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Editorial Statement
We launch American Diplomacy with two primary aims: to air a range of policy-related questions for consideration by an informed readership, and to provide an outlet for comparatively succinct scholarly studies that may not fit the needs of print publications. In this context, we will focus on foreign policy, diplomatic history, military affairs and military history, and issues of national security, broadly defined. Other features will be developed as we progress—anecdotal reminiscences by our Foreign Service colleagues, for example, and book reviews, research inquiries, letters to the editor, and general interest announcements. But those will remain subsidiary to our two main objectives.
The journal will feature clear writing and will require non polemical approaches to issues. We will not, however, impose a standard of stylistic conformity on our contributors. Democracy admits variety and permits criticism, thereby earning two cheers—quite enough, in the words of E. M Forster, American Diplomacy certainly can do no less. (We note here for the record that the views expressed in the journal's articles and other features will not necessarily represent those of our editorial staff and advisory board, or of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies.)
This journal, freed from scheduled printing constraints through the marvels of electronic publication, will present revised content on an occasional, unscheduled but frequent basis. The notation "Updated as of (date)" on the cover page will inform the reader as to the issue "date" of that journal.
American Diplomacy expects to provide intellectual content that is relevant to the scholar, the concerned citizen, and the decision maker. As a means to further this dialogue between the research and teaching communities, and diplomatic practitioners and "graduates" of the Foreign Service, the journal will benefit greatly from a cooperative arrangement with the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (T.I.S.S.) based at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill.
Commentaries and queries, including initial questions on publication requirements, may be addressed by e-mail to the editor at hmattox@email.unc.edu or the publisher at fcrigler@mindspring.com. The journal's mailing address is c/o the editor, H. E. Mattox, Dept. of History, Box 8108, N. C. State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27695.
Finally, we trust that the "pens of diplomats," including our own contributors, "will not ruin again what the people have attained with such exertions," a wish expressed by Field Marshal Blucher in an entirely different context at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Would that diplomats' pens really were so powerful!