Three suggestions, but I feel the latter two should be dealt with as a pair. All of these belong solidly in the Political Science/Foreign Affairs genre

Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy by David Milne

And I'll go with the WSJ review for the blurb:

“David Milne tells the story of the hundred or so years when a sequence of public intellectuals shaped the discourse and practice of U.S. foreign affairs with confidence and élan―and guided America to its place as the world’s No. 1 power . . . That Mr. Milne succeeds, and brilliantly, is due in no small part to the vivacity and jargon-free clarity of his prose. But he also has a clever, thoughtful thesis that, while developed with great brio, he is careful not to overstate.” ―Richard Aldous, The Wall Street Journal

https://www.amazon.com/Worldmaking-Art-Science-American-Diplomacy/dp/0374292566/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492799342&sr=8-1&keywords=worldmaking+the+art+and+science+of+american+diplomacy

Now the other two books I feel complement each other in their essential viewpoints. There's a friction between them (one written by a former Obama team member, the other by a Conservative heavyweight) but I feel they're best when read back to back.

The Long Game: How Obama defied Washington and redefined America's role in the World by Derek Chollet, and The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power & the Necessity of Military Force by Eliot Cohen.

The Economist review of The Long Game:

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21702733-new-book-argues-barack-obamas-grand-strategy-has-made-america-stronger-both-home

The NYT review of The Big Stick:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/books/review-the-big-stick-argues-for-a-robust-military-role-abroad.html

Both available from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Game-Washington-Redefined-America-s/dp/161039660X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492800752&sr=8-3&keywords=the+long+game

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Stick-Limits-Necessity-Military/dp/0465044727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492800771&sr=8-1&keywords=the+big+stick

Also, I'm tilted towards wanting Worldmaking more, just for the broader history look.

Here's info from his book:

​

The American Century began in 1941 and ended on January 20, 2017. While the United States remains a military giant and is still an economic powerhouse, it no longer dominates the world economy or geopolitics as it once did. The current turn toward nationalism and “America first” unilateralism in foreign policy will not make America great. Instead, it represents the abdication of our responsibilities in the face of severe environmental threats, political upheaval, mass migration, and other global challenges.

In this incisive and forceful book, Jeffrey D. Sachs provides the blueprint for a new foreign policy that embraces global cooperation, international law, and aspirations for worldwide prosperity―not nationalism and gauzy dreams of past glory. He argues that America’s approach to the world must shift from military might and wars of choice to a commitment to shared objectives of sustainable development. Our pursuit of primacy has embroiled us in unwise and unwinnable wars, and it is time to shift from making war to making peace and time to embrace the opportunities that international cooperation offers. A New Foreign Policy explores both the danger of the “America first” mindset and the possibilities for a new way forward, proposing timely and achievable plans to foster global economic growth, reconfigure the United Nations for the twenty-first century, and build a multipolar world that is prosperous, peaceful, fair, and resilient.

​

And book link at Amazon:

​

https://www.amazon.com/New-Foreign-Policy-American-Exceptionalism/dp/023118848X/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2XRWKZEP4WAGB&keywords=a+new+foreign+policy+beyond+american+exceptionalism&qid=1568904795&s=gateway&sprefix=a+new+for%2Caps%2C192&sr=8-2

​

Also about Jeffrey Sachs:

​

About Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development. He is widely recognized for bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges including debt crises, hyperinflations, the transition from central planning to market economies, the control of AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, the escape from extreme poverty, and the battle against human-induced climate change. He is Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, for Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and Antonio Guterres (2017-18).


Professor Sachs was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He was twice named among Time magazine's 100 most influential world leaders and has received 28 honorary degrees. The New York Times called Sachs "probably the most important economist in the world," and Time magazine called Sachs "the world's best-known economist." A survey by The Economist ranked Sachs as among the three most influential living economists.


Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia University, the university's highest academic rank. Sachs was Director of the Earth Institute from 2002 to 2016.


Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers, The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). Other books include To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace (2013), The Age of Sustainable Development (2015), Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair & Sustainable (2017), and most recently A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018).


Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

Some General Advice Here:

• Talk with your academic adviser or career adviser
  

• They will probably have information about student programs, such as Pickering/ Rangel, or they might be able to get you in touch with an Alum
  
  

• Get in touch with the Diplomat-in-Residence (DIR) in your area
  

• The DIR is always a great resource for an FS-related Qs, but they can also give really great insight on the career. See if they will plan a visit to your university
  
  

• Maintain relationships with faculty and directors
  

• Works wonders when you can get a letter of recommendation later on from a supervisor/ faculty that can strongly advocate for you
  
  

• Apply for a U.S. Department of State internship
  

• The deadlines for the summer are released very early (i.e. OCT/NOV 2016 for Summer 2017), but this is the best way to get experience and make connections for a future career in the FS
  
  

• Pick up a language (ESP a Critical Language)
  

• http://clscholarship.org/
  
  

• Read up on the career
  Career Diplomacy
  
  Inside a US Embassy
  
  *Look into Fellowships
  Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship
  
  Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Program
  
  Donald M. Payne International Development Fellowship
  
  Payne is for the FS with USAID
  
  I hope that helps!

📅 2018-04-23 ⏰ 20:11:03 (UTC)

>The man has lips. 👄

>The man has smize. 👀

>The man could be on Cycle 25. 📺

> 

>The man is @RonanFarrow and he’s both brilliant and beautiful. 💛

> 

>Get his book 📚: https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Diplomacy-American-Influence/dp/0393652106/

>#WarOnPeace

>— Tyra Banks ✅ (@tyrabanks)

>🔁️ 22 💟 268



📷 image



 

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-------------------------------------------------

The man has lips. 👄

The man has smize. 👀

The man could be on Cycle 25. 📺



The man is @RonanFarrow and he’s both brilliant and beautiful. 💛



Get his book 📚: https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Diplomacy-American-Influence/dp/0393652106/

#WarOnPeace

Attached photo | imgur Mirror

-------------------------------------------------

^^• Beep boop I'm a bot • Find out more about me at /r/tweettranscriberbot/ •

You can start by finding out who your representatives are here.

Learn about what each office does and what they are responsible for.

What issues are you most concerned with? Taxes? Healthcare? Unemployment? etc. How has your represented responded to these issues (i.e. voting record)?

If you're a student in university, it may be helpful to take an intro political science class. If not, hopefully, some redditors can suggest some good reading for you.

Some websites or news programs that I find helpful in getting some info are NPR, BBC Worldnews, Al-Jazeera and Euronews. I'm not a fan of local news programming. I read a lot online for the local stuff.

You may enjoy The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. They're comedy shows but they tend to show the absurdities of it all. You can a learn a lot too. Sometimes, I enjoy the roundtable discussions on Real Time with Bill Maher. I've gone as far as to purchase some books based on the discussions they've had.

I can't recommend books for "getting to know politics" per se, but a few in my collection include that I found informative:

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria


The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein


Ghost Wars by Steve Coll


The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse


Politics of the Veil by Joan Wallach Scott


Voices of Freedom vol. 1 & 2 by Eric Foner


Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken




The Parliament of Man by Paul Kennedy

I found them enlightening and some gave me a clearer look at the workings of government and politics in America. Some stuff you have to take with a grain of salt. Checking the references from anything you read is helpful imo. Hope this helps a little.

Slaughter wrote a very concise summary of the main IR theories.
Simply look-up and read the main articles referenced in that text/of the authors, and you'll have a solid entry into the theoretical backbone to IR.

With regard to textbooks: I read The Globalization of World Politics before I started my studies and felt it was quite accessible as it split up the main theories, mid-range theories, as well as different issue-areas into nice digestible chunks in a very accessible manner.

If you enjoyed the Slaughter summary and want to truly dig into the academic side of it all: Theories of International Relations was my favourite IR textbook. I got to admit that quite some of our class thought it was at parts too dense, but that is exactly what I was looking for. Given that you will be doing IR for at least three years, this book should come in useful more than just once.

For how politics works behind the scenes I'd recommend The Power Game: How Washington Works by Hedrick Smith. Smith is a Pulitzer-winning former reporter for the NYT. It covers absolutely everything from the actors involved, to what sorts of power games people and groups play in the US government, to campaigning and governing.

