Gautam Maitra

Tracing the Eagle's Orbit: Illuminating Insights into Major Us Foreign Policies Since Independence Gautam Maitra

Like the Eagle, the United States roves round a definite orbit defined by its foreign policies. It has its own set of values and principles, interests and goals that form the bedrock of its foreign policies guided by the Declaration of Independence. These values and principles, serve as lodestar that help keep the United States flying towards the furthest points in that orbit through the efforts towards the completion of the still unfinished jobs of the Declaration and the War of Independence.

The perimeters of these concentric circles happen to be those crucial phases that America attained through the successful conduct of its foreign policies at the various crossroads in that independent nation's journey towards the future.

The combined sagacity and 'burning will' of the American founding fathers triggered off a 'political' big bang that not only caused a great upheaval in the geopolitical foundations of European monarchic powers but also made American thoughts and ideals so powerful a 'religion' as to pervade the entire landmass of our planet for quite sometime to come.

With the abrupt termination of the bipolar world order in the early 1990s, the scepter of the dark and the chaotic Middle Age loomed. Instead of deciding to 'rule' the rest of the world by the power of sword that had characterized the Middle Age or instead of cornering the gains of modern scientific-technological inventions through colonial 'ploys' that had possessed several erstwhile European powers, ever-dynamic United States rather set on a post modern, neo-liberal course. As a result, 'non-imperial' United States now faces a dilemma in shaping the rest of the world in its own image. This book is unique in that it goes to the heart of that riddle.