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Throughout most of human history, the desire - or obsession - to be �number one,� the need to improve one's status and prestige, has been ubiquitous. Though the pursuit of glory is one of the classic motivations for state behavior, it is not a major independent variable in modern models of international relations. It is not only unmeasurable and subjective but archaic and anachronistic, seemingly more appropriate to ancient Greece than the twenty-first century United States. Still, glory lingers; direct reference might today be confined to dictatorial strongmen on the fringes of the international order, but its impulses are present in every country, and especially the United States. This paper explores the continuing importance of the competition for glory in modern U.S. foreign policy. Irrespective of one's view of the value of competitiveness in other aspects of life, in matters of foreign policy it is often a selfdestructive impulse. The belief that it is important to be �the best,� the number one state in the international hierarchy in whatever category is being discussed, often leads to counterproductive policies that waste assets in pursuit of irrational goals. It is, therefore, deeply pathological. In an era when the United States may soon face challengers to its status that put its prestige in peril, it is a particularly important pathology to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few leaders worry about the status of their honor; they do worry, at times obsessively, about their credibility. The "credibility imperative" has occupied a central position in every major U.S. foreign policy debate in the last fifty years. It affects discourse and decisions in predictable - and deeply pathological - ways. This paper examines the continuing importance of honor in modern U.S. foreign policy. It first discusses the traditional importance of honor in international and interpersonal politics, and explains of the central role it plays in the construction of security in any system that lacks a central authority. Second, it describes the predictable, consistent effects that honor has on state behavior in general, and U.S. foreign policy in particular. Third, it argues that the lingering concern for honor is pathological, for a couple of reasons: There is no evidence that it helps states attain their goals, and it certainly has no relevance in those systems (like today's international) where no existential threats to member security exist. The paper then speculates about the genesis of the honor pathology, and why it continues to have such salience in the new century. Honor as a motivation for action seems as anachronistic today as horse-drawn carriages, alchemy and the duel. But it persists, if under different guises; and to the extent that it persists, it pathologizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five decades ago, Karl Deutsch devised what he called "Parkinson's Law for international affairs": A state's insecurity expands along with its power. This certainly seems to apply to the United States, which is simultaneously the strongest country in the history of the world and the most insecure of today's great powers. The threats it has recently identified in the international system, from Iraq to Hugo Chavez to terrorism, are minor compared to what most states have had to confront throughout history. As states grow in power they usually also become more materially secure; why, then, do they often seem to worry more, often about trivial matters? This paper explores the political psychology of unipolarity in general, and the connection between power and insecurity in particular. Pathologies arise when irrational forces drive policymaking; presumably good policy is the result of rational cost-benefit analyses. If it is true that great power leads to perceptions of insecurity - or merely elevates the trivial to appear existential - then some of the most fundamental assumptions of U.S. grand strategy might need to be rethought. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disastrous wars tend to generate reluctance to intervene abroad. After the war in Iraq, strategic restraint may prove to be more politically palatable than ever before. Pundits and analysts of various stripes will rail against our reluctance to intervene abroad, as if it guaranteed instability, famines, Hitlers and genocides. This paper explores the justification for the most common objections to a post-Iraq strategic alteration. None is particularly well grounded. The strategic interest of the United States would be better served by a more patient, more restrained, less expensive approach to foreign policy. Like an alcoholic, sometimes a nation must hit rock bottom before it sees the need to make drastic changes. Iraq should be our rock bottom. If the war leads the United States to return to its traditional, restrained grand strategy, then perhaps the whole experience will not have been in vain. At this point, it may be the best outcome for which one can hope. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is written as a case study for the undergraduate classroom. Is democracy in the Muslim world really desirable? As distasteful as some of the despots in the Middle East and Central Asia are, what could follow them might be worse. On the other hand, the popular discontent that When the West supports an unpopular, corrupt, repressive regime, it risks alienating the masses, a la Iran in the 1970s. This case study examines one of the earliest, but most crucial, decisions made after the Cold War ? the Bush Administration’s silence in the face of the coup that nullified the election results in Algeria in 1990. Although Islamists won a plurality in the election, Algeria was by no means a fundamentalist state. Islamists presented the only organized opposition party, and the election results may well have been an understable protest vote against the military government. When the army cancelled the election results and Washington, perhaps following Paris’s lead, remained silent, the message echoed throughout the Arab world: the West supported democracy everywhere, except when Muslims were involved. Ten years of brutal civil war, and radicalization of large segments of the population, followed. Should the West be supporting local strong men, to serve the interests of the war on terror, or is democracy a better alternative? To paraphrase FDR, are these tyrants who are our SOBs worth supporting, if by doing so we lose the people? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many observers of US foreign policy do not seem to appreciate the growing influence that the regional unified combatant commanders (the CINCs) exert on what some feel is the emerging Pax Americana. A variety of factors ? from the passage of Goldwater-Nichols in 1986 to almost a decade of Republican congressional control to the evolution of communications technology ? have contributed to a rapid growth in CINC influence on decision making on both the micro or tactical level and on the macro or strategic level. This paper describes how and why their role is changing, and speculates on the impact that such a change is likely have on the balance between diplomacy and military force in American foreign policy. Since the modern unified commander is rapidly becoming as much diplomat as warrior, increased cooperation between the regional commands and senior levels of the State Department ? jointness between the bureaucracies ? seems necessary in order to coordinate all facets of U.S. foreign policy if it is to be effective in addressing the complex challenges it is likely to face as the war on terror unfolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]