Preparing America’s Foreign Policy for the Twenty-first Century - Hardcover

Perkins, Edward J.; Boren, David L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806131233 ISBN 13: 9780806131238

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999

Synopsis

In 1997 and 1999 a very select group of analysts, practitioners, and scholars assembled at the University of Oklahoma to lay the groundwork for a new United States foreign policy that will promote our nation’s ideals while protecting its vital interests in the post-cold war era. This carefully edited collection includes major policy statements and round-table discussions by the best minds of our time as they devise criteria for the employment of military force, economic and trade priorities, a broad covert intelligence mission, and the protection of our planet’s ecology-all in the context of our pluralistic society and instantaneous global communication.

About this title

About the Author:

Edward J. Perkins, now retired as a U.S. Ambassador, is William J. Crowe Professor of Geopolitics and Executive Director of the International Programs Center at the University of Oklahoma.

A Rhodes Scholar, David Boren is President of the University of Oklahoma. A former governor of Oklahoma, he served as U.S. Senator from Oklahoma from 1979 to 1994 and chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1987 to 1993.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Boren (a former US senator and now president of the Univ. of Oklahoma) and Perkins (a former ambassador and director of the Univ. of Oklahoma's International Programs Center) have put together contributions from some of the heaviest hitters in the field of foreign policy. National security advisors (notably Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinzki), ambassadors, and the like abound. In all, they cover about every aspect of US foreign policy one can think of: relations with particular nations (especially China), military challenges, intelligence gathering, trade policy, environmental policy, the role of the media. While each piece stands alone, collectively the book reveals an overall elite consensus on what the US faces in the world and what it should do in the world. Relief that the Cold War is over is mixed with a muted nostalgia for the certainties of that era, when the US was the leader of the Free World, and that was that. Today, among emerging and competing power centers in a world of increasing complexity, Americas role is less clear. But it must avoid a retreat into isolationism when facing diplomatic, trade, and, somewhat more cautiously, military challenges. National bipartisan consensus should be reached on just what values and goals the US wishes to pursue, and domestic issues must not be allowed to interfere too deeply in the pursuit of this national interest. There is much to learn here, but after a while a certain sameness in tone and message emerges. Missing are stronger dissenting voices, contributions that dont share an essentially neoliberal consensus. When four former and current CIA directors dominate the discussion of intelligence, criticism is muted. When CEOs of some of America's top corporations discuss trade issues, without balancing contributions from, say, organized labor, a certain perspective is bound to dominate. Useful in finding out what foreign policy elites are thinking these days, but hardly a provocative mix of views and interests. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0806131233
• ISBN 13: 9780806131238
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448