The permanent U. S. Representative to the United Nations discusses the United States' role at the United Nations. Identifies three contexts in which the United States has been, in recent years, afforded the opportunity to participate in constructive action. Stresses the idea that the United Nations provides a productive forum. (KO)

Shortly before Christmas in 2004, departing Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a luncheon meeting hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Powell described to his Boston audience the readjustments that his cabinet post had imposed on him. Powell went on to discuss how he was tested in the Middle East and Asia, and the universal dilemmas…

The bureaucratic politics model and the poliheuristic theory are used to examine how political advice presented in various contexts influences choice. Organizational advisers who offer endogenous political advice are compared with situations in which the decision maker is offered advice by a separate, or exogenous, political adviser. Results show…

Scholars argue that third parties make rational calculations and intervene to influence interstate dispute outcomes in favor of their own objectives. Third parties affect not only conflict outcomes but also escalation and duration. Theories of third-party involvement are applied to understand the dynamics of intrastate war. An analysis of event…

This article deals with the assumptions and implications of the Malaysian policy for "learning from Japan". The article explores the ways in which this policy has effectively been operated in drawing a new geography of "Asia", dislodging colonial legacies in the region and countering the consolidation of other regional blocs.…

This document, a curriculum guide, grew out of a symposium on the role of secrecy in U.S. foreign policy. The curriculum examines ways in which citizens get information about the government and how government secrecy influences that information. Students analyze covert U.S. involvement in such places as Iran, Guatemala, and Cuba, and consider the…

Begun under President Reagan, the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) was a program of trade, economic assistance, and tax measures designed to generate economic growth in the region through private sector investment and trade. This study proposes to: (1) discuss the reaction to the CBI as a viable economic development model for the region; and (2)…

Over the past 8 years, the debate over U.S. policy in Central America has degenerated into an unproductive partisan clash that has obscured the issues and eliminated the possibility of a bipartisan consensus. Conference participants agreed that Central America, for historic, geographic, economic, and political reasons is of vital interest to the…

According to this essay by a visiting scholar from Great Britain, there will always be a debate in democratic societies, about the proper role of morality in fashioning and articulating foreign policy. This ambivalence has been reflected in the uneven approach to the problem exhibited by successive United States administrations. There are two…

All governments or ruling parties contain competing agencies, powerful individuals or small groups that are able to commit government resources to their viewpoint on foreign policy. These configurations make up the ultimate decision unit, whose properties modify the precise character of its government's actions. The first part of this paper…

The rapid pace of improving relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China during the late 1970s has been well scrutinized by mass media scholars, but most of the research has focused on the press coverage emanating from the United States, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan, the major nations involved in…

Written for editors, reporters, and researchers, this publication contains background information on war and peace. Included are newspaper articles, essays, and excerpts from radio commentaries. The information is intended to help journalists provide more accurate coverage of war-and-peace issues, in particular more accurate coverage of the Soviet…

The principle of cognitive consistency, formulated by Jack Snyder, explains decision-making under stressful conditions. Snyder contends that decision-making under stressful conditions creates a drive toward cognitive consistency and brings into operation tendencies: (1) toward a perception of certainty about an opponent's intention and the…

Knowing that national leaders frequently make decisions based on perceptions of their country's interests, the 1984 conference focused on national interests in turning to the United Nations. Through the use of case studies, participants examined the performance of the UN system and the consequences of member nations ignoring their obligation to…