As we learned on September 11, 2001, and continue learning on the battlefields of Iraq, the most advanced weapons are hardly a perfect shield against other kinds of destructive power. Technological supremacy separates America from the rest of the world, and yet modern technology leaves America (and American troops) vulnerable to vicious groups and gangs armed with AK47s, car bombs, or portable WMDs. Max Boot argues that even as modern technology has increased America’s conventional military supremacy, this military edge may be subverted by determined radicals armed with new technologies of death.                                  

Victor Davis Hanson/Military Technology & American Culture/The New Atlantis/Spring 03
Max Boot/The New American Way of War/Foreign Affairs July-August 2003, Vol. 82, No. 4
Max Boot/The Struggle to Transform the Military/Foreign Affairs March-April 2005, Vol. 84, No. 2
Peter W. Singer/Outsourcing War/Foreign Affairs March-April 2005, Vol. 84, No.2
The complete text of these articles in Foreign Affairs can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Thomas L. McNaugher/The Real Meaning of Military Transformation: Rethinking the Revolution/Foreign Affairs/January-February 2007
A review essay of Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy by Frederick W. Kagan, Encounter Books, 2006, and War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today by Max Boot, Gotham Books, 2006.
(Former Secretary of Defense) Rumsfeld's mishandling of the Iraqi occupation has given the "revolution in military affairs" a bad name. But as Max Boot and Frederick Kagan point out in two new books, transformation is vital to any military's success -- and more important now than ever.
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
See also: Robert D. Kaplan/What Rumsfeld Got Right/The Atlantic Monthly, July-August 2008
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Thom Shanker/In Air Force Changes, Signs of an Overhaul/NYT, June 10, 2008
 
Victor Davis Hanson/War-Making and the Machines of War/Commentary December 2006
"... radical transformations in military practice have marked Western history at least since Sparta and Athens squared off in the Peloponnesian war in the 5th century B.C.E."
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
 
Robert D. Kaplan/On Forgetting the Obvious/The American Interest Vol. 2, No. 6, July-August 2007  A society that believes in nothing will fight for nothing.

Frederick W. Kagan/The U. S. Military's Manpower Crisis/Foreign Affairs July-August 2006, Vol. 85, No. 4.
Note: This link provides access to a preview of this article.  The complete text of this article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Robert D. Kaplan, "Hunting the Taliban in Las Vegas", The Atlantic Monthly, September, 2006.
The entire text of this article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Keir Lieber & Daryl Press/The Rise of U. S. Nuclear Primacy/Foreign Affairs March-April 2006, Vol. 85, No. 2.
"Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China --
and the rest of the world -- will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come."

U.S. Nuclear Primacy: A Debate-Does Washington Really Have (or Want) Nuclear Primacy/Foreign Affairs September-October 2006, Vol. 85, No. 5.

William J. Broad, David E. Sanger & Thom Shanker/U.S. Selecting Hybrid Designs for Warheads/NYT January 7, 2007
Yagil Henkin, "Urban Warfare in Jenin: Lessons for the War on Terror" Azure Summer 2003, No. 15.
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to section on "American Foreign Policy" and look for the author and title of this article.  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Recommended:
Leslie Wayne/Free to a Good Country/NYT-Business Day, p. C1./October 31, 2006
"Across the world, the Pentagon has thousands of garages, hangars and sprawling lots to store all its jets, tanks and other weaponry. But, like most American households, it is cluttered with old, unused and unwanted things. And so the Pentagon runs a little-publicized giveaway and tag sale program to clean out its overstuffed attics and closets, bulging with the greatest weapons buildup since the Reagan era. The Pentagon also uses the Excess Defense Articles program, as it is called, to reward government friends and allies across the globe."

VII. Intelligence
Roberta Wohlstetter, "Cuba And Pearl Harbor: Hindsight And Foresight", Foreign Affairs, Vol. XLIII, July, 1965, pp. 691-707.
The full text html version of the Wohlstetter article, "Cuba And Pearl Harbor: Hindsight And Foresight", can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "American Foreign Policy" and look for the title "Wohlstetter: Cuba and Pearl Harbor".  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

The problem with the conspiracy theory, ...  is that it diverted attention from the real substantive problems, the major issue being the intelligence system was so bureaucratized."

