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Failed states pose one of the deepest challenges to American national security and international peace and stability. Finding a comprehensive and effective solution to the challenges of terrorism, human rights violations, or poverty and economic development requires some understanding of how to restore failed states. The response of the United Slates and its allies has remained the same: to rebuild the institutions of state control, and, ~f lucky, to plant a working democracy and a market economy within existing stale borders. But many international law scholars remain openly dubious about the ability of states to rebuild-the problem is not failed states but the nation-state as the primary actor in international relations. This paper argues that both American and United Nations policy on the one hand, and the conventional academic wisdom on the other hand, are mistaken. Building a normal nation-state with full sovereignty on every territory in the world, without changing any borders, fails to understand why some states are failing in the first place. Viable states simply do not align with the borders recognized by the United Nations or created during the period of rapid decolonization in the decades after World War II. Academics who see in failed states the rise of alternatives to the nation-state have no practical solutions that do not depend on the political, economic, and military resources of strong nation-states. Without them, supranational governments, trusteeships, or nongovernmental organizations have shown little ability to fix failed states. This Article argues that powerful nations can help by performing the more modest role of promoting and guaranteeing power-sharing agreements between competing groups within failed states. It concludes by illustrating the thesis with the outcome of the surge in Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists and political scientists have long fretted over the dangers that a politicized military poses to democracy. In recent times, however, civil–military relations experts in the United States accepted retired or indeed still serving generals and admirals in high-ranking political posts. Despite customary revulsion from scholars, the sudden waivers are an indicator that military participation in momentous national security decisions is inherently political without necessarily being partisan, including when civilian authority defers to a largely autonomous sphere for objective military expertise. Military politics is actually critical for healthy civil–military collaboration, when done prudently and moderately. Janowitz and Huntington, founders of the modern study of civil–military relations, understood the U.S. military's inevitable invitation to political influence. Here, we elaborate on two neglected dimensions, implicit in their projects, of military politics under objective civilian control based on classical virtues of civic republicanism: Aristotle's practical wisdom and Machiavelli's virtú. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) opposition to the U.S. policy towards the Vietnam War in 1961-1975. It discusses IPS's call for a reduction in U.S. foreign aid to nations guilty of human rights abuses and its contribution to the debate over war, democracy and bureaucracy. It looks at IPS's efforts to eliminate the divide between theory and activism, and IPS intellectuals's arguments over the rising fortunes of technocrats within the bureaucracy. It also examines IPS calls for direct involvement of U.S. citizens in governance.

How the U.S. military establishment interacts with other parts of the American government and the people impacts American national power. Because civil–military relationships are influenced by the context of the environment and the “kind of war” being waged, there are a variety of ways that military and civilian leaders can work together to improve the nation’s security. This article proposes an alternative civil–military relations model called pragmatic civilian control. It integrates Samuel Huntington’s objective civilian control theory with traditional American political philosophy and concepts established by Morris Janowitz, while accounting for current geopolitical conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a revised version of a presidential address the author gave at a conference for the Organization of American Historians on April 10, 2010 in Washington, D.C. regarding the topic of the relationship between national security and democracy in U.S. history. She argues that Cold War ideologies about capitalism, freedom, and Americanism have undermined the democratic rights of individuals in America since the end of World War II and examines the role that the media, including television and newspapers, have played in developing fears about nuclear warfare, communism, and crime for U.S. citizens. She also overviews the political factors that shaped the U.S. civil rights movement and comments on topics such as vigilante justice in motion pictures and the violent crime rate.

The authors suggest that the U.S. should not abandon the promotion of democracy in the Middle East advanced by President George W. Bush. The authors argue that democracy promotion will blunt terrorism and political violence in the region even though the post-Bush democratization debate steers away from an emphasis on national security. The authors discuss measures involved in such a strategy including conditional political and human rights reforms and inclusion of nonviolent Islamist political parties in the process.

The values of national security and democracy are sometimes necessarily in conflict, and one may be compromised in defense of the other. The history of national security concerns in the United States of America can be seen as a continuing pragmatic attempt to balance fundamental democratic values and ideals against elements of their defense that have at times intruded upon the rule of law, individual freedoms, and popular participation in policy debate and decision making by an informed citizenry. The balancing of national security and democracy is an ongoing process, but the long-term trend in the United States seems to be toward an increasing emphasis on democratic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of the same NORC poll relied on by Hyman and Sheatsley and a 1994 poll for the Times Mirror Center for The People & The Press show that sizable portions of the U.S. public were "know-nothings" on both occasions. OLS regressions on both polls show that, although there are slight differences, essentially the same factors affect knowledge of international politics in 1946 and 1994. At bottom, Americans tend to be uninformed about foreign affairs because they are inattentive to events abroad. If it is true, as some students of U.S. foreign policy claim, that public opinion has an important and growing impact on national security policy, widespread public ignorance recalls Lippmann's concern about the "democratic malady." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]