Nations dwell in perpetual anarchy, for no central authority imposes limits on the pursuits of sovereign interests. … Because as states, they cannot cede ultimate control over their conduct to an supranational sovereign, they cannot guarantee that they will adhere to their promises. The possibility of a breach of promise can impede cooperation even when cooperation would leave all better off. Yet, at other times, states do realize common goals through cooperation under anarchy.

Much has been written about how the United States and the Soviet Union have managed crises since World War II, avoiding dangerous escalation and war; little on how the two superpowers have avoided confrontations. In part scholarly neglect of the question of crisis avoidance reflects the acute suspicion and hostility of the cold war. When U.S.-Soviet rivalry was perceived as a struggle between incompatible ideologies and ways of life, it was unthinkable that the superpowers might have any common interests, much less that they could collaborate, even tacitly, to control the conflict in their relationship.

Political scientists researching economic foreign policy have generally taken one of two analytic approaches. The first is based on realpolitik, the traditional application of “high” politics to the “low” politics of economics. This approach considers economics subordinate to politics. The concept of the national interest dominates; the pursuit of power—what enables the state to achieve its goals of security, welfare, and other societal values—is seen to underlie most actions. The study of foreign economic policy is thus an analysis of the distribution of power among states within the international system. By understanding a state's sources of strength and areas of vulnerability in relation to other states, the analyst will better understand the creation of foreign policy. Hans Morgenthau notes that while states may sometimes pursue economic policies for their own sake (in which case they should take little interest in their success), the more important economic policies they will favor are instruments of political power.Stephen Krasner views the state as an autonomously motivated actor, able to guide policy in pursuit of state priorities while resisting interest groups and ideologies. According to this “power theory”, the state tries to increase its economic competitiveness, ensure security of material needs, and promote its broad foreign-policy objectives. Economic policy is for the most part subordinate to and best explained by state priorities and prerogatives. Robert Tucker, Klaus Knorr, Robert Gilpin and others have also adopted this framework.

In April 1977 the United States and four other major Western governments embarked on a unique diplomatic exercise in the hope of negotiating an agreement for the independence of the territory of Namibia, or South West Africa. The “Contact Group” as it became known (or Western Five), consisting of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and the Federal Republic of Germany, functioned actively from April 1977 until mid-1982 as an ad hoc multilateral mediating and facilitating team in close proximity to but not directly linked with the United Nations. The five countries secured basic agreement in 1978 on a plan calling for UN supervised elections for a constituent assembly in the territory leading to early independence and the appointment of a UN special representative to ensure the necessary conditions for such elections.

The most significant political division within Israel since 1967 has beenbetween those Israelis who favor the permanent incorporation of the portions of Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Israel) captured in the Six Day War and those Israelis who favor relinquishing most or all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for a peace agreement with the Arab world and resolution of the Palestinian problem. Although usually considered an issue of security, ideology, or diplomacy, the uncertain disposition of the West Bank and Gaza Strip can usefully be analyzed as a state-building problem.