¹ See, for instance, Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th edn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973).Google Scholar

² See Halperin, Morton, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1974).Google Scholar

³ See, for example, Holsti, Ole R. and Rosenau, James, American Leadership in World Affairs: Vietnam and the Breakdown of Consensus (Boston, Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1984)Google Scholar. Holsti and Rosenau examine the ideological beliefs of contending elites regarding foreign policy.

⁴ An illustrative version of this revisionist approach is Kolko, Gabriel, The Roots of American Foreign Policy (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1969).Google Scholar

⁵ See Krasner, Stephen D., Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and US Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979).Google Scholar

⁶ As opposed to this structural version of realism, there is another slightly different version of the theory. Rather than treating the state as the unit operating in an anarchic international system, this alternative version of realism assumes that decision makers undertake a rational, cost-benefit analysis of national interests. In this latter sense, realism is the theory held by the decision makers themselves.

For an interesting discussion of the multiple connotations of realism, see Sanders, David, Losing An Empire, Finding A Role: An Introduction to British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Sanders identifies three different aspects of the realist model: (1) realism as a decision-making theory, (2) realism as structural theory, and (3) realism as a characterization of the ‘worldview’ of foreign-policy makers. While this study is predominantly concerned with the usefulness of the structural theory, it takes note of realism in decision making and as a theory of foreign-policy makers. Elite interviews reveal evidence relevant to these other aspects.

⁷ Angela Stent recommended examining these four options.

⁸ Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, pp. 161–83Google Scholar. The bipolar characterization of the international environment therefore rejects the views of some scholars that the international system had one hegemonic power, the United States, which created and maintained international regimes of co-operation. See Gilpin, , War and Change in World PoliticsGoogle Scholar, and Oye, Kenneth A., ‘Constrained Confidence and the Evolution of Reagan Foreign Policy’, in Oye, Kenneth A., Lieber, Robert J. and Rothchild, Donald, eds, Eagle Resurgent? The Reagan Era in American Foreign Policy, (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1987), pp. 3–39.Google Scholar

⁹ On the debate of competition for Third World allies, see Walt, Stephen M., The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; and David, Steven, Third World Coups d'État and International Security (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

¹⁰ On Soviet relations with Third World client states, see Korbonski, Andrzej and Fukuyama, Francis, The Soviet Union and the Third World: The Last Three Decades (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Rubinstein, Alvin Z., Moscow's Third World Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Saivetz, Carol and Woodby, Sylvia, Soviet-Third World Relations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl, The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind (New York: Praeger, 1983).Google Scholar

¹¹ These officials were Carl Gershman, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Constantine Menges and Peter Rodman.

¹² An exemplary work focusing on American decline and ‘imperial overstretch’ is the bestseller, Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987).Google Scholar

¹³ See Mueller, John, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989), pp. 188–210.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Gates, David, The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986)Google Scholar. Gates points out that the expression ‘guerrillas’ originated as the name for the Spanish insurgents Britain aided. Britain sought to upset the dominance of Napoleon's France over the European continent, in a classic example of realpolitik. For the story of British aid to these guerrillas, see also Sherwig, John M., Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France, 1793–1815 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ Ben Gurion's so-called ‘peripheral plan’ included the proposition covertly to aid minorities rebelling in radical Arab states to divert the resources otherwise available for deployment by those countries on Israel. Israel in practice did in fact aid the Kurdish population in Iraq, under the auspices of the Israeli-Iranian alliance.

¹⁶ On the previous use of anti-communist proxies in American Cold War policy in Central America and the Caribbean, see Blasier, Cole, The Hovering Giant: US Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin American 1910–1985, 2nd edn (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), pp. 151–210Google Scholar; and Krasner, , Defending the National Interest, pp. 279–91.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Pipes, Richard, Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America's Future (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 245.Google Scholar

¹⁸ For realist analyses of constraints on the feasibility of American intervention, see Cohen, Eliot A., ‘Constraints on America's Conduct of Small Wars’, in Miller, Steven E., ed., Conventional Forces and American Defense Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 277–307Google Scholar; and Mack, Andrew J. R., ‘Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetrical Conflict’, in Knorr, Klaus, ed., Power, Strategy, and Security: A World Politics Reader (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

¹⁹ For elaborations of Lippman's view on public opinion, see Ladd, Everett Carll, The American Polity: The People and Their Government, 2nd edn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), p. 368Google Scholar; and Cohen, Bernard C., The Public's impact on Foreign Policy (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1973), p. 116Google Scholar. For a critique of Lippmann's view of public opinion and the ‘latent veto’, see Waltz, Kenneth N., Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1967).Google Scholar

²⁰ See Schneider, William, ‘“Rambo” and Reality: Having It Both Ways’, in Eagle Resurgent?, pp. 45–63Google Scholar. Another political scientist specializing in the role of public opinion in foreign affairs, John Mueller, has also noted a post-Vietnam ethic of ‘semi-isolationism’. See Mueller, , Retreat from Doomsday, p. 195.Google Scholar

²¹ On the role of interest groups as part of policy networks, see Heclo, Hugh, ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment’, in King, Anthony, ed., The New American Political System (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1978).Google Scholar

²² Those interviewed were Chester Crocker, Fred C. Ikle, Joshua Muravchik and Malcolm Wallop.

