Since World War I, one of the biggest problems the United states has been faced with is its foreign policy. Throughout the past 100 years, foreign policy has changed depending on the times and what is going on in the rest of the world. The time period between 1918, the end of World War, to 1953, the end of the Korean War. Essentially, U.S. foreign policy evolved from “isolationist protection of war” to”protective containment of Communism.” This change occurred due changes in America’s view of the world and the role it played on the world stage.…
Brands' purpose for writing this book was to inform the reader of actions taken before, during, and after the Cold War. After World War II, the United States and Russia were the only two remaining world powers. Each had a conflicting method of government, which ultimately led to the Cold War. The two superpowers were at the center of attention for the better part of two decades. The United States underwent a geopolitical battle with the USSR to gain ground in Europe and other Eastern countries. This geopolitical battle led the United States to ally itself with many unstable nations and leaders based solely on said nations/leaders views on communism. As these nations began to topple, the United States turned to secret black ops to ensure the country stayed on the side of democracy and "freedom". The USSR was well on its way to self-destruction far before the Cold War ended. The United States kept the fight against communism alive for almost a decade longer than necessary. Brands said that by antagonizing the USSR, the United States inevitably prolonged the dilemma in the East far beyond what it should have. The USSR was crumbling, and with the United States trying to fight every anti-democratic satellite nation it kept her alive. As long as people of a nation have something to rally behind, it will be hard to stop their cause. Iraq is a perfect example: We toppled their communist dictator to put a democratic regime into play, yet there is more death and hard-line opposition than ever before. Democracy does not fit everywhere regardless of what we here in the United States would like…
Hook, Steven W. 2008. U.S. Foreign Policy: The Paradox of World Power. 2nd ed. Washington DC: CQ Press.…
Throughout the first 125 years of her history, the United States was, for the most part, an isolationist nation. After the onset of two world wars, however, America moved from an isolationist stance to become one of the world’s two superpowers. This stance would remain for almost 50 years, until the Soviet Union would come crashing down, leaving America standing as the lone superpower. But how did American foreign policy influence the world over those 50 years? Why did some Presidents take an idealistic approach to foreign policy, while others looked for more realistic approaches? Since World War II, American foreign policy has taken on a global mission. While the policy has sometimes had an idealistic approach, the realistic approach to foreign policy has benefited America and her allies more. To understand how America reached this position of global influence, one must look back to a time when America was an isolationist nation.…
The United States of America is a hegemonic power which has great influence in international politics due to its contributions to history. President Barrack Obama said in his speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point, “…America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.” When it comes down to which country holds greater influence in the international system, America is known in being a hegemon which has influence in many international institutions. The United States of America took the lead in founding the United Nations and contributes the most money towards the UN’s spending, thus shapes the UN in favour of its interests. This concept of hegemony was analyzed by Gramsci, whom used Machiavelli’s view of power as a centaur, “half man and half beast”, to argue power is a mixture of coercion and consent which are tools for hegemonic states which is what realists agree with1. In this sense, the United States has been using such “tools” to seek national interest. Thus, by examining Obama’s speech through Realist, Liberal and Marxist/critical perspectives, this essay will argue that the perspective of realism best defines America’s position in the global order through its consecutive use of hard power.…
3. The text book talks about how The United States are a power house in terms of power based on political, economic, and military status. This power is often met with resistance, much like the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. “Some domestic and foreign special interest groups disagree with U.S. government policy or intervention in events occurring outside borders.”…
There is no doubt that the United States is the New Rome' in today's world either politically or economically. However, the world has changed through globalization and information revolution, which now reduce the power of unilateralism, or hard power consisting of military and economic power. Therefore, America should adopt multilateral foreign policy rather than following its hard power policy in order to maintain and increase its status as a superpower in today's world. The new concept of soft power, other economic superpowers, and diverse climate issues substantiate this viewpoint.…
William J. Fulbright, a democratic Senator from Arkansas, was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1966 when The Arrogance of Power was published. In an excerpt from Fulbright’s book, he analyzes the misguided thinking behind America's global interventionism and its delusion of righteous all-powerfulness. These symptoms are a confusion of power and virtue. Fulbright defines the arrogance of power as, “a psychological need that nations seem to have in order to prove that they are bigger, better, or stronger than other nations” (2). William J. Fulbright uses persuasive appeals in his well structured book, The Arrogance of Power to help convey his views on U.S. war strategies.…
