UNIT 4 FOREIGN POLICY

1. A Nation Apart? American Attitudes to World Affairs

On the one hand, the foreign policy of the USA has been a mixture of self-interest and
an attempt to act according to commonly held ideals. On the other hand, a factor that
makes all countries foreign policy distinctive is the size and strength of each relative
to other nations at critical times in its history. As a world superpower, the nation
seldom uses soft power (attracting support by example, ideals and diplomacy) and
relies too frequently or hastily instead on hard power (achieving support and goals
through economic sanctions and military threats or force.). The Obama administration,
has tried to redress the balance with a greater willingness to talk and negotiate
through what he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton call smart power.
As a first factor, for the USA, the nations vulnerability in relation to the European
nations involved in the settlement of North America was decisive in its foreign relations
until 1900 or 19415. Europes leadership in world affairs during much of American
history and the predominance of Europeans among immigrants to the USA until
recently has marked the Euro-centred character of American foreign relations
Second, its history of settlement and immigration is a major influence on the US
foreign policy. Immigration has produced both isolationism and internationalism in
American foreign policy, as Americans expressed their wish to avoid or cultivate
contacts with their former homelands.
Uncorrupted by the past, America would offer people a chance to start again and do
better. This is the belief that Americas foreign affairs are not self-interested but based
on a mission to offer the world a better form of society characterized by the ideals of
the American creed: the US version of republican form of government, economic and
political freedom, egalitarian social relations and democracy. Americans sense that
they have a unique mission to set an example for the rest of the world, to export
American freedom and democracy and so conduct its foreign policy.
Third factor: the nations geographical position. With the USA in the center of the
globe, broad oceans separate the Americas from the other continents (physical
isolation) and most of the worlds population and farmland, and all of the other great
powers are located in Europe and Asia. Both factors made believe the USA was world
enough for its inhabitants but the geographical separation has also contributed to a
tradition of national insecurity and Americans have periodically felt surrounded. The
felt need for continental security has been regularly advanced as a justification for
territorial expansion through war, purchase or negotiation.

2. From Neutrality to Isolationism, 1776-1830

During this time, the USA tried to steer clear of alliances with great powers and instead
strove to keep its neutrality in foreign affairs and to act unilaterally.
During the colonial period, every war between the European powers had its American
phase, and the new nation could not afford to have that pattern continue. George
Washington stated the principle of neutrality in his so called Farewell Address (1796):
avoid political and military alliances while cultivating trading relations with other
countries. The core ideas of the Address remained as pillar of American foreign policy
until after the Second World War.
Fear of becoming a pawn of British or French schemes for expanded international
power was the mainspring of American policy in this period. The Alien and Sedition
Acts (1798) were more evidence of this fear as these laws were directed against
foreign subversives who might undermine the nation from within. They were also an
early sign of deep insecurities about the loyalties of newcomers in a nation of
immigrants.
The foreign-policy statement from the early period that contributed most to the
development of later policy was the Monroe Doctrine. The Doctrine can be reduced to
three basic principles. The first (called non-colonization) is that the USA opposed any
new colonies in the Americas. The second (non-intervention) demanded that the
European powers remain uninvolved in the affairs of New World nations. The third (noninterference) amounted to accepting the presence of the remaining European colonies
in the Americas and keeping aloof from European affairs. The British navy prevented
other European nations from violating the Doctrine until around 1900 and opened Latin
America for British economic influence.
The Monroe Doctrine transformed American neutrality into isolationism. The Americas
were declared the USAs exclusive sphere of interest and only USAs brand of
republican government would influence Latin America. In short, the Doctrine expressed
the mixture of idealism and ideological domination that was to become typical of US
relations with Latin America.

