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Historically, Panama has always been “a place of transit.” While technically the isthmus formed part of Colombia in the nineteenth century, it was linked geopolitically to the United States soon after the California gold rush, beginning in the late 1840s. The first attempt at building a canal ended in failure in 1893 when disease and poor management forced Ferdinand de Lesseps to abandon the project. The U.S. undertaking to build the canal could only begin after Panama declared itself free and broke away from Colombia in 1903, with the support of the United States.

The relationship between soft power and international education is not a new phenomenon. Students have studied abroad since the origin of the modern university in the Middle Ages and have been influenced by what they learned and experienced. Faculty members and researchers have also crossed borders for millennia, and knowledge has always been international in scope. Indeed, medieval universities were international institutions, bringing together students and faculty from many European countries and operating in a single language, Latin (Haskins, 2002). Through its strong emphasis on theology and canon law, the medieval university served as a bastion of power for the Catholic Church. The Jesuit mission of spreading the faith through education was an important aspect of the church's soft power. Historically, the Jesuits recognized education as a powerful force and established schools and universities around the world to spread knowledge and Roman Catholicism (O’Malley, Bailey, Harris, & Kennedy, 1999). Missionaries from various other Christian denominations were also actively involved in higher education overseas (Ashby, 1966; Lutz, 1971).

Officially, of course, the world is now post-imperial. The Q’ing and Ottoman empires fell on the eve of World War I, and the last Leviathans of Europe's imperial past, the Austro-Hungarian and Tsarist empires, lumbered into the grave soon after. Tocsins of liberation were sounded on all sides, in the name of democracy (Wilson) and socialism (Lenin). Later attempts to remake and proclaim empires – above all, Hitler's annunciation of a “Third Reich” – now seem surreal, aberrant, and dystopian. The Soviet Union, the heir to the Tsarist empire, found it prudent to call itself a “federation of socialist republics.” Mao's China followed suit. Now, only a truly perverse, contrarian regime would fail to deploy the rhetoric of democracy.

The study of international business has become increasingly important in recent years. So important that the American Assembly of the Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has called for the internationalisation of business curricula. In 1992 and beyond, successful business people will treat the entire world as their domain. No one country can operate in an economic vacuum. Any economic measures taken by one country can affect the global economy. This book is designed to challenge the reader to develop a global perspective of international business. Globalisation is by no means a new concept, but there are many new factors that have contributed to its recently accelerated growth. Among them, the new technologies in communication and transport that have resulted in major expansions of international trade and investment. In the future, the world market will become predominant. There are bound to be big changes in the world economy. For instance the changes in Eastern Europe and the European Community during the 1990s. With a strong knowledge base in international business, future managers will be better prepared for the new world market. This book introduces its readers to the exciting and rewarding field of international management and international corporations. It is written in contemporary, easy‐to‐understand language, avoiding abstract terminology; and is organised into five sections, each of which includes a number of chapters that cover a subject involving activities that cross national boundaries.

In this chapter, I analyze former US president Barack Obama’s foreign policy decision-making process during his two terms of presidency between the years 2008 and 2016. The analysis covers six decisions with an emphasis on decisions concerning conflicts that embodied a potential for the use of force.

Using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method, I find that Barack Obama’s decision-making pattern in these decisions fits the poliheuristic decision theory, where the domestic politics dimension constitutes a non-compensatory dimension. By understanding President Obama’s use of the poliheuristic decision code, this study can offer an explanation to his willingness to use force in some cases, and his avoidance of the use of force in others.

Roots of global Terrorism are in ‘failed’ states carved out of multiracial empires after World Wars I and II in name of ‘national self‐determination’. Both sides in the Cold War competed to exploit the process of disintegration with armed and covert interventions. In effect, they were colluding at the expense of the ‘liberated’ peoples. The ‘Vietnam Trauma’ prevented effective action against the resulting terrorist buildup and blowback until 9/11. As those vultures come home to roost, the war broadens to en vision overdue but coercive reforms to the postwar system of nation states, first in the Middle East. Mirages of Vietnam blur the vision; can the sole Superpower finish the job before fiscal and/or imperial overstretch implode it?

This chapter examines the complex issues surrounding international education of foreign student study in the United States and the role such issues play in global societies. Analysis centers on the rationale surrounding international education, its development, its protagonists, and antagonists. In effect, who gains and what are the externalities of international education. The chapter further discusses international education as far more than a study abroad program for it encompasses a host of complex social, political, and economic variables that have impact, not only for schools, but for global societies, in a climate of global tension and uncertainty. While data on foreign student study in the United States complements the study's analysis, larger focus will be upon the international dimensions of foreign student study. Summary discussion concludes the chapter as well as projections with respect to international student enrollment across the globe.

“When James Boswell returned from a tour of Corsica in 1765 he wrote: ‘It is indeed amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such noble things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known.’ The same might be said today of Puerto Rico.” Thus began Millard Hansen and Henry Wells in the foreword to their 1953 look at Puerto Rico's democratic development. Four decades later, the same could again be said about the island.

While propaganda was central to U.S. public diplomacy in earlier times, and remains central today, the United States must now practice true public diplomacy, which should rely, not only on political theory and the theories of international relations, but also on theories and models of public relations that are based on two‐way symmetrical communication and community‐building. A propaganda model centers the United States at the hub of the global milieu in its relationships with other nations, i.e., a diplomatic worldview in which the ‘spokes’ of America's communication and relationships radiate outward to satellites of stakeholders; in contrast, the United States is not centered so self‐importantly in a community‐building model. Rather, this model recognizes that America is only one part of a global social system. America's public diplomacy must recognize that the United States' global constituents are ‘publics,’ not ‘markets,’ and that an effective public diplomacy model must be one that is not propaganda or market‐oriented advocacy, but one that is based on two‐way symmetrical communication and community‐building.