The demilitarization of American diplomacy : two cheers for striped pants

Laurence Pope describes the contemporary dysfunction of the State Department and its Foreign Service. He contends that in the information age diplomacy is more important than ever, and that, as President Obama has stressed, without a "change of thinking" the U.S. may be drawn into more wars it does not need to fight. Both an insider and a historian, Laurence Pope describes the contemporary dysfunction of the State Department and its Foreign Service. While the Defense Department and the American military services have reinvented themselves in a decade of failed nation-building wars, the State Department is promising to do a better job of nation-building next time. Its policy functions have migrated to the White House. Secretaries of State largely ignore the State Department bureaucracy, circumventing it with a personal staff. Pope contends that in the information age diplomacy is more important than ever, and that, as President Obama has stressed, without a 'change of thinking' the U.S. may be drawn into more wars it does not need to fight Front Matter....Pages i-vi Introduction....Pages 1-6 A City on a Hill Cannot Be Hid....Pages 7-15 The Decline of the State Department....Pages 16-35 Hillary Clinton’s Power Outage....Pages 36-52 Drones, Cyberwar, Special Forces, and Other Extraterritorials....Pages 53-63 Two Cheers for Striped Pants: Diplomacy for the 21st Century....Pages 64-77 Back Matter....Pages 78-83