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What makes for war or for a stable international system? Are there general principles that should govern foreign policy? In The Cold War and After, Marc Trachtenberg, a leading historian of international relations, explores how historical work can throw light on these questions. The essays in this book deal with specific problems--with such matters as nuclear strategy and U.S.-European relations. But Trachtenberg's main goal is to show how in practice a certain type of scholarly work can be done. He demonstrates how, in studying international politics, the conceptual and empirical sides of the analysis can be made to connect with each other, and �how historical, theoretical, and even policy issues can be tied together in an intellectually respectable way. These essays address a wide variety of topics, from theoretical and policy issues, such as the question of preventive war and the problem of international order, to more historical subjects--for example, American policy on Eastern Europe in 1945 and Franco-American relations during the Nixon-Pompidou period. But in each case the aim is to show how a theoretical perspective can be brought to bear on the analysis of historical issues, and how historical analysis can shed light on basic conceptual problems.

World politics --- Cold War. --- Colonialism --- Global politics --- International politics --- Political history --- Political science --- World history --- Eastern question --- Geopolitics --- International organization --- International relations --- Coexistence (World politics) --- Peaceful coexistence --- Philosophy. --- Polemology --- anno 1900-1999 --- American policy. --- Dean Acheson. --- Eastern Europe. --- France. --- Franco-American relations. --- George W. Bush. --- German rearmament. --- Henry Kissinger. --- John F. Kennedy. --- MC 48. --- NATO. --- Richard Nixon. --- Soviet Union. --- USSR. --- United States. --- Western Europe. --- anarchic system. --- anarchy. --- defense policy. --- foreign policy. --- foreign relations. --- international law. --- international order. --- international politics. --- international relations. --- nuclear sharing policy. --- nuclear strategy. --- nuclear weapons. --- political system. --- preemptive strategy. --- preventive war. --- state power. --- systemic forces. --- theoretical analysis. --- weapons of mass destruction.