This book addresses long-term challenges to national and human security. These include unstable governments, ineffective conflict management, uncoordinated global development, tensions in multi-ethnic societies, and the inability to deal with climate change. From his long experience in tracking and mediating conflict and crisis, Jon Wilkenfeld writes about leadership, responsibility, mission, and empowerment in the face of these challenges. Myth and Reality in International Politics is about the transformation of lofty agendas into concrete, measurable progress through collective action.