The ultimate defeat of a nation begins at home. When the ethical values of the people at the personal, family and social levels degenerate, the spiritual, intellectual and physical health of the nation also gets weakened. Mankind has only two kinds of core values: some religions command to love even the enemies while others command to kill the enemies. USA is not just the most powerful nation in the world. It is also the most coveted society in the world, because of its highest quality value system due to Biblical Christian faith. Ultimately there is only one God, one mankind, one problem, one solution, and hence there can have only one value system for mankind. But the shadow of a great global tension and suicidal mutual conflict, caused by the many contradictory god-views, religions, worldviews, truth claims, ideologies and value systems, is right now visible. Defending the high ideal of loving the enemies could be easy. But the ultimate challenge of foreign policy is about practicing the high ideals of the nation even in the process of defending those ideals, in a crooked and inimical world. The biggest dilemma in US foreign policy is whether it can practice its value of even loving its enemies, and still exist as a nation to defend it values? Practicing the values and defending the values should go hand in hand. A very judicial combination of practicing the values and defending those who hold the value system, are essential due to individual eternal consequences. To defend the values of freedom, unfortunately the USA had to succumb to death and murder, during the cold war, in effect failing to practice its values in the process of defending it. Hence the struggle confronting individuals from the family level to the international levels is the struggle of practicing the high values at the real life situations. The shocking truth is that victorious Christian life always demands self sacrifice. But there are false gods, religions and value systems whose followers don’t have to follow any of these values, and hence have an easy life. It is high time to realize that anything that comes in the name of any god, religion or worldview is not safe. The core values function as the touchstone for testing the quality of any god, religion, worldview or truth claim. Mankind cannot peacefully survive, if communities of people don’t have good values and morality to practice. Faulty definitions of freedom and secularism have led to the growth of evil to such levels where now people will have to resort to killing for survival. Hence the state governments must implement the right view of secularism. It will be suicidal to any society, to allow anyone to promote evil values, in the name of religious freedom and secularism. It should become the primary responsibility of the supreme legal system in any nation to examine the basic documents of the religions, identify and declare which ones contain unhealthy values affecting the character of the people. The State should not allow any group to promote and practice unhealthy values in the label of any religion. The values of the Christian faith are undeniable, that no legal system can deny these values, and the evils which Christian faith prohibits, no legal system can approve. It stands for loving enemy, and telling the truth. Those who reject Christian faith can never stand on a more logical faith. It is written in the Bible that Jesus died on the cross for mankind, and rose from the dead on the third day. Those who have the wisdom to believe these plain facts, will be able to believe that Jesus is in fact the true God in human form, and will worship Him.

This book explores the recent changes in U.S. foreign policy, examines the roles that the six primary actors (the President, the Congress, the bureaucracy, non-governmental organizations, the media and the public) play in policy decisions, and assesses the potential for improvement within this system.

Now available in an updated 2016 edition, Climate Change and American Foreign Policy examines the actors, institutions, and ideas shaping U.S. policy on climate change (global warming). The book begins by introducing the issue of climate change in the context of U.S. foreign policy, before critically evaluating U.S. policies and actions. It then analyses the domestic and international politics of U.S. climate change policy, covering such issues as science, the presidency and Congress, nongovermental organizations, diplomacy and the international negotiations leading to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The book concludes by looking at the role of international norms in shaping U.S. climate change policy.

This book studies a significant event in US relations with Latin America, shedding light on the role of dependent states and their foreign policy agency in the process by which local concerns become intertwined with the dominant state’s foreign policy. Plan Colombia was a large-scale foreign aid programme through which the US intervened in the internal affairs of Colombia, by invitation. It proved to be one of the major successes of US foreign policy, and has been credited with stemming a potentially catastrophic security failure of the Colombian state. This book discusses the strategies and practices deployed by the Colombian government to influence US foreign policy decision making at the bureaucratic, legislative and executive levels, and is a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of small power agency. Giving a clearer insight into the decision making processes in both the US and Colombia, this book founds its argument on solid empirical analysis assembled from interviews of the major players in the events including: Andres Pastrana, President of Colombia; Thomas Pickering, US State Department; Arturo Valenzuela, Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the NSA; General Barry McCaffrey, the US ‘Drug Czar’; and Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Approaching the events in question from a bottom-up theoretical perspective that puts the emphasis on the facts of the case, this book will be of great interest to academics, students and policy makers in the field of foreign policy analysis, US foreign policy studies, and Latin American studies.

The authors explore international reactions to U.S. conduct in world affairs.