I'd also recommend Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy by Morton H. Halperin. It covers exactly how Foreign Policy gets decided on and the different actors involved. There are some fascinating examples in this book, like how the different armed services compete with each other and how they try to influence the president.

Both books are kinda dry, but I found them fascinating.

1. The Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel
   
   
2. Traditional and Critical Theory by Horkheimer
   
   
3. If you want something a bit more readable, International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics
   
   I think number 2 would be your best bet, and would also look most impressive in your paper ;)

> I hope his interest doesn't end at sexual impropriety.

Well he has a new book coming out called "War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence"... so I would say his interests are broad.

If you think it's about money and corporations, you are wrong. It's about keeping countries with a largesse debt to their populations stable, and it starts with Saudi Arabia. Until the last 10-15 years or so, nation states were far more cohesive. In arming Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, yes even Iraq et al, no power vacuum would erupt a destabilization of the oil supply or the canal. You remember that canal right? Pretty important. Egypt's military isn't a fantastic fighting force. They can't even hold the Sinai. In their own backyard. It's a conscript army with discipline and motivation problems that put it on par with some 3rd world nations. (I once saw a guard outside our hotel sitting on a folding chair with his loaded rifle, butt on the ground, forehead resting on the muzzle. I saw his officer in charge beat the shit out of him not for sitting in a suicide position but for sitting.) They can't afford the hardware, hence the free aid. The military aid relations that the US involves itself with isn't to make a penny for defense industry, it's to keep the oil flowing so the global economy doesn't outright collapse, a collapse that would certainly precipitate a global war. Not because gas would go up, but because the cost of everything that is shipped anywhere would go up or stop flowing. Things like all the food Egypt imports.

Now 20+ years ago, the US wanted Egypt secure after the routing the Israelis gave it. An unsecured Egypt is a power vacuum with a vital strategic asset, the canal. It's an insanely tempting target for Libya, Iraq, or Syria to pour into. Mostly Iraq. The genesis of the defense agreements goes back to the Camp David accords. From that point in History on, US policy has always been to seek an equilibrium of power in the region. With no one country getting uppity or feeling cornered, no one country would unilaterally attack another. With the exception of the always unpredictable Saddam Hussein, it worked. That's the theory anyway. I don't put much faith in statecraft outside of self-preservation.

It wasn't until the last 10-20 years that people started looking at countries differently. The globe is a shrinking place, with an even more interconnected economy and an even higher risk of a catastrophic cascade failure. Only now do people look at Egypt not as a country on a map, but as a collection of different peoples within a shared space and culture.

THAT'S why the US is giving Egypt aid. That's why they are getting Block 52 F-16's and Apaches. You are getting it for free because it's worth the billions (according to current policy) to keep the balance of power in play, even if Egypt can't afford the hardware to make it happen. People think it's about having a handle of power in the Egyptian government, or making a few million for Lockheed, but in the end it's just not that simple. In the end the US doesn't care who is in power in Egypt. That's for the Egyptian people to decide. So long as Egypt remains a nation state and that canal stays open, the region stays secure, and global war does not ensue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Partnership_Initiative#Foreign_policy

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=us_international_relations&us_international_relations_us_foreign_relations=us_international_relations_us_middle_east_relations

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/minister-egypt-imports-40-its-food

I won't link some stuff, but you can find the bulk of the current assessment of Egypt's military power online if that's what you are looking for.

Suggested Reading - all have good things to take from them, though none is authoritative or without contradiction/error:

American Orientalism

Syria, the United States, and the War on Terror in the Middle East

State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department

The last book is more of a recreational read and an insight into this end of things. Just as Egypt is more complicated than Islamists and Pyramids, the US is more complicated than government and people, left and right, etc. etc. The government itself is usually contradictory or even stalemated within it's own power structures, and power bases exist in spectra rather than categories.

Far more chaotic than corporations want money -> corporations make policy -> policy makes money. It's far worse than that, because that implies that someone knows what is going on and controls it all. I don't think either is true. It's way worse. Nobody knows what is going on, and nobody is in control. Not for lack of trying, but because now the web is too complex to untangle or manage, so now we play patchwork.

