'It is riveting. Ryan provides us with one of the best accounts of the Raegan-era foreign policy available, dealing with a portion of history that took place in Central America in the Eighties. For future historians of the Cold War, Ryan's book will be a necessary point of reference.' - Bernardo Sepulveda Amor US-Sandinista Diplomatic Relations examines the reasons why agreement was not reached between the United States and Nicaragua between 1979 and 1990. The traditional US hegemonic approach to the region was applied to the Sandinista revolutionary government which the Reagan administration wanted out of power. Washington's responses to the various attempts at finding a diplomatic solution were to block agreement where possible, but concurrently demonstrate support for diplomacy to encourage Congressional support for the ongoing low intensity conflict.

A deeply researched, fully updated edition of The National Security Constitution that explores the growing imbalance of institutional powers in American foreign affairs and national security policy Since the beginning of the American Republic, a package of norms has evolved in the U.S. Constitution to protect the operation of checks and balances in national security policy. This “National Security Constitution” promotes shared powers and balanced institutional participation in foreign policymaking. Today it is under attack from a competing claim of executive unilateralism generated by recurrent patterns of presidential activism, congressional passivity, and judicial tolerance. This dynamic has pushed presidents of both parties to press the limits of law in foreign affairs. In his award-winning National Security Constitution (1990), Harold Hongju Koh traced the evolution of this constitutional struggle across America’s history. This new book, based on the earlier volume but with roughly 70 percent new material, brings the story to the present, placing recent events into constitutional perspective. Reviewing the presidencies of the twenty-first century, he explains why modern national security threats have given presidents of both parties incentives to monopolize foreign policy decision-making, Congress incentives to defer, and the courts reasons to rubber-stamp. Koh suggests both a workable strategy and crucial prescriptions to restore the balance of our constitutional order in addressing modern global crises.

Recent scandals like WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden's disclosure of NSA documents have brought public debates over government accountability and secrecy bubbling to the surface. How can modern democracies balance the need for privacy in delicate foreign policy matters with the necessity of openness in gaining and maintaining the trust of citizens? Democracies keep secrets from potential enemies and their citizens. This simple fact challenges the surprisingly prevalent assumption that foreign policy successes and failures can be attributed to public transparency and accountability. In fact, the ability to keep secrets has aided democratic victories from the European and Pacific theatres in World War II to the global competition of the Cold War. At the same time, executive discretion over the capacity to classify information created the opportunity for abuse that contributed to Watergate, as well as domestic spying and repression in France, Norway and Canada over the past forty years. Therefore, democracies face a secrecy dilemma. Secrecy is useful, but once a group or person has the ability to decide what information is concealed from a rival, citizens can no longer monitor that information. How then can the public be assured that national security policies are not promoting hidden corruption or incompetence? As Democracy Declassified shows, it is indeed possible for democracies to keep secrets while also maintaining useful national security oversight institutions that can deter abuse and reassure the public. Understanding secrecy and oversight in democracies helps us explain not only why the Maginot Line rose and the French Republic fell, or how the US stumbled but eventually won the Cold War, but more generally how democracies can benefit from both public consent and necessary national security secrets. At a time when ubiquitous debates over the issue of institutional accountability and transparency have reached a fever pitch, Democracy Declassified provides a grounded and important view on the connection between the role of secrecy in democratic governance and foreign policy-making.