²³ Zakaria, Farced, ‘The Reagan Strategy of Containment’, Political Science Quarterly, 105 (1990), 373–95, p. 389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Many realist scholars, however, think that the United States has limited interests in the types of governments in Third World countries. For instance, Kenneth Oye wrote, ‘Ironically, only American neo-conservatives and American instrumental Marxists argue that preservation of the western capitalist order requires control over the internal political character of Third World states’. See Oye, , ‘Constrained Confidence’, p. 27.Google Scholar

²⁵ Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. and Gerson, Allan, ‘The Reagan Doctrine, Human Rights, and International Law’Google Scholar, in Henkin, Louis et al. , Might v. Right: International Law and the Use of Force (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1989), pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

²⁶ For analysis of the PDPA's nature, compared to other Soviet-aided Marxist-Leninist states in the Third World, see Fukuyama, Francis, ‘The New Marxist-Leninist States and Internal Conflict in the Third World’Google Scholar, in Ra'anan, Uri et al. , Third World Marxist-Leninist Regimes: Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and US Policy (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1985), pp. 18–44.Google Scholar

²⁷ For background see Christian, Shirley, Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family (New York: Random House, 1985).Google Scholar

²⁸ On the radicalization of Sandinista foreign policy, based on close ties to Cuba and Marxist ideology, see Sequeira, Arturo Cruz, ‘The Origins of Sandinista Foreign Policy’, in Leiken, Robert S., ed., Central America: Anatomy of Conflict (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984), pp. 95–109Google Scholar. Cruz is a former Sandinista official.

²⁹ See Carter, Jimmy, ‘Certification of Nicaragua Aid (September 12, 1980)’, in Leiken, Robert S. and Rubin, Barry, eds, The Central American Crisis Reader (New York: Summit Books, 1987), pp. 502–3.Google Scholar

³⁰ For an excellent brief history of the Contras which avoids prevalent ideological biases on the subject, see Pardo-Maurer, R., The Contras, 1980–1989: A Special Kind of Politics (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1990)Google Scholar. Also see Radu, Michael S., ‘The Nature of the Insurgency’, in Falcoff, Mark and Royal, Robert, eds, The Continuing Crisis: US Policy in Central America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1987), pp. 411–32.Google Scholar

³¹ For a helpful overview of the Reagan administration's initial policy toward Central America in the early 1980s, see the documents and speeches reprinted in Leiken, and Rubin, , eds, The Central American Crisis Reader, pp. 518–82.Google Scholar

³² Peter Rodman noted that El Salvador was the focus of policy on Central America in the first term of the Reagan Administration. Rodman commented that since to a great degree ‘the problem was solved’ (i.e. El Salvador's stability), attention turned to Nicaragua after Reagan's re-election.

³³ For a series of essays on the development of a special patron-client relationship between Honduras and the United States once Nicaragua was no longer the chief training ground for the American military in Central America, see Packenham, Nancy and Street, Annie, eds, Honduras: Portrait of a Captive Nation (New York: Praeger, 1985).Google Scholar

³⁴ Michael Mandelbaum suggested the ‘slippery slope’ view.

³⁵ Reagan, Ronald, An American Life: The Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 239.Google Scholar

³⁶ Fred Ikle also cited Enders's use of the arms flow to the FMLN as a weak pretext for aiding the guerrillas.

³⁷ For a critique of congressional fetters on Reagan's Contra policy in the form of the Boland Amendments, see Perle, Richard, ‘Five easy pieces: Ducking the tough choices with a wink and a nod’, Washington Times, 3 08 1987, pp. D1–2.Google Scholar

³⁸ See Krasner, , Defending the National Interest, pp. 279–91.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ashby, Timothy, The Bear in the Back Yard: Moscow's Caribbean Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987), p. 155.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The ethnic tribal bases of the MPLA and UNITA are relevant to the conflict. UNITA is made up of members of the Ovimbundu tribal group, which is the largest tribal group in Angola. This increases UNITA's support in a large portion of the outlying regions of Angola where the Ovimbundu population is concentrated.

⁴¹ On this anomaly, placing Gulf-Chevron and UNITA on opposite sides, see Mueller, , Retreat from Doomsday, p. 192.Google Scholar

⁴² Casey's concern with ‘choke points’ and South Africa in particular was mentioned in interviews with a White House speechwriter in close contact with Casey and with Casey's special assistant, Anthony Dolan, and Herbert Meyer.

⁴³ On the Khmer Rouge's role in the resistance see Santoli, Al, ‘Cambodia: Freedom's Frontline in Southeast Asia’, in Moser, Charles A., ed., Combat on Communist Territory (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1985), pp. 142–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Santoli, , ‘Cambodia’, pp. 145–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See Menges, Constantine C., The Twilight Struggle: The Soviet Union v. the United States Today (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1990), p. 201.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Bernstein, Alvin H., ‘Insurgents Against Moscow: The Reagan Doctrine Can Put Soviet Imperialism on the Defensive’, Policy Review, 41 (1987), 26–9, p. 26.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See, for instance, the piece by the former Carter Administration official, Lake, Anthony, ‘Wrestling with Third World Radical Regimes: Theory and Practice’, in Sewell, John W., Feinberg, Richard E. and Kallab, Valeriana, eds, US Foreign Policy and the Third World Agenda 1985–1986 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1985), pp. 119–45.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Those versions of realism that examine decision makers as rational actors implementing the national interest and that examine whether foreign-policy makers think in realist categories address these interpretive problems. See Krasner, , Defending the National Interest, pp. 10–20Google Scholar. Yet such versions of realism only paper over a basic deficiency of the realist research programme.

⁴⁹ Schneider, , ‘“Rambo” and Reality’, pp. 51–63.Google Scholar