American Presidents in Diplomacy and War

Statecraft, Foreign Policy, and Leadership

Thomas R. Parker

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780268105266, 9780268201890
• eBook ISBN: 9780268207229
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

By analyzing how America's greatest presidents displayed their mastery of statecraft, American Presidents in Diplomacy and War offers important lessons about the most effective uses of national power abroad.

American Presidents in Diplomacy and War chronicles the major foreign policy crises faced by twelve American presidents in order to uncover the reoccurring patterns of successful and less successful uses of diplomatic, economic, and military power. In this succinct and highly readable book, Thomas R. Parker reveals how America's most successful leaders manage events instead of allowing events to control them.

Parker explores how the U.S. presidency, from the days of the early Republic to the present, shaped the world. Ranging from George Washington to George H. W. Bush, Parker shows how successful statecraft requires the understanding of complex situations, the prudent evaluation of various courses of action, the ability to adapt and to anticipate, and personal determination. Parker compares each of these leaders to their contemporaries—reasonable political leaders who nonetheless made serious mistakes, such as Thomas Jefferson and Barack Obama—to examine the dangers of being unable to strike the right balance of aggressiveness and caution and to examine the costs of inexperience and ambivalence toward military power. The book concludes by discussing the increasingly complex international situation of today, particularly the manifold challenges posed by China and Russia to U.S. foreign policy, and the continued necessity of effective statecraft.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 What Makes for Successful Statecraft?
• 2 Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison: The Diplomacy of Realism versus the Diplomacy of Ideology and Uncertainty
• 3 Abraham Lincoln: The Diplomacy of Prudence
• 4 Theodore Roosevelt: From Nationalist to Realist
• 5 Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The Diplomacy of Guile
• 6 Truman and Acheson in the Korean War: When Reasonable Leaders Stumble into Disaster
• 7 Nixon and Kissinger in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War: The Ability to Adapt and Anticipate, and the Mastery of Complex Negotiations
• 8 Carter and Brzezinski and the Fall of the Shah of Iran: Values and Interests
• 9 George H. W. Bush and the First Gulf War: The Diplomacy of Determination
• 10 Obama: The Reluctant Foreign Policy President
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Index