Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy

(Hardback)

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A behind the scenes look at 50 years of US diplomacy.

From Vietnam in the 1960s to Afghanistan in this decade, James Dobbins was on the frontlines of American diplomacy and worked to advance U.S. national interests in some of the worlds most difficult and troubled arenas.

In Foreign Service, Dobbins takes the reader behind the scenes at the Vietnam peace talks, the darkest days of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Somalia. He provides a thoughtful insiders account of all these ventures, analyzes the sources of both success and failure, and provides incisive portraits of many of the chief actors.

Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama turned repeatedly to Dobbins as a diplomatic trouble-shooter with the right instincts and experience to help find solutions for seemingly irresolvable problems. Foreign Service vividly captures why they did.

Reviews

Dobbinss inside stories of policy debates over Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan are insightful and illuminating. And he is admirably candid in describing some of his own crisis-management advice..."- Survival, 60.6 (2018)

Author Bio

James Dobbins served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Special Assistant to the President for the Western Hemisphere, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State for the Balkans, Ambassador to the European Community, and special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, and Afghanistan. He holds the Distinguished Chair for Diplomacy and Security at the RAND Corporation.