Category: Commentary

by Walter A. McDougall American Diplomacy takes pleasure in offering to its readership the text of Professor McDougall’s thoughtful keynote address at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s annual meeting held in Philadelphia in November 1999. Several people, including our host … Read more

By Curtis F. Jones Drawing upon decades of experience in the Middle East, the author offers a historical look back, followed by his personal analysis of the current state of affairs in that volatile region. Mr. Jones, a retired senior … Read more

By Edward D. Marks In 1684 the Treaty of Westphalia brought to a close eighty years of religious wars in Europe with new rules of international law establishing the modern state system. The foundation of this system is the sovereign … Read more

By Matthew Jacobs Proud Servant: The Memoirs of a Career Ambassador By Ellis O. Briggs (Kent,OH: Kent State University Press, 1998. xvi, 430 pp., 30 pp. illus.$45.00) Without question, Ellis Ormsbee Briggs (1899-1976) had one of the most impressive careers … Read more

   By Keith Moon On the last day of the twentieth century, the century that saw the rise and fall of world communism as represented by the Soviet Union, Russian President Boris Yeltsin abruptly resigned his office. And so departed from … Read more

Por Dr. Prof. Eugenio Roberto Caligiuri Ammendolia1 y Alejandro A. Figueroa Véjar2 Europe’s progress toward a common market and steps toward political union have led to the question of whether—and how quickly—other regional groups might achieve these goals. South America’s … Read more

By Francis P. Sempa Halford Mackinder’s ideas, which began to appear in print almost a century ago, have assumed classic status in the world of political geography. Policy makers and scholars remember them now mainly for the seemingly simple formula … Read more

By Gene Schmiel James G. Blaine: Architect of Empire By Edward P. Crapol (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 2000. Pp. xx, 157. $50 cloth; $17.95 paper.) When the most respected biography of James G. Blaine was written in 1935, the author … Read more

Medical Encounters in Cuba, Late 1990’s AD Follow-up An American Diplomacy interview with author Patricia Linderman In a separate article in this issue, the author describes an aspect of diplomatic life in Castro’s Cuba during recent years. Here Mrs. Linderman … Read more

“Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, said those who like sausage and the law should never watch them being made. We might add the conduct of foreign policy in a decentralized democracy to that list.”  Alliance in Doubt American Reaction … Read more

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 20:22:27 EDT Subject: China Update TO: Washington State China Relations Council Members & Friends FROM: Joseph J. Borich, Executive Director   The following two e-mail messages, sent by former U.S. Foreign Service officer and China … Read more

by Carl Fritz Our vision of China today is that of an emerging gigantic economic and military power, one with a huge trade surplus with the United States and a reputation sullied by violations of human rights, spying to obtain … Read more

By Ralph D. Sawyer The author presented an earlier version of this paper at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, on March 22, 1996, as part of the “Study of War Project” sponsored by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. He … Read more

“Waging the peace in Kosovo may prove to be much more difficult than waging the war.” By Barry Ryland-Holmes Among issues raised by NATO’s intervention in Kosovo is the complex question of self-determination. Mr. Ryland-Holmes, an attorney, analyzes state sovereignty … Read more

By Minxin Pei The author is a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for World Peace. In assessing the likelihood of instability in China, he focuses for short-term purposes more on economic than political factors.His conclusions point up the need … Read more

Somalia as a case study for a ‘commerce-based’ alternative Revising the U.N. Trusteeship System — Will It Work? By Harry A. Inman and Walter Gary Sharp, Sr. The authors, both attorneys with international experience, bring to bear on their analysis … Read more

– E X T R A C T – by David G. Brown Through the courtesy of the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Amb. Ron Palmer, we present in this issue excerpts from the … Read more

“It would be a mistake to let China’s saber-rattling sway American policy. ” by Thomas D. Grant The author, an international lawyer based in Massachusetts and a Ph.D. candidate at Cambridge University, has a scholarly interest in the international recognition … Read more

By J. R. Bullington Ambassador Bullington, a thirty-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service and frequent contributor to this journal, assesses the results of recent U.S. intervention, through NATO, in the Balkans. He believes that, given the failure of the … Read more

GLOBALISM vs.ECONOMIC NATIONALISM THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN CASE By Ronald D. Palmer Ambassador Ronald D. Palmer contributes the following political and economic assessment of Southeast Asia, which may be read usefully in conjunction with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s special report, also … Read more