Oh and Russia is in on the game too, I would guess. All I have are books and the news to go on. Russia, China, the US, and the EU are all working to keep things running. There's a lot of political show for the news cameras but the policies and actualities show that the leaders of the world are trying really, really hard right now to keep the peace globally. Egypt features because of the canal. Congrats!

I have faith in the Egyptian people though. Not that Egypt will pull it off, but that Egypt can pull it off.

Edit: punctuation

Edit 2: Holy cow. Thank you! If I had known ahead of time, I would have put a lot more effort into citations and support, and paid closer attention to proofreading.

Not the same guy, alas, though I've heard good things about Jimmy Mauldin. Nicholas Kralev, who is the interviewer, is also a real mensch. He recently put out an excellent book called America's Other Army discussing the changing priorities of the foreign service. I highly recommend it,

China would have the highest score. The United States second. Great Britain third.

Just thinking historically; China has one of the greatest histories of any civilization. I'd say they're the great civilization in human history, but that's just my thinking.

---

It's known predicted, however, that by 2050 China will have overtaken the United States' economy.

Edit: Predicted, not known. Whatever. Here are some sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2012/nov/09/developing-economies-overtake-west-2050-oecd-forecasts

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-world-in-2050-when-the-5-largest-economies-are-the-brics-and-us/253160/

http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/12/worlds-top-economies-in-2050-will-be/

A couple of books to look at:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Out-Balance-International-Relations/dp/0691137846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396056968&sr=8-1&keywords=world+out+of+balance

http://www.amazon.com/No-Ones-World-Council-Relations/dp/0199325227/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396056994&sr=1-1&keywords=no+ones+world

Even this one, which argues that America can remain the global hegemon submits that the US will be unable to dominate economically or militarily by the middle of the century:

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Leviathan-Transformation-Princeton-International/dp/0691156174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396057062&sr=8-1&keywords=liberal+leviathan

The author's thesis is that the US can only continue to dominate diplomatically and culturally through spreading its ideology.

---

Sweden and the Netherlands might be high on the list due to long histories and high quality of life.

Edit: I'd also throw Arabia into the conversation. Recent history has not been kind, but for a very long time Arabia was the height of science and culture in the world. Arabia also controlled nearly all of the Mediterranean at one point (8th and 9th centuries).

I recommend The American Age. It is basically a US history textbook (1750 to the present) but it focuses on U.S. foreign policy. It may not be great if you already know the particular episodes of imperial tomfoolery you're interested in, but it would give a good overview of the entire field.

From the revisionist historiographical camp, the second volume of Walter LaFeber's "American Age" provides a good overview of American foreign policy from 1896 to the present. It's very readable, informative, and a great place to begin an investigation of 20th century foreign policy. Regardless of the book(s) you select, be sure to peruse the bibliographies for more materials as well.

Edit: I know you only asked for post-1945, but you can also purchase both volumes in one text here (1750 - present).

This book goes into it in great detail.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Decision-Point-Foreign-Policy/dp/0199743525

A highly relevant read:


>War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, By Ronan Farrow





https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Diplomacy-American-Influence/dp/0393652106

what would you like America to do?

​

This is like an incompetent heart surgeon "hey what do you want me to do" after they've botched the operation. Well with that attitude?

For a start, join the International Criminal Court and allow Cheney, Bush and co to stand trial for their warcrimes, including widespread use of torture and kidnapping EU citizens. That might make your actual allies take you more seriously, next time you see a wolf.

For another, end all financial and military support for Israel until such a time as they treat their captive Palestinian population like human beings and abide by International law and the Geneva conventions. That will get the moderate Arabs off your back, and who will in turn help tamp down the crazies.

Third, close a good few of the military bases around the world. It will net your taxpayers a lot of badly needed dollars and signal that America is not interested in being the world's dictator. That will get even more of the crazies off your back and force projection will hardly be affected, given the awesome current abilities of conventional forces.

Lastly, uh, The Taliban were not responsible for 911. You're confusing them with Al Qaeda. I put them in brackets, not because they were terrible for THE WORLD, but because they are awful to their own people, within Afghanistan... But it would have been a lot better for everyone involved to put diplomatic pressure on them via Pakistan and not bomb the bejesus out of wedding parties, school assemblies and untold numbers of other civilians creating more resistance than you stopped and looking worse than the Taliban in the process.

