America’s Search for Security: The Triumph of Idealism and the Return of Realism

In America’s Search for Security, Sean Kay surveys major historical trends in American foreign policy and provides a new context for thinking about America’s rise to power from the founding period through the end of the Cold War. It details the post-Cold War rise of idealist foreign policy goals and the costs of abandoning realist roots, analyzing in-depth the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of what disappointing, if not disastrous, outcomes can befall America abroad when foreign policy objectives are muddied, unclear, and fail to remain grounded in what historically has made America an unquestionable world power.

Sean Kay is Robson Professor of Politics and Government at Ohio Wesleyan University where he is also director of the Arneson Institute for Practical Politics and Chair of the International Studies Program. He is also an associate of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University and a fellow at the Eisenhower Institute in Washington, D.C. Kay has previously worked at the Institute for National Strategic Studies in the U.S. Department of Defense and as visiting assistant professor at Dartmouth College. He has published widely on American foreign and defense policy and international security issues, is frequently quoted in major national and international news sources, and is a co-editor of two books. His previous books include Celtic Revival: The Rise, Fall, and Renewal of Global Ireland, Global Security in the Twenty-first Century: The Quest for Power and the Search for Peace, and NATO and the Future of European Security.