Overview
"A sober and wide-ranging analytical essay placing American foreign policy and the evolution of the international system in a broad historical context. . . . The author gives thoughtful consideration to the ways in which the United States should use "traditional diplomacy, economic persuasion, military means and political example to lead in ordering a more stable world."
-Foreign Affairs
"Informed, astute, compact and coherent. A splendid piece of historical analysis."
-Samuel H. Beer, Harvard University
The end of the Cold War provides challenges and opportunities for American foreign policy leadership that arguably have been equalled in modern times only by the period in which the Cold War began. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the partners of the Atlantic alliance have achieved a profound diplomatic and political victory of historic importance. The international system which has resulted, however, arguably has more uncertainity and unpredictability that the familiar bipolar competition between the two superpowers and their allies.