Tells the story of policy reversals vis-a-vis the UN on the part of the USA and examines the period of UN-bashing in the '80s and courtship of the UN in 1990. The book also analyses the forces that produced first one and then the other of these latest phases in the tumultuous US-UN relationship.

The book concludes with a critique of the thesis that, with the Cold War over and collective security rediscovered, the UN will at last assume the role envisioned for it by its founders and the United States will find in the UN a congenial vehicle for the pursuit of its foreign policy objectives.