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U.S. foreign policy thinking is based ultimately on the particular historical experience and cultural legacy of the American founding, and at the very base of that founding is the preeminence of Anglo-Protestantism. The religious heritage of the United States, a sixteenth century blend of a theological reformation and the rise of modernity in the Enlightenment, has endowed American politics with a...
The collapse or weakening of six empires over a 53-year period furnished the precondition for the rise of what we offhandedly call the modern Middle East. But if we mean “modern” as a concept of political sociology rather than a shorthand way of saying recent or contemporary, we must conclude that a “modern” Middle East is still straining to be born. We see that through an integrated analysis that...
The geopolitical frame is a necessary but insufficient means to understand the contemporary Middle East. Defining the term in its original, fairly narrow, way puts the analytical spotlight on the Westphalian units—namely, states—that compose the classical modern international system. But those states’ lack of decisional agency is itself at the core of the region's instability. As for the region, its...
Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since September 11, 2001, the U.S. Government has substantially misunderstood its circumstances and has launched policies based on a compound error that has made those circumstances worse. The error consists of three parts: thinking the United States had more usable power after the Cold War when it had less; misreading the sources of apocalyptical terrorism;...