How institutions shape the American presidency This incisive undergraduate textbook emphasizes the institutional sources of presidential power and executive governance, enabling students to think more clearly and systematically about the American presidency at a time when media coverage of the White House is awash in anecdotes and personalities. William Howell offers unparalleled perspective on the world’s most powerful office, from its original design in the Constitution to its historical growth over time; its elections and transitions to governance; its interactions with Congress, the courts, and the federal bureaucracy; and its persistent efforts to shape public policy. Comprehensive in scope and rooted in the latest scholarship, The American Presidency is the perfect guide for studying the presidency at a time of acute partisan polarization and popular anxiety about the health and well-being of the republic. Focuses on the institutional structures that presidents must navigate, the incentives and opportunities that drive them, and the constraints they routinely confront Shows how legislators, judges, bureaucrats, the media, and the broader public shape the contours and limits of presidential power Encourages students to view the institutional presidency as not just an object of study but a way of thinking about executive politics Highlights the lasting effects of important historical moments on the institutional presidency Enables students to grapple with enduring themes of power, rules, norms, and organization that undergird democracy

This book collects Thomas Risse's most important articles together in a single volume. Covering a wide range of issues – the end of the Cold War, transatlantic relations, the "democratic peace," human rights, governance in areas of limited statehood, Europeanization, European identity and public spheres, most recently comparative regionalism – it is testament to the breadth and excellence of this highly respected International Relations scholar's work. The collection is organized thematically – domestic politics and international relations, international sources of domestic change, and the diffusion of ideas and institutions – and a brand new introductory essay provides additional coherence. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of International Relations, European Politics, and Comparative Politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Critical and connected: brings together diverse political perspectives from the world's leading experts, giving students the tools to critically evaluate America's ever-changing role in international politics and to connect theory to real events.

•Entries written by renowned diplomatic and military historians as well as key scholars in international relations •Provides assessments and analyses of key episodes, issues and actors in the military and diplomatic history of the United States •Based on the award-winning Oxford Companion to United States History •Comprehensive collection of entries that span the founding of the U.S. to its present state •Offers a wide range of perspectives to provide an encompassing context of the United States' military and diplomatic legacies •Expansive bibliographies and suggested readings for each article to aid in research The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, a two-volume set, will offer both assessment and analysis of the key episodes, issues and actors in the military and diplomatic history of the United States. At a time of war, in which ongoing efforts to recalibrate American diplomacy are as imperative as they are perilous, the Oxford Encyclopedia will present itself as the first recourse for scholars wishing to deepen their understanding of the crucial features of the historical and contemporary foreign policy landscape and its perennially martial components. Entries will be written by the top diplomatic and military historians and key scholars of international relations from within the American academy, supplemented, as is appropriate for an encyclopedia of diplomacy, with entries from foreign-based academics, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The crucial importance of the subject is reflected in the popularity of university courses dedicated to diplomatic and military history and the enduring appeal of international relations (IR) as a political science discipline drawing on both. The Oxford Encyclopedia will be a basic reference tool across both disciplines - a potentially very significant market. Readership: University-level undergraduate and graduate students in History

Addressing issues of continuing if not heightened relevance to contemporary debate, America at the Brink of Empire explores the foreign policy leadership of Dean Rusk and Henry Kissinger regarding the extent of the United States' mission to insure a stable world order. Lawrence W. Serewicz argues that in the Vietnam conflict the United States experienced an identity crisis-a near Machiavellian moment, to use the concept of J. G. A. Pocock-whereby America came close to assuming an imperial role, stretching the country to the limits of its identity as a republic. Serewicz offers a revealing look at the parts played by Rusk and Kissinger-and President Lyndon Johnson-in bringing the nation to the brink of empire in the years 1963-75.As a true believer in liberal internationalism, Rusk set the stage by defining the war in Vietnam as a threat to the world order based on the United Nations security system created after World War II. Johnson kept an open-ended commitment in Vietnam without a clear goal in sight even as he pursued the ambitious domestic reforms of the Great Society. In refusing to choose between either an imperial mission or a true republican position for the nation, he brought it perilously close to becoming an empire, ultimately failing to achieve his goals either at home or abroad. Kissinger corrected for Johnson's overreach, implementing a pragmatic realism based upon the principle that the United States is an ordinary country-a republic, not an empire-within the international community and therefore must balance its commitments with its resources.In concluding, Serewicz reflects on the continuing relevance of the Machiavellian moment for the United States by observing the differences and similarities between the presidencies of Johnson and George W. Bush. America at the Brink of Empire illuminates the far-reaching consequences of Rusk's and Kissinger's widely divergent foreign policy philosophies and outlines the tension that a statesman must reconcile between a republican government and the maintenance of a stable world order.