Patrick Wright's memoir opens on a diplomatic crisis. A growing number of countries are threatening to boycott the Commonwealth Games in protest of the British government's handling of South African apartheid. And the problems only get worse. Patrick Wright was one of the pre-eminent diplomats of his day, putting him at the forefront of some of the late twentieth century's most important global events. His six years at the FCO found him dealing with the backlash from the Falklands War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, strained relations with the EU, the First Gulf War and, perhaps most challenging of all, the `fire and glares' of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Lord Wright's account is not only an essential documentation of a significant historical period, but witty and entertaining throughout. He revels in gossip, despairs at the mischievous press `painting lurid pictures of Britain versus the Rest', recalls numerous amusing scenarios and is rather brutal in his assessment of various high- profile political figures.

An all-new edition of the candid insiders' guide to the US Foreign Service as an institution, a profession, and a career Career Diplomacy takes readers inside the world of American diplomats in the US Foreign Service. Members of the Foreign Service represent the country abroad, protect and support American citizens overseas, manage government programs and facilities, and move foreign policy from the abstract to the actual. In this new and thoroughly revised edition, Foreign Service veterans Harry W. Kopp and John K. Naland lay out what to expect in a Foreign Service career, from the entrance exam through midcareer and into the senior service-how to get in, get around, and get ahead. Part one begins with the history and structure of the US Foreign Service in the Department of State and other agencies. Part two looks at a number of professional challenges, including how to be a diplomat in a war zone and how to respond when what the government demands conflicts with what the Constitution requires or one's conscience compels. In part three, the authors explore the trajectory of a Foreign Service career through their own experiences and through interviews with more than a hundred current and former members. Part four brings the discussion up to the present and looks to the future, describing a Service emerging from the Trump years determined to improve diversity in its workforce, protect a high standard of nonpolitical public service, and reward performance with responsibility. This best-selling guide demystifies the US Foreign Service for those interested in working within or alongside the institution. Kopp and Naland offer readers a candid look at the profession, with its dangers, rewards, challenges, frustrations, and excitement.

Commissioned by the Qianlong emperor in 1751, the Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples (Huang Qing zhigong tu ), is a captivating work of art and an ideological statement of universal rule best understood as a cultural cartography of empire. This translation of the ethnographic texts accompanied by a full-color reproduction of Xie Sui's ( ) hand-painted scroll helps us to understand the conceptualization of imperial tributary relationships the work embodies as rooted in both dynastic history and the specifics of Qing rule.

Bringing together historians of US foreign relations and scholars of Iranian studies, American-Iranian Dialogues examines the cultural connections between Americans and Iranians from the constitutional period of the 1890s through to the start of the White Revolution in the 1960s. Taking an innovative cultural approach, chapters are centred around major themes in American-Iranian encounters and cultural exchange throughout this period, including stories of origin, cultural representations, nationalism and discourses on development. Expert contributors draw together different strands of US-Iranian relations to discuss a range of path-breaking topics such as the history of education, heritage exchange, oil development and the often-overlooked interactions between American and Iranian non-state actors. Through exploring the understudied cultural dimensions of US-Iranian relations, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in American history, international history, Iranian studies and Middle Eastern studies.

This book offers an accessible and rigorous introduction to the context, diplomacy, and law of the European Union's response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The book explores how the EU responded to the war in the initial months, and is based on research carried out on Russian and European political, diplomatic, and legal texts. Presenting a unique interdisciplinary perspective, the book delves into topics such as the EU diplomatic response, the Ukrainian application for membership of the EU, the policy and legal aspects of EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus. Additionally, the book examines the significance of the EU's unprecedented political response for the constitutional structure of the EU, and for the strategy toward the Russia of the future.

The South Caucasus is the key strategic region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea and the regional powers of Iran, Turkey and Russia and is the land bridge between Asia and Europe with vital hydrocarbon routes to international markets. This volume examines the resulting geopolitical positioning of Georgia, a pivotal state and lynchpin of the region, illustrating how and why Georgia's foreign policy is 'multi-vectored', facing potential challenges from Russia, int ernal and external nationalisms, the possible break-up of the European project and EU support and uncertainty over the US commitment to the traditional liberal international order.

