Category: Commentary

A new project from American Diplomacy— • EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION• PROF. MICHAEL HUNT An Experiment in Oral History •McPHERSON Anti-Americanism at Ground Level • JACOBS Connecting Communities • ENDY A Most Unusual Type of Work • HUNT and MATTOX Further Notes … Read more

A new project from American Diplomacy— • EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION• PROF. MICHAEL HUNT An Experiment in Oral History •McPHERSON Anti-Americanism at Ground Level • JACOBS Connecting Communities • ENDY A Most Unusual Type of Work • HUNT and MATTOX Further Notes … Read more

Conference on Conflict in Africa On February 5-6, the Triangle Institute for Security Studies will hold a conference at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill on conflict in Africa. Our purpose is to gather a distinguished group of scholars from … Read more

by Hermann Frederick Eilts

Author Kenneth Stammerman, shown above with US troops at Dhahran,Saudi Arabia, retired in 1994 as a senior U.S. Foreign Service officer after a career spanning twenty-seven years, much of that time dealing with the Middle East. He took up his … Read more

G. Thomas Goodnight has taught in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University since 1975. In the research field of argumentation his interests include foreign policy issues, rhetoric, criticism, and social theory. He earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from … Read more

SOUTHEAST ASIA CRISIS: Background and Current Assessment By Ronald D. Palmer Southeast Asia encompasses ten nations, from Burma on the mainland in the west, to the 17,500-island nation of Indonesia to the southeast. Need more be said to stress the … Read more

American Diplomacy takes pleasure in making available to its readers an announcement released by the newly formed Centre for UN Management Accountability in Geneva, Switzerland. ~ Ed. CENTRE FOR UN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTABILTY (CUNMA) Makes Its Debut Geneva, 28 September. Edward … Read more

The author is Robert A. Lovett Professor of History at Yale University. His most recent book is We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford University Press, 1997). THE NEW COLD WAR HISTORY By John Lewis Gaddis Outside of a … Read more

David Work is executive director of the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy. POISON EXPORTS: The U.S. has cast a blind eye to poison drug tragedies By David R. Work “It’s an international scandal that, over fifty years later, dealers in … Read more

LIFE IN THE FOREIGN SERVICE Amb. Underhill retired from the U.S. Foreign Service after thirty years of service and now resides with his wife in Flat Rock, NC. His vignettes and commentaries have appeared frequently in this journal, most recently … Read more

by Peter Bridges

by Robert E. Mitchell The Issue Economics is a data-rich discipline with quantitative evidence that can check errant theorizing. Other social sciences are less fortunate, an especially challenging problem in analyzing changes in data-weak developing countries. Development assistance agencies with … Read more

Editor’s Note: Again American Diplomacy presents a segment of the proceedings of a conference held at Chapel Hill, NC, on January 10, 1998, sponsored by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (see the journal’s Spring 1998 issue for the initial … Read more

In an especially timely analysis, Joe Borich, one of the new breed of “old China hands” among U.S. Foreign Service officers, assesses China’s economic and political future. Even more to the point of this journal’s purpose, he sets forth in … Read more

Like Americans in general, our contributing authors differ sharply over Middle East issues and what the US role should be in the region. Here, we present two contrasting commentaries by respected authorities. Then we open the floor for debate in … Read more

The present proposal, advanced by the distinguished former director of the CIA, now more than ever deserves a careful reading by all who contemplate such unthinkable occurrences as nuclear war or even nuclear accident. We at American Diplomacy, disquieted by … Read more

Like Americans in general, our contributing authors differ sharply over Middle East issues and what the US role should be in the region. Here, we present two contrasting commentaries by respected authorities. Then we open the floor for debate in … Read more

Violence is akin to an addict’s quick fix — Where does the VIOLENCE come from? by Francis Underhill In my last column (American Diplomacy, Spring 1998), I explained why I think war is now obsolete for modern, industrialized states. I … Read more

  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASES OF WAR by Robert A. Hinde PART I ·  Introduction ·  Levels of ComplexityPART II ·  Individual Aggression ·  Aggression Between GroupsPART III ·  Institutionalized War ·  Conclusion REFERENCES ABOUT ROBERT A. HINDE   INTRODUCTION Psychology … Read more