Spencer Bakich’s The Gulf War: George H.W. Bush and American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era shows that President George H.W. Bush’s handling of Operation Desert Storm should be understood and evaluated in the context of his broader grand strategy. Bakich explains that Bush viewed the Gulf War as crucial for establishing a “New…
Tag: US foreign policy
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 130: Paranzino on Houghton Driggs, Covert City
When thinking about the Cold War, the cities that come to mind are places like Washington, Moscow, and Berlin. In Latin America, perhaps the more obvious cities are Havana or Managua, the capitals of two countries that witnessed revolutions that brought Marxist-Leninist governments to power, or maybe Santiago de Chile, where a violent coup toppled…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 129: Fitzgerald on Bessner and Brenes, eds., Rethinking US World Power
On the eve of the 2024 US presidential election, France’s Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad voiced his frustrations about European dependence on the United States during an interview with the French news channel LCI, warning that “we cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of Wisconsin voters every four years.”[1] Haddad’s cri…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Article Review 174: Rynning on Maitra, “The Best NATO Is a Dormant NATO”
Sumantra Maitra’s argument that the best NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is a dormant one traveled far before reaching the pages of Foreign Affairs. In early 2023, Maitra’s policy brief on dormant NATO gained notoriety first as an increasing number of President Donald Trump administration veterans and Trump Republicans warmed to Maitra’s thinking, then as…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 128 on Trenta, The President’s Kill List
Luca Trenta’s The President’s Kill List: Assassinations and US Foreign Policy Since 1945 is an evidence-based study that sheds light on “continuity” in the use of assassinations as an instrument of American foreign policy from 1945 to the current times. The book breaks free from the earlier perception that assassinations in US foreign policy existed…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 122: Athar on Hadley, et al., eds., Hand-Off
As the United States has gone through another presidential transition in the aftermath of the 2024 election, Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama is a timely book that details the transition from the administration of President George W. Bush to that of President Barack Obama. It offers insight into the…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 118: Athar on Kuzmarov, Warmonger
As conflict continues to escalate in the Middle East and Africa, with the United States playing a key role especially in the Middle East, scholars and the public often wonder what led to this situation. In a number of recently published works on the trajectory of United States foreign policy over several decades, historians of…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-26 on Wilford, The CIA
In his latest book, The CIA: An Imperial History, Hugh Wilford recognizes the impossibility of being comprehensive. Because the life-span of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was founded in 1947 and is still functioning today, coincides with the period of America’s status as a great power, it would be an unachievable task to cram…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 117: Miller on Fink, Undoing the Liberal World Order
What went wrong? The liberal international order had such promise. It began with the noblest of intentions, to establish a new era of peace on the bedrock of human dignity. After the wreckage of the World Wars there seemed little alternative. Spheres of influence, power balancing, empire: all had had their day and been found…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Roundtable 16-23 on Rakove, Days of Opportunity
For students of contemporary history, Afghanistan has become virtually synonymous with upheaval, instability, bloodshed, warfare—and tragedy. Over the past nearly half-century, the embattled country and its long-suffering citizens have experienced invasions, occupations, armed resistance movements, impoverishment, severe economic dislocation, the displacement of millions of refugees, and repressive misrule by religious fanatics. Scholars, journalists, and policy…