American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays

G. John Ikenberry does students and teachers of American foreign policy an extraordinary service by collecting some of the best theoretical essays of the past thirty years into a single volume. From Graham Allison's models of the Cuban Missile Crisis to Ikenberry's "myth of post-Cold war chaos," readers are exposed to a virtual "who's who" in late 20th century foreign policy theory.The collection's eight sections offer three or four essays each. The fundamental problem of explanation is covered by Ole Holsti, with charts (invaluable for the introductory student) depicting three models of the international system and three models of foreign policy decision making. Kenneth Waltz, with his anarchic order and balance of powers, anchors the section on international sources of foreign policy. Other topics include capitalism and class, values and institutions, public opinion, bureaucratic politics, perceptions and psychology, and the post-Cold War era. Many essays provide interesting insights into current foreign policy headlines. Michael Roskin's 1974 article on shifting generational paradigms may offer lessons about views on Kosovo from Madeleine Albright's generation (Munich) and Bill Clinton's (Vietnam). Articles on Vietnam in three different sections remind young readers that despite video-game-style presentations from the Pentagon, not all wars are the Persian Gulf War.If there is any room for criticism, it may be about economics. The latest period of analysis is 1948-1973. Articles on the transformation of the global trading system and on the telecommunications revolution would be interesting additions. Overall, the author succeeds in presenting a variety of theoretical perspectives representative of the questions and proposed answers in foreign policy. In my course, in which many of these essays were required reading, student feedback was overwhelmingly positive: the book provided a solid theoretical base for foreign policy analysis. (May 1999)