A Review of American Foreign Policy1.doc

A Review of American Foreign Policy Questions for Discussion1. Americas war on Spain in the late 19th century ended up humbling Americas shaky opponent and bringing in new territories from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, as Jay Tolson mentions in his article. What is the implication in this victory in terms of American international position?2. Political soccer games often show so many views yet so little consensus. But in fact its always been this way in American polities. How do you understand the process of approaching political consensus in US polities.3. George Washington stated: “ It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” although he insisted that the nation could prudently enter “temporary alliance for extraordinary emergencies.” What is the theory of this foreign policy?4. In 1946, Winston Churchill warned about an “iron curtain” and the policy of the Containment thus came into being. Would the history of the Cold War support this kind of policy?5. after WWII, Trumans $13 billion Marshall Plan spurred Europes miraculous economic recovery and created the momentum for its growing integration. But do you think this plan has solved problem between Europe and the United States in foreign affairs?6. In terms of American foreign policies, Sino-American diplomatic relationship is one of the important issues. Do you think that the relationship between China and the US is of strange rivalry or strategic partnership?Culture notes1. William McKinley the 25th president of USA2. Puerto Rico a self-governing island commonwealth of the United States in the Carribbean Sea.3. pre-emptive 先发制人的 relating to a military strike made so as to gain the advantage when an enemy strike is believed to be imminent.4.murky 含糊的 obscure5. demolition 摧毁 the act of destroying6.insurgency 叛乱 rebellion7. Promised Land 理想中的乐土 a longed-for place where complete satisfaction and happiness will be achieved.8.Moroe Doctrine 门罗主义 this doctrine regards any attack upon the territory of an American state as the threat to all American nations9.exceptionism 例外论 that stresses the uniqueness of American position10. unanimous 一致的 sharing the same opinion or views11. concur 同意 agree12. unilateralism 单边主义 a tendency of nations to conduct their foreign affairs individualistically13. no entangling alliances 不与任何国家纠结为盟 do not get involved in any alliances with other countries.14. expansionism 扩张主义 a nations practice or policy of territorial or economic expansion15.cede 割让 to surrender possession of, especially by treaty16. Northwest Ordinance 西北条例 Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance to establish the Northwest territory in which slavery was abolished17. Louisiana Purchase 路易斯安那购置案 the United States bought Louisiana and neighboring areas from France in 180318.Henry David Thoreau 梭罗 American writer, a figure in the history of American thought19. luminary 杰出人物 20. Alfred Mahan 马汉 American naval officer and historian whose written work promoted a worldwide buildup of naval strength prior to World War I 21. Woodrow Wilson the 28th president of USA22. dictum 声明 an authoritative, often formal, pronouncement23. League of Nations 国际联盟 a world organization established in 1920 to promote international cooperation and peace.24. Henry Cabot Lodge 洛奇 American politician who successfully opposed United States membership in the League of Nations25. FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt26. Security Council 联合国安理会 the permanent peacekeeping organ of the United States27. Containment 遏制政策 a policy of checking the expansion or influence of a hostile power or ideology, as by the creation of strategic alliances ore support of client states in areas of conflict or unrest28.iron curtain 铁幕 the military, political, and ideological barrier established between the Soviet bloc and western Europe after World War II29. George F. Kennan American diplomat who recommended the policy of containment toward Soviet aggression30. supremacy 霸权 supreme power or authority31. Truman Doctrine 杜鲁门主义 President Truman issued a tough foreign policy in containing the expansion of the Soviet Unions in 194732. galvanize 唤醒 to arouse to awareness or action; spur33. Meliorism 世界改良论 the belief that society has an innate tendency toward improvement and that this tendency may be furthered through conscious human effort34. World Bank 世界银行 an agency of the UN, established in 1945 to make loans to member nations35. International Monetary Fund 国际货币基金组织 established in 1944 with its headquarters stationed in the US36. Marshall Plan 马歇尔计划 the European Recovery Program put forward by General Marshall in 194737. Henry Kissinger 基辛格 German-born American diplomat who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize for helping negotiate the Vietnam cease-fire38. Cold War 冷战 a state of political tension and military rivalry between nations that stops short of full-scale war39.Berlin Wall 柏林墙 built up by the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War to separate the east Berlin form the west.President William McKinleys reluctant 1898 decision to declare war on Spain ended up humbling Americas shaky opponent and bringing in new territories from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. But for the first time in its history, the