To sum up, basically stop siding with the wrong folks, and stop bombing people. Oh and beef up the diplomatic corps. It's been badly hollowed out. In fact just do that, and everything else will probably take care of itself.

> Is there some part of that article which outlines what you're trying to say here? I skimmed the whole thing and I didn't see any mention of this supposed problem.

I didn't read it. I'm very familiar with constructivism in IR, though, so I know that's the debate. Constructivism tries to say that things like neorealism or neoliberalism or even world systems should be more or less discounted in that they're "not real" and thus their precepts and concepts are not deserving of even lip service.

But then that leads one to the conclusion that constructivism isn't "real" either, so why should we follow that constructivist suggestion. I remember specifically this book spending far too much time with that discussion (great read if you really need to sleep), but several others have, too.

Not a single mention about any China questions...

Even after Ronan Farrow did thorough investigation

Reminds me of this book...Blood on the Doorstep: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Doorstep-Politics-Preventive-Action/dp/0870784749

http://www.amazon.com/Diplomacy-Touchstone-book-Henry-Kissinger/dp/0671510991/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382989085&sr=8-2&keywords=Diplomacy

http://www.amazon.com/Diplomacy-Theory-Practice-G-R-Berridge/dp/0230229603/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1382989085&sr=8-4&keywords=Diplomacy

>How is it a big tell? If you don't want to get into a whole discussion of the memo that's fine, but I'm curious as to why you see that as "blatant partisanship."

Oh please, if trump's campaign had ginned up a bunch of stuff on hillary clinton's various crimes and then gone to the FBI, they'd have been laughed out of the room. And if they weren't, the investigation would have been called a witch hunt and proof of trump's fascist tendencies.

>The WSJ has likewise found there was no evidence of conspiracy

I never claimed there was conspiracy. I claimed there was blatant partisanship and bais.

>reported two days ago, however, that "of five career ambassadors on the job when Tillerson arrived at the State Department a year ago Thursday, only one remains and that diplomat is currently on sabbatical. Of six undersecretary positions, only two, including Shannon's, are currently occupied. The rest are vacant.".

that is normal. FSOs serve two year terms, and ambassadorships are the pinnacle of careers. there are a somewhat elevated number of vacancies at secretarial positions, but (A) those positions are much weaker and less important in the state department than other US departments and (B) their elevated numbers are at least as much a result of the continuing breakdown of the appointments process than any decisions by the trump administration. This breakdown has been going on for decades, regardless of who is in power in congress or the white house.

>Taken at face value, those numbers show a loss of about a third of senior staff. I'd be very surprised if that loss hasn't had a material effect on the running of the state department.

as I said, those high positions are effectively career capstones, their vacancy does not indicate a lack of experience at the top of the department, just a lack of promotions.

>Seems like there is, but I understand if that's not a debate you're interested in having.

there isn't if you know how the state department actually runs and appoints people to high positions. This is a good reference work if you'd like to know more.

Yea, I agree with you. At the moment, I am going through with my lawyer what is ok to share about my personal experience, so forgive me if I can't at this moment. Here is enough I think to at least give you some pause, you can read it on your own time.

Drone Papers leaked to the Intercept.

Intelligence Squared Debate

Book: Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues

Nov. 19 Press Conference

Nov. 20, 2015 Democracy Now!

Killing hope is an absolute must read. You can't really have a grasp on how many countries the USA has ruined without reading this

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500405284&sr=8-1&keywords=killing+hope

America: The imperialism of ignorance.

This ones brilliant. It details a lot of the countries it invaded while also explaining the wider context.

https://www.amazon.com/America-Imperialism-Ignorance-Foreign-Policy/dp/1849541043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500405339&sr=8-1&keywords=imperialism+of+ignorance

This a actually review of the book: Not War Not Peace. It makes a few good points highlighting the risks of Surgical Strikes as well as the Cold Start Doctrine and the inherent risks in those approaches. But it seems to suggest that talking with Pakistan is actually going to solve the issue, that they can be induced with talks of profit and trade and prosperity. I think that is ridiculous claim, which has been proven to be useless historically. Wonder what others think?