scholarly journals The History of American Foreign Policy Thought: Debates about the US Sovereignty in the Late 20th – Early 21st Centuries

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Aleksei D. Katkov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

In the 1990s the end of the Cold War and the US’s efforts to build a “new world order” actualized in scientific discourse the problem of understanding the principle of state sovereignty. Moreover, due to the WTO accession, the discussion among United States’ scholars intensified about the preservation of sovereignty of their own state. As a result, both the US authorities and most experts advocate the inviolability of the sovereignty of their country, noting, however, that it might be temporarily limited by different international obligations, first of all by economic agreements, but this does not affect it radically and the possibility of withdrawing from various kinds of contracts remains. At the same time, the last superpower’s foreign policy actions at the end of the 20th century (interference in the internal affairs of Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Yugoslavia, etc.) clearly illustrate the disregard for the sovereignty of other states. In an attempt to explain this policy, they argued that sovereignty, while remaining a significant principle in general, can be lost, which opens up the legitimate path to the internationalization of a conflict. All in all, despite the fact that such an understanding of sovereignty as a conditional principle, is not new in itself, the United States took some steps to extend this understanding to the whole world, granting itself the right to single-handedly determine cases where and why sovereign rights are lost.

US grand strategy after the Cold War: Can realism explain it? Should realism guide it?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M Walt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Elites

This article uses realism to explain past US grand strategy and prescribe what it should be today. Throughout its history, the United States has generally acted as realism depicts. The end of the Cold War reduced the structural constraints that states normally face in anarchy, and a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy elites attempted to use this favorable position to expand the US-led ‘liberal world order’. Their efforts mostly failed, however, and the United States should now return to a more realistic strategy – offshore balancing – that served it well in the past. Washington should rely on local allies to uphold the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East and focus on leading a balancing coalition in Asia. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump lacks the knowledge, competence, and character to pursue this sensible course, and his cavalier approach to foreign policy is likely to damage America’s international position significantly.

scholarly journals US Foreign Policy at the Initial Stage of the Cold War

1970 ◽  
pp. 32-44
Author(s):  
D. Lakishyk ◽  
D. Puhachova-Lakishyk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Far East ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

The article examines the formation of the main directions of the US foreign policy strategy at the beginning of the Cold War. The focus is on determining the vectors of the United States in relation to the spatial priorities of the US foreign policy, the particular interests in the respective regions, the content of means and methods of influence for the realization of their own geopolitical interests. It is argued that the main regions that the United States identified for itself in the early postwar years were Europe, the Middle and Far East, and the Middle East and North Africa were the peripheral ones (attention was also paid to Latin America). It is stated that the most important priorities of American foreign policy were around the perimeter of the zone of influence of the USSR, which entered the postwar world as an alternative to the US center  of power. Attention is also paid to US foreign policy initiatives such as the Marshall Plan and the 4th Point Program, which have played a pivotal role inshaping American foreign policy in the postwar period.

Finding Faith in Foreign Policy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregorio Bettiza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
First Century ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
Muslim Politics ◽  
The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War, religion has been systematically brought to the fore of American foreign policy. US foreign policymakers have been increasingly tasked with promoting religious freedom globally, delivering humanitarian and development aid abroad through faith-based channels, pacifying Muslim politics and reforming Islamic theologies in the context of fighting terrorism, and engaging religious actors to solve multiple conflicts and crises around the world. Across a range of different domains, religion has progressively become an explicit and organized subject and object of US foreign policy in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. If God was supposed to be vanquished by the forces of modernity and secularization, why has the United States increasingly sought to understand and manage religion abroad? In what ways have the boundaries between faith and state been redefined as religion has become operationalized in American foreign policy? What kind of world order is emerging in the twenty-first century as the most powerful state in the international system has come to intervene in sustained and systematic ways in sacred landscapes around the globe? This book addresses these questions by developing an original theoretical framework and drawing upon extensive empirical research and interviews. It argues that American foreign policy and religious forces have become ever more inextricably entangled in an age witnessing a global resurgence of religion and the emergence of a postsecular world society.

