Sagamore Institute Senior Fellow Alan Dowd , who leads the Center for America’s Purpose, serves as curator of the Pathfinder collection. The product of insights from dozens of former diplomats, policymakers, retired military officers, foreign-policy practitioners, historians, political scientists, and scholars, Pathfinder resources are grouped under two broad “pathways”: The FOUNDATIONS & FUNDAMENTALS pathway shines light on some of the basics about America’s role in the world—the roots and origins, arguments and debates, tensions and contradictions that have forged U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy over the centuries. The CHALLENGES & THREATS pathway points the lamp toward some of the current trends and enduring tests in U.S. foreign and defense policy. Each pathway is broken down into subsections for ease of reference, and each includes a feature we call “stepping stones”—essays aimed at offering a little background about a particular topic.

Readers will notice that this collection of books, speeches, primary-source documents and essays doesn’t reflect an exclusively idealist or realist, liberal or conservative, isolationist or interventionist, nationalist or globalist stance on foreign and defense policy. Rather, Pathfinder represents a mix of those views—not unlike America itself.