AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES TOWARDS GERMANY

The article addresses the priorities of US relations with Germany. The victory of Joseph Biden and Democratic Party on the elections of 2020 signified quite radical twist in US foreign policy. The election slogan «America is back» which won the White House for the Democratic Party and Congress, means restoration of transatlantic relationship, damaged by the previous administration. Germany has a special place in this process. Elections in Germany in 2021 resulted in a victory of a Social Democratic Party. Decision making in Washington on Relations with Germany are influenced by many factors, including those related to domestic policies and international relations. Domestically there have appeared contradictions between Democratic and Republican parties on a number of priority issues on the bilateral agenda. In particular, the main differences were related to the Nord Stream 2 project. The situation in Afghanistan remains an urgent problem for both sides. It is noteworthy that following the results of the last elections in the United States, the German Caucus again became active in Congress, including both democratic and republican politicians. It is clear that Biden’s administration pursues the developing of economic ties with Germany.

The United States - China Rivalry and the BRI

The article describes the United States - China rivalry and Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through a fine-grained review of primary materials such as major US policy documents and speeches by and media interviews with key American foreign policy decisionmakers, as well as the selective use of secondary materials such as think tank studies and articles in scholarly publications. It shows that the BRI has fueled the bilateral rivalry since its birth in 2013 and that the rivalry, in turn, has affected US views about the BRI. Under President Barack Obama, the US took a muted stance towards the BRI, expressing modestly cooperative sentiments regarding it. In contrast, under President Donald Trump, Washingtons posture towards the BRI dramatically changed with his administration frequently denigrating the BRI, raising it in major security and foreign policy documents, initiating competing development schemes such as the BUILD Act, and building closer cooperation with allies against Chinas venture. Despite its angst about the BRI, however, the Trump administration never launched any large-scale countermeasures. This article contributes to clarifying the situation by correcting some factual errors in past analyses and updating the general understanding about the Trump administrations response. It systematically contemplates how internal and external economic, political, and ideational factors affected the Obama and Trump administrations responses to the BRI, demonstrating that such factors shaped or shifted US policy or bounded its form and intensity. These factors, being similar to those stressed by neoclassical realists who emphasize the role of leaders as interpreters within limits of the external environment and responders to it subject to various domestic constraints, provide a foundation which is used to speculate about the USs probable response to the BRI under President Joseph Biden, Jr.

Review Essay: Enlightenment Lost?

Lost Enlightenment and Polymaths of Islam, each analyzing a different but linked period of Central Asian civilization, is each a masterwork of scholarship. Each author, now at a different stage in his academic career, has put to good use a bevy of languages to unveil the achievements of societies and ways of life smothered by the Sturm und Drang of life including great power aggressions. S. Frederick Starr has led Soviet as well as Central Asian research institutes based in Washington, D.C. He was the first director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and later the founding chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, now affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Institute. James Pickett is Assistant Professor of Eurasian History at the University of Pittsburgh. Each author has done research in Russia and Central Asia.

Role of religion in American politics: An analysis of the influence of Evangelical Church in Israeli Palestinian conflict

The politics of the Holy land is of crucial importance to the followers of the three Abrahamic religions in terms of religious beliefs, which metamorphosed into military and political significance in the 20th Century. The United States (U.S) support for Israel is especially visible during the republican presidencies. The U.S had five republican presidents from 1980 to 2020, and their evangelical beliefs shaped American foreign policy toward this region, a policy that may loosely be termed as affected by Christian Zionism, which was originally a 16th Century religious Puritan movement, who latter shaped into Christian political movement. U.S Christian Zionism reiterates favourable images of Jews and is pessimistic about peace in Holy land. Christian Zionists believe Lord has bestowed the land of Palestine to Jews and have held up this claim since the turn of the 20th Century. This paper first describes the fundamental nature of Christian Zionism, their view of the modern Israel and resultant political and military policies. This also focuses Christian Zionists support of republican presidents and specially President Trump relationship with Christian Zionism. The shifting of U.S embassy to Jerusalem, the formal approval to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by President Trump are studied.

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Armenian Genocide: The Clash between Idealism and Pragmatism

The article focuses on the conduct of American foreign policy on the subject of the Armenian genocide. This conduct serves as an excellent study of a major theme in the history of the formulation of American foreign policy – the clash between moral values and pragmatic economic and strategic interests and constraints and between the declared policy of President Wilson and the real policy of his and subsequent American administration on the Armenian genocide issue. A special emphasis was placed on “denial” as the final stage of a genocide.

Hijacking History

Hijacking History analyzes world history textbooks for high school students produced by the three most important publishers of Christian educational materials—Abeka Books, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education. Initially intended for Christian schools, they now are also widely used for homeschooling. They have already been used by several generations. According to these textbooks, historians, informed by their faith, tell the story of God’s actions interpreted through the Bible. History becomes a weapon to judge and condemn civilizations that did not accept the true God or adopt “biblical” social and political positions. In their treatment of the modern world, these textbooks identify ungodly ideas to be vanquished—evolution, humanism, biblical modernism, socialism, and climate science among them. These curricula’s judgments, as Hijacking History documents, are rooted in the history of American evangelicals and fundamentalists and the battles they fought with secular culture. These curricula’s use of history has important civic ramifications. They assume that God sanctions their positions on social, political, and economic issues. Thus God’s providential relationship with American Christians entails that America should be a Christian nation advancing evangelical Christianity and capitalism throughout the world; American foreign policy and military interventions are invariably virtuous. Christianity, as these textbooks present it, is proselytizing but intolerant of other religions and Christian groups, hegemonic, and unquestionably anchored to the political right. As Hijacking History argues, the ideas these world histories promote resonate in contemporary debates about religion, politics, and education; reinforce cultural divisions; and challenge civic values of a pluralistic democracy.