The connection between the «color revolutions» and the strategic doctrines of the United States (late 20th century — 2014)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Igorevna Filimonova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Us ◽  
Color Revolutions ◽  
The Right

After the collapse of the USSR, fundamentally new phenomena appeared on the world arena, which became a watershed separating the bipolar order from the monopolar order associated with the establishment of the US global hegemony. Such phenomena were the events that are most often called «revolutions» in connection with the scale of the changes being made — «velvet revolutions» in the former Eastern Bloc, as well as revolutions of a different type, which ended in a change in the current regimes with such serious consequences that we are also talking about revolutionary transformations. These are technologies of «color revolutions» that allow organizing artificial and seemingly spontaneous mass protests leading to the removal of the legitimate government operating in the country and, in fact, to the seizure of power by a pro-American forces that ensure the Westernization of the country and the implementation of "neoliberal modernization", which essentially means the opening of national markets and the provision of natural resources for the undivided use of the Western factor (TNC and TNB). «Color revolutions» are inseparable from the strategic documents of the United States, in which, from the end of the 20th century, even before the collapse of the USSR, two main tendencies were clearly traced: the expansion of the right to unilateral use of force up to a preemptive strike, which is inextricably linked with the ideological justification of «missionary» American foreign policy, and the right to «assess» the internal state of affairs in countries and change it to a «democratic format», that is, «democratization». «Color revolutions», although they are not directly mentioned in strategic documents, but, being a «technical package of actions», straightforwardly follow from the right, assigned to itself by Washington, to unilateral use of force, which is gradually expanding from exclusively military actions to a comprehensive impact on an opponent country, i.e. essentially a hybrid war. Thus, the «color revolutions» clearly fit into the strategic concept of Washington on the use of force across the entire spectrum (conventional and unconventional war) under the pretext of «democratization». The article examines the period of registration and expansion of the US right to use force (which, according to the current international law, is a crime without a statute of limitations) in the time interval from the end of the twentieth century until 2014, filling semantic content about the need for «democratic transformations» of other states, with which the United States approached the key point of the events of the «Arab spring» and «color revolutions» in the post-Soviet space, the last and most ambitious of which was the «Euromaidan» in Ukraine in 2014. The article presents the material for the preparation of lectures and seminars in the framework of the training fields «International Relations» and «Political Science».

scholarly journals Conflict in the Middle East: The US and the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Matthew Dotzler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Boiling Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Northern Iraq ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Kurdish Conflict

The conflict between Turkey and the Kurds is once again reaching a boiling point. Following the defeat of ISIL in northern Iraq and Syria, Turkey is now concerned that the returning Kurdish militias pose a threat to its national security. The United States, as an ally to both parties, finds itself in a unique position to push for diplomatic solutions and to mediate the conflict before it grows out of control once again. This paper will examine the history of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, the actors involved, and how US foreign policy can be used to try and deter yet another war in the region.

scholarly journals Features of the US Foreign Policy Towards the Central Asian States

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81
Author(s):  
E. V. Kryzhko ◽  
P. I. Pashkovsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Us

The article examines the features of the US foreign policy towards the Central Asian states in the post-bipolar period. The imperatives and constants, as well as the transformation of Washington’s Central Asian policy, have been characterized. It is shown that five Central Asian states have been in the focus of American foreign policy over the past thirty years. In the process of shaping the US foreign policy in Central Asia, the presence of significant reserves of energy and mineral resources in the region was of great importance. Therefore, rivalry for Caspian energy resources and their transportation routes came to the fore. In addition to diversifying transport and logistics flows and supporting American companies, the US energy policy in Central Asia was aimed at preventing the restoration of Russia’s economic and political influence, as well as countering the penetration of China, which is interested in economic cooperation with the countries of the region. During the period under review, the following transformation of mechanisms and means of Washington’s policy in the Central Asian direction was observed: the policy of “exporting democracy”; attempts to “nurture” the pro-American elite; striving to divide states into separate groups with permanent “appointment” of leaders; involvement in a unified military system to combat terrorism; impact on the consciousness of the population in order to destabilize geopolitical rivals; building cooperation on a pragmatic basis due to internal difficulties and external constraints. Central Asian states sympathized with the American course because of their interest in technology and investment. At the same time, these states in every possible way distanced themselves from the impulses of “democratization” from Washington. Kazakhstan was a permanent regional ally of the United States, to which Uzbekistan was striving to join. The second echelon in relations with the American side was occupied by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. A feature of the positions of the Central Asian countries is the maximum benefit from cooperation with Washington while building good-neighborly relations with Russia and China, which is in dissonance with the regional imperatives of the United States. In the future, the American strategy in Central Asia will presumably proceed from the expediency of attracting regional allies and stimulating contradictions in order to contain geopolitical rivals in the region.