3. From expansionism to imperialism, 1783-1914

During this time, the USA was preoccupied with developments that Americans often
viewed as internal affairs. Early in the nineteenth century, the USA roughly tripled its
territory through treaty and purchase. Most Americans viewed these as legal and
unaggressive ways to consolidate US territory and minimize the dangers of European

interference. In reality, much of American foreign policy to about 1900 consisted of war
and treaty negotiations with native peoples.
Such enormous increases in the countrys size inspired the growth of an intense
national pride. Some advocates of expansion emphasized that only a nation spanning
the continent could effectively isolate itself from external threats. Others told
themselves that they were extending the benefits of democracy to less advanced
peoples.
In the decades after the Civil War, expansionist gained support from several sources.
Businessmen and farmers demanded the opening of new markets abroad to prevent
overproduction causing economic depressions at home. Military strategists pointed out
that a strong navy and overseas bases were necessary to keep these markets open
and protect US shipping. Religion leaders supported overseas missions and the
civilizing of foreign peoples. When federal government declared the western frontier
closed in 1890, some people feared that Americans would lose their strength and
endurance if they did not find frontiers abroad. Buoyed up on this wave of public
opinion, US foreign policy became territorially and economically imperialist around the
turn of the century. That is to say, America used hard power to impose its control on
overseas people, both formally (through colonization, annexation, and military
occupation) and informally (through military threats, economic domination and political
subversion.
American trade expanded rapidly, especially in Asia and Latin America. In 1904
President Theodore Roosevelt announced the revision of the Monroe Doctrine known as
the Roosevelt Corollary. According to the corollary, the USA was justified in intervening
in the internal affairs of Latin America nations if their politics or economies became
unstable. Between 1900 and 1917, the USA intervened in six different Latin American
countries through presidential action.
Some anti-imperialist claimed that such executive sending of US military forces abroad
for intervention or colonization upset the balance of power in foreign policy between
the President and Congress by increasing his importance as commander-in-chief. Other
opponents of imperialism stressed that America could gain access to foreign markets
without oppressing other peoples. Prominent leaders of the progressive movement
protested that America ought to clean up its political corruption and inequalities at
home instead of exhausting its energies abroad. Both traditionalists and the
progressives also asked Americans to remember their historic commitment to selfdetermination in the Declaration of Independence.

4. Isolationism and Internationalism, 1914-1945

Some two months before the USA declared war (FWW), President Wilson provided a
new vision of collective security in his famous Fourteen Points which constituted
Wilsons public justification for participating in the war
The essential elements of the Fourteen Points can be reduced to three major
categories.
The first was all nations right to self-determination. National boundaries were to be
redrawn after the war so that every people could freely determine whether it wished
to be an independent country.
The second category was a general set of principles for governing international
conduct after the war. Among the main principles included were free trade, freedom of
the seas, global disarmament and the outlawing of secret alliances.
Finally, Wilsons proposal for collective security would transform into a League of
Nations that would put self-determination and the other principles into effect and
defend them. The key provision here was the public commitment of each League
member to defend the principles and each other by diplomatic and military means,
when necessary.
The conditions on American aid to the Allied war effort, combined with the Allies very
different experience, made the US position seem morally arrogant. Although America
claimed to be materially disinterested, its call for freedom of the seas and free trade
would benefit the USA most since its industrial plant was booming and its fleet the
least damaged. The Allies rejected all the Fourteen Points but the League. The US
Senate failed to ratify the treaty Wilson brought home from the Paris peace conference.
They wanted to design safeguards for peace that would not limit Americas tradition
freedom to act unilaterally in word affairs. The League was formed but, without US
participation, it never became an effective international force.
During the rest of the 1920s US foreign policy centered on eliminating obstacles to
American trade. However, the USA and European nations failed to agree on a plan to
revive European economies by cancelling or easing their war debts to America, and in
1930 Congress passed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which effectively closed
the US market to most European goods.
In the 1930s, however, this limited internationalism was replaced by isolationism.
American voters make it clear that their last wish was to be dragged into another OldWorld War.
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on December 1941 united the American
people in a fervent commitment to war. In a few days, Congress had declared war on

all the axis powers and announced its support of the Allies. Roosevelt called the Allies
the United Nations (UN) almost from the start. He also ensured that American troops
were integrated with those of Britain and France. Joint command and cooperation, he
had decided, would prevent complaints about American arrogance.

