ABSTRACT

This is a textbook with a difference: one written by scholars who are actively engaged in original research on the topics covered in this volume, who have their own particular standpoints that they are willing openly to debate, and who frequently disagree. And that is surely what American foreign policy has recently been, and is, (and if the authors are to be believed, will continue to be) characterised by: vigorous, contentious – if not violent – debate the world over. Indeed, the scholars gathered here are symptomatic of the worldwide interest in the character and deployment of American power and of its foreign and national security policy responses. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, on 11 September, 2001, and the subsequent ‘global war on terror’, have generated iconic images that will long remain imprinted on the world’s consciousness: smoking twin towers, Osama bin Laden, prisoners in orange jumpsuits at Guantánamo Bay detention centres, and the deadly promise of ‘shock and awe’. The post-9/11 period has also brought forth further terrorist attacks – in London, Madrid, across India, Bali, etc. – as well as the Anglo-American wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, with no end in sight. Inside the United States, the Bush administration’s policies have led to political division and rancorous debate: Bush, at below 30 per cent, had the lowest approval rating of any president, including Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal. Civil liberties have been eroded as the ‘Homeland defense’ bureaucracy has grown in size and scope. The election of Senator Barack Obama to the US presidency was, arguably, at least in part, due to his early ‘opposition’ to the Iraq War – in the autumn of 2002. In (most of) the rest of the world, ‘anti-Americanism’ has risen to levels that disturb even the most complacent of Americans and their allies, leading to renewed calls for more effective use of America’s ‘soft power’ to limit the damage to America’s global moral authority and image (Chapter 4 on this below makes the point most clearly). American power, it may without exaggeration, be said, is on trial. The rest of the world has already made its desires known: they want change, andwith Barack Obama in the White House since January 2009, they hope and pray that such an outcome will transpire. The jury, however, was entirely American and split down the middle in an historic election, the racial contours of which are explored below. The presidency of George W. Bush is not the first to have generated such intense

interest, of course, but it certainly matches the post-Vietnam era for the quantity of analysis, debate and controversy that it has ignited. It is fitting that attempts be made to assess the character and deployment of US power and foreign and national security policy across a wide range of areas, and to consider the extent to which the Bush administration has inaugurated a ‘revolution’ in foreign affairs likely to outlive his administration. Chapters on the war on terror and America’s grand strategy, attitudes

towards its transatlantic allies and international organisations, and towards the Middle East, provide a solid basis for considering where US policies came from and where they may be headed. Consideration is also given to whether America is an empire or, once again, is even in decline. This book provides scholars and students with a systematic engagement with the whole host of ways in which US foreign and national security policy has changed and may be thought about. The rise of the non-state actor in international politics has been noted by numerous

observers and policy-makers. Consequently, there are chapters on the roles of non-state actors in American foreign affairs, including political parties, racial minorities, think tanks, neoconservative intellectuals and the Christian Right. Given its democratic character, the role of public opinion is explored for its stability and structure, as a guide to what kind of foreign policies – towards Iran, North Korea, and so on – that it might sustain. It is also clear, however, that the analysis of American foreign policy depends on our

concepts and theories: the very intellectual apparatus with which we try to make sense of the world. It is an assumption of the editors of this volume that our ideas, concepts, prejudices and values matter when we think about and make sense of the world. Facts do not speak for themselves; common sense is normally made up of hardened residues of thought long past their usefulness. Consequently, the book devotes several chapters at the very beginning to the task of teasing out the principal features and critical insights provided by key schools of thought: there are offerings on realism, constructivism, liberalism, neo-conservatism and, most unusually, Marxism. Each author makes a trenchant – even opinionated – case for the efficacy of their theoretical approach, writing in a manner unusual for a textbook. But they have earned, through years of engagement with their chosen field and ideas, the right to make the claims they do. They have made the most persuasive case they can for their viewpoint: it is up to readers, in the end, to decide for themselves what to make of the ideas presented. New Directions in US Foreign Policy therefore performs a number of functions that

serve the common interests of academics and advanced students. The book is designed to consider new developments in several senses:

new ways of conceptualising US foreign policy, or aspects of US foreign policy, that examine how international relations and political science theory can illuminate our understandings of those policies;

new empirical areas of scholarly research and study of US foreign policy; new policy directions in regard to actual US foreign policy.