Know Thyself: What Is “Wilsonianism”?

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Tony Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
History Of

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Wilsonianism, which comprises a set of ideas called American liberal internationalism. More than a century after Woodrow Wilson became president of the United States, his country is still not certain how to understand the important legacy for the country's foreign policy of the tradition that bears his name. Wilsonianism remains a living ideology whose interpretation continues either to motivate, or to serve as a cover for, a broad range of American foreign policy decisions. However, if there is no consensus on what the tradition stands for, or, worse, if there is a consensus but its claims to be part of the tradition are not borne out by the history of Wilsonianism from Wilson's day until the late 1980s, then clearly a debate is in order to provide clarity and purpose to American thinking about world affairs today.

1. Theories of US foreign policy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines some of the competing theories that have been advanced to explain U.S. foreign policy. In trying to explain the foreign policy of the United States, a number of competing theories have been developed by International Relations scholars. Some theories focus on the role of the international system in shaping American foreign policy while others argue that various domestic factors are the driving force. The chapter first considers some of the obstacles to constructing a theory of foreign policy before discussing some of the competing theories of American foreign policy, including defensive realism, offensive realism, liberalism, Marxism, neoclassical realism, and constructivism. The chapter proceeds by reviewing the theoretical debate over the origins of the Cold War and the debate over the most appropriate grand strategy that the United States should follow in the post-Cold War era.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Abrams Ansari
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
American Composers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Changing Attitudes

The introduction provides an overview of the history of musical Americanism, from the 1920s to the 1970s, in tandem with an assessment of changing attitudes toward American identity in the United States. It introduces scholarly debates surrounding the Cold War politicization of serialism and tonality and describes the various opportunities for work with government exploited by American composers during the 1950s and 1960s. These opportunities included serving as advisers to the State Department, the US Information Agency, and organizations funded by the CIA, as well as touring overseas as government-funded cultural ambassadors. These contexts establish the basis for the book’s argument that the Cold War presented both challenges and opportunities for Americanist composers that would ultimately result in a rebranding of their style.

scholarly journals Germany, the United States, and Future Core Conflict

1995 ◽  
pp. 445-482
Author(s):  
Brigitte Schulz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Common ◽  
Will Power ◽  
The Cold War

With the end of the Cold War, much attention has been paid to the nature of the emerging new world order. By what criteria will power and influence be measured in this new era? Who will be the winners and losers? What types of allegiances will develop? Or is Francis Fukuyama's argument correct that, with the collapse of communism, we have reached the "...endpoint of man's ideological evolution" and thus "the end of history". Unlike Marx, who saw socialism at the end of humanity's arduous journey, Fukuyama tells us that the search is off because we have already arrived at our evolutionary destination: liberal capitalism...Other analysts envision less optimistic scenarios...One of the most popular scenarios over the past few years has been to anticipate growing tensions between the three main core powers: the US, Germany, and Japan... The first task of this paper, then, is to look at Germany within the context of the radically altered post-Cold War period... We argue that Germany, based on a multitude of factors which will be outlined below, is not now, nor will it ever become in the foreseeable future, a global hegemon... Indeed, as will be asserted in the second part of this paper, Germany will enter into a close alliance with the United States to form a reinvigorated trans-Atlantic marriage in which the common bonds of "culture and civilization" will replace a virulent anti-communism as the common vow.

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