A key tenet of realist thinking is the concept of power, or more specifically, ‘hard power’ and its uses within the realm of international relations. It is the ability to make other actors comply with a state’s will through the use of force and threat (Copeland 2010). With this key tenet, comes the realist notion of an ongoing balancing of power between states. Some have gone so far as to call it “the central theoretical concept of international relations” (Snyder 1984). This realist sentiment can easily…
The US role in 21st century world affairs must shape an international community that benefits US interests, and is neither dependent on nor antagonistic to US global supremacy. The US may achieve this by relying on soft power and the influence of our global allies and competitors to accomplish our national security goals. America should lead world affairs through cooperation and sharing of our ideals to solve geopolitical problems, rather than relying primarily on our military preeminence. The current National Strategy calls for the United States to lead the international order “as a nation first among equals”, suggesting that it is the citizens’ responsibility to encourage stability, foster economic growth, promote democratic values, and protect global strategic interests while respecting the intertwined goals and values of the global community. America must rely on this softer strategy as we proceed into the next decade, in order to ensure our dominance at home and abroad. This forward-thinking role is practical because the world of the 21st century is a multilateral world where, while retaining military, economic, and cultural preeminence, the US may be challenged by adversaries and allies alike as power shifts and resources become scarcer. In the coming decades, our strength will rely on the ability to persuade rather than coerce our global neighbors, and to work “through, by and with” partners to cross-level political and economic burdens.…
The American Dream became a widespread term to describe the American way of life. It…
What does it mean to have power? Well to me power is have some small or large portion of power over others. When we think about power today we think of someone that is running a country or owning a company, but when we think of somebody having power it could be having nuclear codes or even making a choice that can change the path of a sports game or a class grade. When I asked my brother Richard Roberts an ex-soldier and a college student he said this “Power and integrity are typically considered to be antonyms today. Largely because people typically acquire power through less than ethical means.” The impact that a lot of power can have on an individual is sometime good sometimes bad based on the individual sometimes can be bad because the…
For Americans and many in the world, the Cold War dominated international relations from 1945-1991. Only the nuclear balance of terror prevented this uneasy peace from becoming all out war, and few if any events could be understood outside of the context of this bipolar rivalry. As the Cold War came to an end, some thought we had witnessed "an end to history."(1) Instead, we have witnessed a fundamental change in the logic of world politics. The United States has had difficulty developing a clear and coherent foreign policy in this new era. The New World Order of President Bush and the strategy of engagement and enlargement of President Clinton seem vague and ambiguous when compared to the clarity and simplicity of the American policy of containment during the Cold War. While this policy of containment rapidly gained a consensus both among the American foreign policy elite as well as the mass public after World War Il, it did represent a fundamental shift of relations with the Soviet Union from one of wartime cooperation. Explaining the origins of the Cold War has been one of the most common and contested topics in the study of American diplomatic history, and the end of the Cold War has changed how historians examine and interpret this period. Increasingly, scholars have gained access to documents, especially on the Soviet side, that have allowed them to go beyond past conjecture and utilize archival evidence. The end of the Cold War has removed much of the passion that surrounded writing Cold War history while scholars and states were still living it. This increased detachment has allowed historians to move from placing blame to recognizing the ideological conflict that was at the center of the Cold War's origins.…
Following World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War, the world was in a state of bipolarity, as the United States and the Soviet Union vied for influence. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States held the most power in the world and continues to maintain this control into the present. Critics of this theory cite the fact that the eras in which it divides history into are too broad and as a result there is little evidence that shows whether this theory will fit other scenarios, or if it was just the product of coincidence. As this theory looks at history as a long narrative, it establishes a cyclical pattern of a state’s rise to power followed by its ultimate fall. It is impossible to gain power and maintain it…
After the Civil War and by the mid-20th century, the United States had become the dominant force in international relations. Some have argued that the United States’ military functions as the world’s “police.”…