Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy

A behind the scenes look at 50 years of US diplomacy.
 From Vietnam in the 1960s to Afghanistan in this decade, James Dobbins was on the frontlines of American diplomacy and worked to advance U.S. national interests in some of the world’s most difficult and troubled arenas.
 In Foreign Service, Dobbins takes the reader behind the scenes at the Vietnam peace talks, the darkest days of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Somalia. He provides a thoughtful insider’s account of all these ventures, analyzes the sources of both success and failure, and provides incisive portraits of many of the chief actors.
 Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama turned repeatedly to Dobbins as a diplomatic trouble-shooter with the right instincts and experience to help find solutions for seemingly irresolvable problems. Foreign Service vividly captures why they did.

Biographies & Memoirs

Dobbins Former Special Envoy for Afghanistan Kosovo Bosnia Haiti and Somalia, James

Leaders & Notable People

Brookings Institution Press

Reviews nearly 50 years of UN nation-building efforts to transform unstable countries into democratic, peaceful, and prosperous partners. The authors examine the UN’s experience in the Congo, Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique, Eastern Slavonia, Sierra Leone, and East Timor, as well as the U.S. experience in Iraq. The book complements the authors’ earlier study, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (MR-1753-RC), which focuses on U.S.-led nation-building efforts. UN missions are nearly always undermanned and underfunded, with uneven troop quality and late-arriving components. But despite these handicaps, the UN success rate among missions studied-seven out of eight societies left peaceful, six out of eight left democratic-substantiates the view that nation-building can be an effective means of terminating conflicts, insuring against their reoccurrence, and promoting democracy. The authors conclude that the UN provides the most suitable institutional framework for nation-building missions that require fewer than 20,000 men-one with a comparatively low cost structure, a comparatively high success rate, and the greatest degree of international legitimacy. American or other major power leadership is, by contrast, needed for operations which require forced-entry operations or force levels in excess of 20,000 soldiers. Unfortunately, the United States has been less successful than the UN in learning from its mistakes and improving its nation-building performance over time, and this is reflected in the lower success rate among US-led missions studied in this series.

The UN's Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq

Foreign & International Law

RAND Corporation

This two-volume set examines United States and United Nations nation-building missions since World War II. Its purpose is to analyze military, political, humanitarian, and economic activities in post-conflict situations, determine key principles for success, and draw implications for future nation-building missions.

The RAND History of Nation-Building

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Peace is the most essential product of nationbuilding. Without peace, neither economic growth nor democratization is possible. The authors of Europe's Role in NationBuilding investigate the use of armed force as part of broader nationbuilding efforts led by European powers and its success at achieving the objective of transforming a society emerging from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors. They then evaluate Europe's performance against the U.S. and United Nations records in past nationbuilding operations.

Europe's Role in Nation-Building: From the Balkans to the Congo

History

Jones, Seth G.

Europe

This book examines how the United States has gained considerable experience in nation-building operations through its participation in at least eight significant operations since World War II-in Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

After the War: Nation-Building from FDR to George W. Bush

Americas

On March 21, 2007, the RAND Corporation held a public conference on Capitol Hill, Coping with Iran: Confrontation, Containment, or Engagement? Participants sought to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of various policy options to address the Iranian challenge. This report summarizes remarks presented during the conference. The views expressed in this document are those of the participants, as interpreted by the RAND Corporation.

Coping with Iran: Confrontation, Containment, or Engagement? A Conference Report (Conference Proceedings (Rand Corporation))

Kaye, Dalia Dassa

Harting, Sarah

The American engagement in Iraq has been looked at from many perspectives, to include examination of the flawed intelligence that provided the war's rationale, the failed effort to secure an international mandate, the rapid success of the invasion, and the long ensuing counterinsurgency campaign. This compelling new book focuses on the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and its Administrator, L. Paul Bremer. The book also includes interviews with many of those in Baghdad and Washington responsible for setting and implementing occupation policy, on the memoirs of American and Iraqi officials who have since left office, on journalist accounts of the period, and on tens of thousands of internal and recently unclassified CPA documents, to which the authors were allowed access.

Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority

Runkle, Benjamin

Mohandas, Siddharth

Middle East

Hope for a prosperous and peaceful future for Haiti lies in building a more effective, resilient state. This report identifies the main challenges to more capable governance, evaluates existing plans for improving the delivery of public services, and proposes a realistic set of critical actions. The proposed state-building priorities merit the greatest degree of Haiti's and international donors' policy attention and financial commitment.

Building a More Resilient Haitian State

Chivvis, Christopher S.

Crane, Keith

Ries, Charles P.

Miller, Laurel E.

The objective of a negotiated peace in Afghanistan has been firmly embraced by most of the potential parties to a treaty. However, arriving at an agreement about the sequencing, timing, and prioritization of peace terms is likely to be difficult, given the divergence in the parties' interests and objectives. The U.S. objective in these negotiations should be a stable and peaceful Afghanistan that neither hosts nor collaborates with terrorists.

Afghan Peace Talks: A Primer (Rand Corporation Monograph)

Shinn, James

Asia

It is not inevitable that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons or even that it will gain the capacity to quickly produce them. U.S. and even Israeli analysts continually push their estimates for such an event further into the future. Nevertheless, absent a change in Iranian policy, it is reasonable to assume that, some time in the coming decade, Iran will acquire such a capability. Most recent scholarly studies have also focused on how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Other, less voluminous writing looks at what to do after Iran becomes a nuclear power. What has so far been lacking is a policy framework for dealing with Iran before, after, and, indeed, during its crossing of the nuclear threshold. This monograph attempts to fill that gap by providing a midterm strategy for dealing with Iran that neither begins nor ends at the point at which Tehran acquires a nuclear weapon capability. It proposes an approach that neither acquiesces to a nuclear-armed Iran nor refuses to admit the possibility — indeed, the likelihood — of this occurring.

Coping with a Nuclearizing Iran (Rand Corporation Monograph)

Nader, Alireza

Wehrey Carnegie Endowment for International Peace author of Sectarian Politics in, Frederic

Military

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