After the Cold War : American foreign policy, Europe, and Asia

The end of the Cold War provides challenges and opportunities for American foreign policy leadership that arguably have been equalled in modern times only by the period in which the Cold War began. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the partners of the Atlantic alliance have achieved a profound diplomatic and political victory of historic importance. The international system which has resulted, however, arguably has more uncertainty and unpredictability than the familiar bipolar competition between the two superpowers and their allies. The book describes these changes and provides suggestions for policy analysis and definition in the future. There is extensive discussion of developments during the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, with particular reference to the two regions of Europe and Asia. There is a three-fold division between intellectual, structural and sociological dimensions of foreign policy, focusing respectively on the ideas and themes, alliance and other regional and international organizations - including the private corporation, and human dimensions which both define and influence evolving international relations. A principal argument is that the extraordinary expansion of communication, travel and economic activity and opportunity among industrialized nations has greatly enhanced American political and social influence. There is considerable comparative discussion of Europe and Asia, concluding that Britain and South Korea provide instructive examples for the understanding and conduct of foreign policy. ## Preface to the 2000 Reprint The publication of an updated edition of After the Cold War: American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia has provided a welcome opportunity to review and reflect upon the volume. I believe the basic themes and con tours of the study have stood up well, at least over the short term of the several years since the manuscript was completed in 1996. Certainly the steadily growing importance in contemporary international relations of both the mass media and the private commercial realm has been con firmed. The spread of both representative democracy and relatively open competitive markets has now reached a point where any broad global reversal of the trend is difficult to conceive. Very different, however, is the view, especially popular currently in the United States, that the business cycle and recessions have been abolished and that -by implication -the world has somehow become relatively easy to manage. The difficulty of perceiving emerging problems on the horizon of policy, especially in the midst of a relatively stable and extremely prosperous age, underscores the basic challenge confronting leadership at the national level and for that matter other levels, including not only multinational corporations but virtually all organizations, large and small. Anticipating surprise, or even the full implications of partially anticipated developments, is at the heart of successful leadership, whether the chief executive attempting to guide a nation or the individual attempting to manage a career. After literally decades of anxiety, combined with periods of outright fear, the Cold War has been replaced by an era in which complacency, excessive self-confidence and occasional hubris encourage misperception and miscalculation. President Bill Clinton, in his selfindulgence and self-righteousness, personifies this era to an unnerving degree. The crucial variable of leadership, therefore, is emphasized in the Epilogue as in the original body of the text. From high policy to immediate work environment, Carthage College in Kenosha Wisconsin has provided a most congenial environment for re viewing and updating this work. Initial contacts with President F. Gregory Campbell and Dean Kurt Piepenberg were followed by a series of conver sations with other administrators, faculty and staff, concluding in appoint ment in April 1998 as the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor of Political Economy and World Business. Alden W. 'Tom' Clausen is former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America as well as President of the World Bank. He and his wife Peggy x Preface to the First Edition cases simply by providing the right sort of example concerning how to go about serious research and analysis, especially in an age when specialized divisions of labour, pressured schedules and pervasive media all encour age a superficial approach to the great matters of our time. They include among faculty professors William