Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has increasingly been called upon to intervene in the world's hot spots. The United States has taken up its share of responsibilities. U.S. military forces have bombed targets in Serbia, waded ashore in Haiti, patrolled cease-fire lines in Bosnia, skirmished over the skies of northern Iraq, and protected humanitarian agencies in Somalia. Meanwhile, American diplomats are busier too.
Few crises arise in the international arena without drawing in the United States.
A new set of foreign policy questions has emerged that Americans have only just begun to consider. Debating the U.S. Role, a five-day classroom unit developed by the Choices for the 21st Century Education Project at Brown University, thrusts students into this new foreign policy frontier. The first part of the background reading introduces students to the institutions and conceptual framework of the international community. In Parts II and III, students are given four historical and five current case studies to examine. Consideration of the case studies requires the highest levels of thinking from students.