"Playing political musical chairs on a regional basis may be common, but power shuffles on a global scale are rare," Hoover fellow Thomas H. Henriksen explains in his introduction to Foreign Policy for America in the Twenty-first Century: Alternative Perspectives (Hoover Press, 2001).
"Drastic shifts in world wide alignment are really historic milestones."
The fall of the Soviet Union is one of those historic milestones, catapulting the United States into the rare position of being the "sole superpower with vast economic, poltiical, diplomatic, and military resources," a position that should generate wide discussion on possible American courses of action.
However, as Henriksen points out, "nations generally do not examine their foreign relations unless confronted by a threat. Instead, they focus internally." And in a time of relative economic prosperity and international peace, settling on one clear policy has eluded present policymakers.
"No comprehensive strategic vision took shape from inside the Clinton government despite an array of proposals floated by officials and by pundits. Instead, a series of intrastate upheavals in Rwanda, Haiti, and elsewhere grabbed headlines and focused the spotlight on Washington's ability to end civil strife, restore order, and care for the destitute," explains Henriksen.
The contributors to Foreign Policy for America in the Twenty-first Century address this vacuum in U.S. foreign policy, each embracing "a different vision what U.S. foreign policy should be in the opening decades of the twenty-first century." Conflicting ideas lead to rich discussion and fruitful solutions, argues Henriksen.
"The authors of this slender volume were selected not for their unanimity but for their conflicting visions," writes Henriksen. "It is believed that these differing points of view reflect the nation's major outlooks at the dawn of America's third century. They are set forth with the Baconian inspiration that truth is more likely to emerge from error than from ignorance. They are advanced in this book in the belief that vigorous discussion is vital to the formulation of policy."
Thomas H. Henriksen is a senior fellow and the associate director for program development at the Hoover Institution. His research focuses on United States foreign policy and international political affairs. He is the author of Using Power and Diplomacy to Deal with Rogue States (Hoover Essays in Public Policy, 1999) and the edited collection North Korea after Kim Il Sung (Hoover Institution Press, 1999).
The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic and international affairs.
