Structural Foundations of U.S. Government: The International System

While the United States has never operated in a vaccum and has always had to position itself to respond to events overseas, today that trend is especially strong. Because of the power of weapons, the ease with which non-state (i.e. private) actors like terrorists can acquire them, and the relative ease by which these weapons can be shipped into this country, many believe Americans can't wait for threats to approach us here at home. Instead, we have to be very active in the affairs of other nations lest we find its too late to respond.

A great book that discusses these trends is Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt, a professor of Constitutional Law and an expert on International Relations. Here's snippet of a book review that brings this home:

"This chaotic situation has led political thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic – Philip Bobbitt in America, Robert Cooper over here – to demand a total paradigm shift in our approach to international order. Globalisation, they argue, has meant the end of the territorial nation state and the advent, they argue, of 'market-states' or nation-states whose power transends territorial boundaries. With that power goes – or should go – responsibility for the maintenance of order among impotant and backward 'pre-modern' states, not only moral but prudential responsibility for rescuing their populations from starvation, enforcing human rights, and ensuring that they do not spawn bellicose dictators or provide safe harbour for terrorist and pirates." – Financial Times [London based publication similar to our Wall Street Journal]