This book is a much-needed update on our understanding of public diplomacy. It intends to stimulate new thinking on what is one of the most remarkable recent developments in diplomatic practice that has challenged practitioners as much as scholars. Thought-leaders and up-and-coming authors in Debating Public Diplomacy agree that official efforts to create and maintain relationships with publics in other societies encounter unprecedented and often unexpected difficulties. Resurgent geo-strategic rivalry and technological change affecting state-society relations are among the factors complicating international relationships in a much more citizen-centric world. This book discusses today's most pressing public diplomacy challenges, including recent sharp power campaigns, the rise of populism, the politicization of diaspora relations, deep-rooted nation-state-based perspectives on culture, and public diplomacy's contribution to counterterrorism. With influential academic voices exploring policy implications for tomorrow, this collection of essays is also forward-looking by examining unfolding trends in public diplomacy strategies and practices. Originally published as Volume 14, Nos. 1-2 (2019) pp. 1-197 in Brill's journal The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was one of the defining moments in the history of the modern Middle East. Yet its co-creator, Sir Mark Sykes, had far more involvement in British Middle East strategy during World War I than the Agreement for which he is now most remembered. Between 1915 and 1916, Sykes was Lord Kitchener's agent at home and abroad, operating out of the War Office until the war secretary's death at sea in 1916. Following that, from 1916 to 1919 he worked at the Imperial War Cabinet, the War Cabinet Secretariat and, finally, as an advisor to the Foreign Office. The full extent of Sykes's work and influence has previously not been told. Moreover, the general impression given of him is at variance with the facts. Sykes led the negotiations with the Zionist leadership in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, which he helped to write, and promoted their cause to achieve what he sought for a pro-British post-war Middle East peace settlement, although he was not himself a Zionist. Likewise, despite claims he championed the Arab cause, there is little proof of this other than general rhetoric mainly for public consumption. On the contrary, there is much evidence he routinely exhibited a complete lack of empathy with the Arabs. In this book, Michael Berdine examines the life of this impulsive and headstrong young British aristocrat who helped formulate many of Britain's policies in the Middle East that are responsible for much of the instability that has affected the region ever since.

As the ice around the Arctic landmass recedes, the territory is becoming a flashpoint in world affairs. New trade routes, cutting thousands of miles off journeys, are available, and the Arctic is thought to be home to enormous gas and oil reserves. The territorial lines are new and hazy. This book looks at how Russia deals with the outside world vis a vis the Arctic. Given Russia's recent bold foreign policy interventions, these are crucial issues and the realpolitik practiced by the Russian state is essential for understanding the Arctic's future.Here, Geir Honneland brings together decades of cutting-edge research - investigating the political contexts and international tensions surrounding Russia's actions. Honneland looks specifically at 'region-building' and environmental politics of fishing and climate change, on nuclear safety and nature preservation, and also analyses the diplomatic relations surrounding clashes with Norway and Canada, as well as at the governance of the Barents Sea. The Politics of the Arctic is a crucial addition to our understanding of contemporary International Relations concerning the Polar North.

In The Ideas and Practices of the European Union's Structural Antidiplomacy, Steffen Bay Rasmussen offers a comprehensive analysis of EU diplomacy that goes beyond the functioning of the European External Action Service and discusses the sui generis nature of the EU as a diplomatic actor, the forms of bilateral and multilateral representation as well as the actor identity, founding ideas and meta-practices of EU diplomacy. The book employs a novel theoretical approach that distinguishes the social structures of diplomacy from the practices and meta-practices of diplomacy. Comparing EU diplomacy to the two theoretically constructed ideal types of Westphalian diplomacy and utopian antidiplomacy, Steffen Bay Rasmussen concludes that the EU's international agency constitutes a new form of diplomacy called structural antidiplomacy.

During a television broadcast in 1959, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower remarked that "people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days our governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." At that very moment international peace organizations were bypassing national governments to create alternative institutions for the promotion of world peace and mounting the first serious challenge to the state-centered conduct of international relations. This study explores the emerging politics of peace, both as an ideal and as a pragmatic aspect of international relations, during the early cold war. It traces the myriad ways in which a broad spectrum of people involved in and affected by the cold war used, altered, and fought over a seemingly universal concept. These dynamic interactions involved three sets of global actors: cold war states, peace advocacy groups, and anti-colonial liberationists. These transnational networks challenged and eventually undermined the cold war order. They did so not just with reference to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Western Europe, but also by addressing the violence of national liberation movements in the Third World. As Petra Goedde shows in this work, deterritorializing the cold war reveals the fractures that emerged within each cold war camp, as activists both challenged their own governments over the right path toward global peace and challenged each other over the best strategy to achieve it. The Politics of Peace demonstrates that the scientists, journalists, publishers, feminists, and religious leaders who drove the international discourse on peace after World War II laid the groundwork for the eventual political transformation of the Cold War.