A Brookings Institution Press and the Nixon Center publication In this frank and engaging book, foreign minister Igor S. Ivanov describes the evolution of Russian foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Drawing on Russia's long diplomatic history, Ivanov analyzes the complex process through which a newly democratic Russia has redefined its foreign policy during a volatile transformation over the last decade. The book includes the text of Russia's Foreign Policy Concept, a Putin administration document that guides the day-to-day activities of the government. Designed to provide the world community with a transparent outline of Russia's foreign policy agenda, the Concept attempts to balance Russia's important role in the new world order with internal pressures to focus on domestic stability. The radical transformation of the past decade has required a complete overhaul of the process by which foreign policy is crafted, implemented, and communicated, according to Ivanov. The Concept delineates the role of parliament in making foreign policy decisions, the interrelationship of the legislative and executive branches, and the apportionment of authority among the president, government, and regional authorities. It also stresses the need to renovate Russia's diplomatic service, whose tradition of professionally trained diplomats dates back to Peter the Great. While acknowledging the impulse to recreate foreign policy from scratch during periods of revolutionary change and radical reform, Ivanov stresses the theoretical and practical importance of continuity. Although the modern political system of the Russian Federation has no analogue in Russian history, Ivanov draws compelling connections between the country's contemporary challenges and the rich legacy of Russian and Soviet diplomacy—in the process invoking the political philosophies of historical Russian leaders from ancient Rus' to Alexander Gorchakov. The New Russian Diplomacy was originally published in Russia, where it received very favorable reviews

Political leaders need ministers to help them rule and so conventional wisdom suggests that leaders appoint competent ministers to their cabinet. This book shows this is not necessarily the case. It examines the conditions that facilitate survival in ministerial office and how they are linked to ministerial competence, the political survival of heads of government and the nature of political institutions. Presenting a formal theory of political survival in the cabinet, it systematically analyses the tenure in office of more than 7,300 ministers of foreign affairs covering more than 180 countries spanning the years 1696-2004. In doing so, it sheds light not only on studies of ministerial change but also on diplomacy, the occurrence of war, and the democratic peace in international relations. This text will be of key interest to students of comparative executive government, comparative foreign policy, political elites, and more broadly to comparative politics, political economy, political history and international relations.

Since Russia has re-emerged as a global power, its foreign policies have come under close scrutiny. In Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin, Andrei P. Tsygankov identifies honor as the key concept by which Russia's international relations are determined. He argues that Russia's interests in acquiring power, security and welfare are filtered through this cultural belief and that different conceptions of honor provide an organizing framework that produces policies of cooperation, defensiveness and assertiveness in relation to the West. Using ten case studies spanning a period from the early nineteenth century to the present day - including the Holy Alliance, the Triple Entente and the Russia-Georgia war - Tsygankov's theory suggests that when it perceives its sense of honor to be recognized, Russia cooperates with the Western nations; without such a recognition it pursues independent policies either defensively or assertively.

Imperial Russian Foreign Policy aims to demythologise a field hitherto dominated by suspicions of diabolical cunning, inscrutable motives, and international plots using unseen forces of the gigantic, fear-inspiring empire of the tsar. The contributors, leading historians from both Russia and the West, examine Imperial foreign policy from its origins to the October Revolution, revealing a policy that, as in other countries, had a complex of motives - commerce, nationalism, the interests of various social groups - but an unusual origin, coming almost exclusively from the entourage of the tsar. The work is based largely on original research in Soviet archives, which only became possible after Soviet glasnost.

"At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Greece was not a country-it was only a vague idea. The territories we now call Greece were part of the Ottoman Empire, though some of its islands were ruled at various points by the Venetians, the French, the Russians, and the British. The population was a mix of religious and ethnic groups including Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Jews, who spoke Albanian, Turkish, Vlach dialects, and numerous other varieties of Greek. But by 1830, Greece was a united, independent, and Orthodox Christian country that had made a global impact in the age of empires. In The Greek Revolution: A New History, Yanni Kotsonis tells the story of the 1821 revolution and war for Greek independence, arguing that Greece's evolution was far from inevitable. The author paints a vivid picture of how a religiously, ethnically, and linguistically mixed milieu turned violent and chaotic, and how the Enlightenment and the imperial machinations of Greece's neighbors and other European power created a movement within Greece to join "Christian Europe." Over the course of the revolution, all Orthodox Christians became Greek, and all Muslims became Turks (the many languages and dialects used by both populations notwithstanding). The author brings the revolution to life through the colorful stories of figures now regarded as heroes of the revolution, from the mercenary and pirate "Little Theodore" Kolokotronis to the former Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Cap d'Istria. Though Greece was only a small province of the Ottoman Empire, its emergence after the Greek Revolution of 1821 led to the creation of Greek identity, gave rise to the idea of a Christian nation, and set the stage for the age of nationalism that was to come"--

Examines the continuity of German Foreign Office influence in the forumlation of foreign policy under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck (1862-1890), Kaiser William II (1888-1918), the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), and Adolf Hitler (1933-1945)

Though international relations and the rise and fall of European states are widely studied, little is available to students and non-specialists on the origins, development and operation of the diplomatic system through which these relations were conducted and regulated. Similarly neglected are the larger ideas and aspirations of international diplomacy that gradually emerged from its immediate functions. This impressive survey, written by one of our most experienced international historians, and covering the 500 years in which European diplomacy was largely a world to itself, triumphantly fills that gap.

Perhaps no person in history has dominated his or her own era as much as Napoleon. Despite his small physical stature, the shadow of Napoleon is cast like a colossus, compelling all who would look at that epoch to chart their course by reference to him. For this reason, most historical accounts of the Napoleonic era-and there are many-tell the same Napoleon-dominated story over and over again, or focus narrowly on special aspects of it. Frederick Kagan, distinguished historian and military policy expert, has tapped hitherto unused archival materials from Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, to present the history of these years from the balanced perspective of all of the major players of Europe. In The End of the Old Order readers encounter the rulers, ministers, citizens, and subjects of Europe in all of their political and military activity-from the desk of the prime minister to the pen of the ambassador, from the map of the general to the rifle of the soldier. With clear and lively prose, Kagan guides the reader deftly through the intriguing and complex web of international politics and war. The End of the Old Order is the first volume in a new and comprehensive four-volume study of Napoleon and Europe. Each volume in the series will surprise readers with a dramatically different tapestry of early nineteenth-century personalities and events and will revise fundamentally our ages-old understanding of the wars that created modern Europe.