Foreign policy is occupying a prominent place in the current US election campaign – with the Republicans accusing the Clinton administration of neglecting national defence. All this makes the present book especially topical.
There has for some time been an awareness, not least among Washington’s European allies, of a new American willingness to act ‘unilaterally’ – that is to disregard world opinion and go it alone in the pursuit of what it considers to be its own interests.
To take only a few familiar examples: the US refuses to submit to the jurisdiction of the proposed International Criminal Court to deal with war crimes; it has stood apart from the Convention banning landmines; and the Senate refuses to pay the arrears owed by America to the UN for peacekeeping operations.