5. The Cold War Era, 1946-92

Soviets forces set up pro-Communist governments in Eastern Europe. Truman ordered
the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki searching for bringing the
war to a rapid close. The chain of events divided the globe into the opposing blocks of
the Cold War. A year later, Churchill said and iron curtain existed between Sovietcontrolled Eastern Europe and Western Europe with its American ally.
American policy-makers became convinced that the Soviets were intent on establishing
communist regimes around the world. In 1917 President Truman announced what
became known as the Truman Doctrine. According to the Doctrine, the USA had to
follow a policy of containment to prevent communist expansion anywhere in the world.
Thus the stage was set for direct American involvement in internal conflicts and wars,
not only in Latin America but also around the world.
In the late 1940s, the USA took steps to meet the communist threat and in the process
revolutionized ts foreign policy. It kept its military forces near wartime levels, extending
mandatory military service into peacetime, continuing its military build-up, expanding
atomic research and giving nuclear weapons a central place in its arsenal. The National
Security Act of 1947 reorganized the federal government by centralizing control over
all branches of the military in a new Department of Defense (the Pentagon) and
creating the National Security Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Secretary of State Marshall became convinced that the USA ought to fund the
economic revival of Europe. The motives for the so-called Marshall Plan were mixed. In
general the hope was to learn from the mistakes of US policy after the First World War.
Assisting Europe could absorb surpluses that threatened to cause an economic
recession in the USA, and a revitalized Europe would provide markets for American
goods. Finally, it was believed that prosperous economies would strengthen European
resistance to communism.
The sense that the world consisted of two warring camps threatening each other with
nuclear destruction led the US to reverse its historic refusal to form permanent military
alliances. The Organization of American States (OAS) founded in 1948 was followed by
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1950. Commitment to internationalism
had irreversibly replaced the countrys traditional isolationism.

The CIAs covert involvement in the Bay of Pigs affair and the Cuban Missile Crisis
raised Cold War tensions to new heights. However, after the missile crisis, relations
between the two superpowers began to improve. In the 1970s President Nixon initiated
the policy known as dtente (peaceful coexistence) and the gradual reduction of
nuclear arsenals that later Presidents continued.
In Asia, the United States committed itself to containing communism in Korea,
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The Vietnam War produced massive anti-war protest at
home and anti-American demonstrations abroad.
An important turning point in US foreign relations came when President Nixon opened
talks with the leaders of mainland China, and thus reduced the apparent threat of
communism. Nevertheless, in the later 1970s the relationship between the two powers
grew tenser.
American policy towards Latin America varied with the temperature of the Cold War.
Still, the commitment to containment has generally led to US support to right wing
regimes in Americas backyard, where apparent stability has often seemed more vital
than human rights.

6. The Sole Superpower in the Post-Cold War Era

Military conflicts and political unrest continued within the Russian federation and in
newly independent neighbouring nations. The USA wanted to aid these nations with
their reconstruction, but debated on how to do so without interfering too much in their
internal affairs or provoking Russia. Many former East Block nations exhibited strong
support for US foreign policy views and several of these nations indicated a wish to
become members of the NATO and some did. Russia dislikes the eastern expansion of
NATO and is convinced that it is an evidence of American expansionism so at the
present US-Russian relationship is uneasy
As the sole remaining superpower, the USA faced mounting pressure at home and
abroad to act in the increasing disorder in Asia, Africa and Central America that
involved former client states of the superpowers. The USA delayed too long before
initiating a series of multilateral strategic interventions in humanitarian crises (in
Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti) and diplomatic efforts to bring peace in long-standing
conflicts (in Northern Ireland, North Korea and Palestine).
The results of what some critics called the new interventionism were mixed.
Commentators debated over how often and how forcibly the superpower should act,
those abroad generally wanting international leadership from America but expecting it
to come in concert (most often through the UN) and in agreement with their policy