James Johnson & Robert Zarate, "Slow Pearl Harbor", The Weekly Standard, December 19, 2005, Vol. 11, Issue 14.

Kenneth M.Pollack, Spies, "Lies, and Weapons: WhatWentWrong", The Atlantic Monthly, February 2004.
"How could we have been so far off in our estimates of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs? A leading Iraq expert and intelligence analyst in the Clinton Administration—whose book The Threatening Storm proved deeply influential in the run-up to the war—gives a detailed account of how and why we erred."

Andrew C. McCarthy, "The Intelligence Mess", Commentary, April 2004, Vol. 117, Issue 4.
All of the above articles can be accessed @  Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

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VIII. The Presidency

Biden

Becca Wasser, "The Unmet Promise Of The Global Posture Review", War On The Rocks, December 30, 2021
 (America's Global Posture in the Biden Administration)
@ https://warontherocks.com/2021/12/the-unmet-promise-of-the-global-posture-review/
A pdf version of this article is posted on CANVAS for Political Science 4321 American Foreign Policy.

Trump

Henry Nau, "What Trump Gets Right About U.S. Foreign Policy", The National Interest, April 30, 2020
@ https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-trump-gets-right-about-us-foreign-policy-149526?page=0%2C2

Josef Joffee, "The Rumpelstilskin Syndrome: Trump's Flailing Foreign Policy", The American Interest, June 6, 2020
@https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/06/04/the-rumpelstiltskin-syndrome/
 Limited access for this site.  A copy of this article will made accessible to students.

The Obama Strategy

Walter Russell Mead, "The Carter Syndrome", Foreign Policy January-February 2010 @ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/the_carter_syndrome?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full#sthash.mljyx0Zr.dpbs
"Barack Obama might yet revolutionize America's foreign policy. But if he can't reconcile his inner Thomas Jefferson with his inner Woodrow Wilson, the 44th president could end up like No. 39."
This article is accessible at the Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Permalink to the journal Foreign Policy-Scroll to the January/February 2010 issue: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&jid=FPO&site=ehost-live

Robert Kagan/Obama's Year One: Contra/World Affairs January-February/Winter 2010, Vol. 172 Issue 3
Robert Kagan sees Obama's policies as the first true break with America's Cold War strategies—and hardly thinks that's a good thing.
This article is accessible at the Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Permalink: http://libproxy.txstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=47198530&site=ehost-live (pdf) 

The Bush Doctrine & Strategy
John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security, & The American Experience, the entire book.

Meernik, J., and P. Waterman, "The Myth of the Diversionary Use of Force by American Presidents", Political Research Quarterly, 1996, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 573-590.
This article can be accessed @  Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Llyod E. Ambrosius, "Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush: Historical Comparisons of Ends and Means in Their Foreign Policies", Diplomatic History, Vol. 30, June 2006.
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library  A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

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B.A. in POLITICAL SCIENCE - LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1.    Students will demonstrate the ability to ask relevant questions pertaining to Political Science.
2.    Students will demonstrate the ability to recognize and evaluate assumptions and implications.
3.    Students will demonstrate the ability to examine and evaluate different sides of an issue.
4.    Students will demonstrate the ability to state and defend a thesis that is clear, direct, logical, and substantive in the area of Political Science.
5.    Students will demonstrate the ability to find and use a variety of appropriately cited sources.
6.    Students will demonstrate substantive knowledge of concepts and facts relevant to Political Science.

For students in Public Administration:
BPA – PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1.    Students will demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills.
2.    Students will demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively in writing.
3.    Students will demonstrate effective oral communication skills.
4.    Students will demonstrate a fundamental understanding of key public administration and management concepts related to their internship experience or applied research project.
5.    Students will demonstrate an understanding of ethical issues in public administration.

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