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The resolution said little about the political differences that often paralyze the security council, where sharp divisions between veto-holding members Russia and the United States have often thwarted action on Syria and Ukraine.

“Short-term geopolitical considerations and national interest, narrowly defined, have repeatedly taken precedence over intolerable human suffering and grave breaches of and long-term threats to international peace and security,”

The human rights chief said the use of veto power on the security council “to stop action intended to prevent or defuse conflict is a short-term and ultimately counter-productive tactic”.

And she suggested building on the Arms Trade Treaty by requiring that, in countries where there are human rights concerns, governments accept a small human rights monitoring team as a condition of purchasing weapons.

And as Ukraine's conflict grows deeper, the reputation of the U.S. as the ultimate arbiter of the international system has yet again suffered. As with Iraq, Ukraine is a case of a violent disintegration, and there is not much Washington can do about that.

But the potential economic effects of the likely Ukrainian collapse will be devastating on Russia, even if Moscow manages to not get involved in a direct military confrontation with Kiev. The deeper Ukraine moves into a civil war, the more costly it will ultimately be for Russia to rebuild what is left of Ukraine's eastern regions. As Ukraine's largest neighbor and the international supporter of the eastern fighters, Russia won't be able to step aside.

f the international community summons the will to pressure Kiev, Moscow can be helpful in pressuring Donetsk and Luhansk to negotiate a cease-fire.

Andrei Tsygankov is professor of international relations and political science at San Francisco State University. His forthcoming book is "The Strong State in Russia: Development and Crisis" (Oxford, 2014).

Individual level analysis focuses on people.  People make decisions within nation states and therefore people make foreign policy. 

Neo-liberals might focus on the role of the United Nations or World Trade Organization in shaping the foreign policy behavior of states.  Neo-liberals might look at the cold war and suggest ways to fix the UN to make it more effective.

Each author is developing a theory to explain the behavior of all states, not just one state.

Can you find universal patterns of activity, universal rules that can used to explain how any state behaves?

So you use historical data to test your theories. That’s what you’re examining in your papers.  An author has developed a theory or tested two theories.  How well does the author’s argument hold up when tested against the historical data?

The US has always had an idealist streak in its foreign policy (some disagree with this) and sees “bad guys” out there in the international system. 

How did these organizations create US foreign policy would be the key question at this level of analysis.

The world is anarchy and states do what they can get away with to gain power and they do what they must to protect themselves.

States try to build a more just world order.