US Role In World Affairs II

This semester, we continue our examination of America’s global role begun in the fall, this time focusing mostly on the contemporary post-Cold War period. The semester will be broken into three thematic parts: First, the domestic roots of U.S. foreign policy, notably the institutions and actors (both formal and informal) that help formulate and often frustrate it; Second, the immediate post-Cold War period through the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, including the doctrines, debates, and disagreements surrounding America’s “unipolar moment”; and Third, the post-9/11 landscape that ushered in a new era of militarized U.S. foreign policy, challenges to America’s global leadership (and the U.S.-led liberal order) from China and elsewhere, and emergent threats such as climate change and widespread advances in cyber-technologies.