United States has joined those world powers that were intent o n planting flags on foreign lands. Having often tried to justify the war to himself and others, the 25th president concluded, a year before his death, that it was the greatest grief of his life. McKinley is not the only American troubled by seeing the nations name used in conjunction with the word empire. Today, with talk of regime change in Iraq, pre-emptive strikes against potential adversaries, and democracy-promotion efforts in the Islamic world, many are wondering whether the worlds only superpower is succumbing to the imperial itch. To some, the imperialism question is not even a matter for debate. “The conservative movement has been hijacked and turned into a global, interventionist, open borders ideology, which is not the conservative movement I grew up with”, says P. Buchanan. And from the left, Jonathan Schell and John Hamilton declare that the United States has arrived at an “imperial moment”.Certainly not all Americans are troubled by the administrations new assertiveness in global affairs. Yale University historian John Lewis Gaddis argues that the Bush White House is far more coherent in its foreign-policy statements than was President Clintons, though he is quick to acknowledge that the single greatest cause of this clarity is the rude shock of 9/11. “ When we are attacked,” he says, “it tends to give rise to new strategies.”So many views, so little consensus. But in fact its always been this way in American polities. Whether or not this is an “imperial moment”, it is certainly a moment of reckoning. And at the heart of the discussion is the Bush Doctrine. Laid out last September and elaborated in subsequent speeches and directives, the doctrine raises fundamental foreign policy questions: Does this strategy represent a fundamental break with American diplomatic tradition? Or is it instead a creative application of those principles to the challenge of being the sole superpower in the world? Answers are murky because the world today is largely compatible with Americas values, but it also contains, as the demolition of the World Trade Center showed, shadowy insurgencies and rogue states violently opposed to Pax Americana.McDougall describes two overarching visions of American foreign policy that vie for dominance today. The first, which dominated in the 19th century, is the vision of America as Promised Land. Modest and restrained, it embraces four broad principles: In addition to an aversion to entangling alliances, the Monroe Doctrine, and the notion of Manifest Destiny, this vision emphasized American exceptionalism in the world at large.Foreign policy ideas rise and fall in popularity, come back to life, and commingle with others over time. But the recurring debates over American grand strategy, including the Bush Doctrine, can all be connected to the Eight Strands that McDougall identifies:1.Exceptionalism Americans have never been more unanimous than the founders were in their belief that America had a special place in the world. Even such rivals as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, who disagreed about almost everything else, could concur that American was the “City on the Hill” and that its people were blessed with civil and religious liberty. They also shared the conviction that their nation might one day grow into what Jefferson called and “Empire for liberty.” But it would not do so by force. Even such a visionary as Thomas Paine believed America would spread its value only by example. Perhaps the fullest elaboration of the policy implications of this conviction came in John Quincy Adams Fourth of July speech in 1821: “ American does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion only of her own.”2.Unilateralism The Founding Fathers were equally committed to unilateralism, a principled wariness about any obligations to other nations. The phrase “no entangling alliances” came from Jeffersons inaugural address, but the idea was first articulated in George Washingtons farewell message: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world，”Washington declared, adding that the nation could prudently enter “temporary alliance for extraordinary emergencies”. But extraordinary really had to be extraordinary. Indeed, when James Madison took the nation to war against Britain in 1812, he resisted the temptation to ally with France, which was then also fighting England.3. The American system Americans were understandably wary of European encroachments in the Americas. This concern for US interest in the New Hemisphere gave rise to the principle of the Americans system, originating in James Monroes address to Congress in 1823. The Monroe Doctrine, as it later came to be called, issued a clear and simple warning: no new colonies in the Americas. European powers, contending with independence movements in many of their Latin American colonies, generally heeded Monroes warning. That was fortunate, because there is little proof that Americans would have put up much of a fight if Europeans had encroached. John Quincy Adams applauded the independence movement in South American but made it clear that “it is our true policy and duty to take no part in the contest”. Monroes was, in short, a modest and flexible doctrine, though it came to be seen as a warrant for the more aggressive notion of Manifest Destiny.4. Expansionism The 19th century journalist John OSullivan coined the phrase “manifest destiny” in an 1839 article. It conveyed the belief in the divinely conferred right of the republic to expand westward and bring more of the continent into “the great experiment of Liberty and federated self-government”. But Americans had been acting upon that conviction much earlier, starting with their insistence that Britain cede all lands east of the Mississippi at the end of the Revolutionary. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and Jeffersons 1803 Louisiana Purchase confirmed that expansionist ambition. President James Polk saw Manifest Destiny as clear justification of the war he provoked with Mexico (1846-1848). That struggle secured favorable borders for the new state of Texas and wrested California and much of the southwest from a defeated Mexico, but it also elicited an unprecedented wave of criticism from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other writers of the day. The spread of slavery into the new territories was certainly a great concern, but another was the conviction that imperial acquisitions violated the spirit of the nations republican ideals.5. Progressive imperialism Had those luminaries lived until 1898, they would have been seen their worst fears confirmed. In seizing foreign lands, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and other progressive imperialists proved to be unique in American history. But in their blend of self-interested pragmatism and idealism, these men, Zimmermann says, “set the course for American foreign policy for a century”. The little-remembered naval officer and writer Alfred Mahan gave strategic shape to the progressives vision. He firmly believed that island outposts in t he Caribbean and the Pacific and a canal through Central America were essential to linking the two coasts of the continental nation and to establishing and protecting its muscle abroad and become an even more confident player in the markets of the world. But just as important to this religious moralist, command of the seas would allow Western, and particularly Christian, civilization to extend its influence to “ancient and different civilizations”. Roosevelt expressed the soaring idealism of his cohort with characteristically muscular prose: “ Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose.”6. Liberal internationalism President Woodrow Wilson carried idealism a step further by breaking with George Washingtons prime dictum against entangling alliances. He announced in 1916 address that the “United States is willing to become a partner in any feasible association of nation formed in order to realize these objects peace, national self-determination and make them safe against violation” The story of his failure to bring the United States into the League of Nations is well known: Unyielding self-righteousness and arrogance prevented him from compromising with key Rep0ublican politicians, including Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, who did not want to limit US sovereignty. Insisting that only Congress could send the US military into war, Lodge and others proposed modifications to the charter. Wilsons disastrous refusal to bend would later serve as a cautionary lesson to Franklin Roosevelt. Working with politicians form both parties, FDR saw to it that the United Nations charter included a mechanism for limiting the will of the majority: the Security Council, any of whose permanent members could veto a war resolution. Roosevelt succeeded where Wilson had failed by tempering idealism with realism, unilateralism with multilateralism. 7. Containment The post-World War II reality soon compelled American statesmen and politicians to think beyond the vision of benign multilateral cooperation. Joseph Stain made it clear in a 1946 speech that there could be no real cooperation between capitalist and communist nations. In the same year, Winston Churchill warned about an “iron curtain” descending across Europe, while diplomat George F. Kennan sent in his famous “long telegram”, which warned of the Kremlins “neurotic view of world affairs” and its determination to destroy “our traditional way of life” to secure Soviet Supremacy. Kennans later article for Foreign Affairs, signed “X”, called for “firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”. Other warnings and Soviet actions led to the Truman Doctrine o f1947. Thanks to his masterful salesmanship, Henry Truman managed, as Kupchan writes, “to galvanize the support of the public behind economic aid, re-armament, and the formation of the alliance network needed to contain communism”, in 1950, Kennans successor as head of the State Departments policy planning staff, Paul Nitze, called for a massive buildup of US military might. Containment continues to do today in American foreign policies against rogue states and terrorists.8. Global Meliorism McDougalls ungainly phrase encompasses a range of policies, all connected with doing good works abroad and generally making the world a better place to live. Such policies had been occasionally implemented even before the middle of the 20th century. For instance, the Herbert Hoover-directed War Food and American Relief administrations brought neces