aims. There was heated disagreement about how much the US should allow its foreign
policy to be influenced by the agendas of other nations and international organizations.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century US relations with Europe were sometimes
tense. Between 2002-3 and 2008 (Irak wars) friction between the USA and many of its
traditional allies in Europe and elsewhere grew. Explanations for this frequently
focussed on the policies of the Bush administration and his strategies in the war on
terror.
After taking office in 2001, Bush followed so-called new foreign policy realism. That
approach dictated that the USA should review its international commitments, acting
energetically to achieve key objectives and withdraw, while rejecting or scaling down
involvements that did not serve the countrys interest. Bush also embarked on a major
modernization and expansion of the countrys military capabilities. But from terrorists
attacks of 9/11 the President announced a global war on terrorism. As the sole
superpower the USA adopted a strongly interventionist stance to change the world
according to American ideals and interests, rather than merely to manage the worlds
crises as a kind of global police officer. It used military force to bring regime change
where it judged such action necessary.
In an age of global terrorism, President Bush announced the USA would take preemptive action attacking an enemy as it prepared to strike, and preventative action
attacking even without evidence of an imminent enemy strike. Bush identified some
nations as axis of evil stretching from North Korea through Iran to Iraq.
Meeting the challenge of continued global terrorism, the war on terrorism could be
credited with the destruction of many terrorist groups abroad and with preventing
additional attacks on home soil. Its successes became controversial, however, due to
the high financial burdens and serious limitations on individuals civil liberties that
resulted from the implementation of the administrations chief anti-terrorism law, the
USA Patriot Act.

7. The Foreign-Policy Establishment Debate

The Constitutions system of check and balances requires the executive and legislative
branches to share responsibility for the nations relations with other countries.
Congress was the dominant partner for most of the nineteenth century, except for the
Civil War years. The shift toward executive power during the 1900s resulted from the
near constant international crisis involving the USA. The President grew increasingly
dominant until failures of executive policy involved with the Vietnam War provoked
both congressional attempts to correct the balance between the branches and greater

presidential caution in making foreign commitments. After 9/11, however, a high

degree of executive dominance in foreign policy has returned.
The organization of the congressional and executive institutions in the foreign-policy
establishment creates opportunities for many interest groups to exercise influence.
Each chamber of Congress has a permanent committee that specializes in foreign
policy, with subcommittees to deal with all the major regions of the world and
important international issues. Both chambers have, in addition, several other
committees (with their subcommittees) that are involved in foreign policy decisions.
The State Department and Department of Defense are organized into groups of
specialists that focus on international affairs or areas of the world. These groups
formulate policy suggestions that they send to the Secretary of State or the Secretary
of Defense, who forwards them to the EOP and Congress. Although the President
usually decides on major policy concerns, department bureaucrats manage the daily
implementation of policy. The EOPs National Security Council eclipsed the Department
of State and Defense as the center of policy-making in foreign relations by the mid1960s, and diminished congressional influence in foreign policy.
The President is the commander in-chief but, with very limited military experience,
depends on the advice of the leaders of the armed forces and other military experts.
He cannot declare war, therefore the common pattern of events in recent decades is
that the President commits US military personnel (military action) or otherwise
responds to an attack on American interest or citizens, and soon after informs
Congress, asking for support.
One of the Presidents primary duties is to carry out foreign policy, but the Constitution
requires the approval of both houses of Congress for the governmental expenditures
that all foreign policy initiatives depend on. The President alone can negotiate treaties
with other governments, but all treaties must be ratified by two-thirds in the Senate.
President nominates people to ambassadorial and other high level positions in the
American Foreign Service but all such appointments must be approved by a majority in
the Senate. Nevertheless the President can rely on White House advisors (Executive
Office of the President-EOP), who do not need Senate approval.
The possibility for extensive personal diplomacy between world leaders and the media
attention it commands have made the President the visible maker of foreign policy
more than ever before.
Observes emphasize that the foreign-policy establishment has yet another component,
the personal advisors and agencies in the EOP. The Presidents national security
advisor, the National Security Agency (NSA), the joint chiefs of staff of the military and

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) often evolve a third of priorities and policies. One
of the chief governmental changes after 9/11 consolidated national security and
intelligence into a single new structure, the Department of Homeland Security, in 2002.