Journeys of Discovery

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-35
Author(s):  
Pallavi Raghavan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Alliances ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter explores the geopolitical legacy of colonialism between India and Pakistan, and the United States, by investigating the influence over trade, military alliances, and international politics. The chapter covers India and Pakistan’s foreign policy and factors that lead up to the transfer of power. The chapter focuses on preexisting colonial ideas and strategies that optimized India’s, Pakistan’s, and the United States’ positions during the Cold War.

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.

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.

A Guerra Fria na historiografia revisionista: a política externa dos Estados Unidos com a China, 1890-1909

Diálogos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Flavio Alves Combat
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Chinese Market ◽  
The Cold War

O objetivo do artigo é analisar a condução da política externa estadunidense com a China, entre 1890 e 1909, tomando como referencial a interpretação historiográfica dos autores revisionistas William Appleman Williams e Walter LaFeber. Propõe-se que o “anticolonialismo imperial” engendrado pelos Estados Unidos no processo de disputa pela abertura do mercado chinês está na origem dos conflitos com as tradicionais potências imperialistas. O trabalho explora, portanto, a tese historiográfica revisionista segundo a qual a política externa norte-americana radicada nos princípios da “Open Door Policy” é fundamental para a compreensão de antagonismos que contribuíram para a Guerra Fria. Abstract The aim of the article is to analyze the conduct of US foreign policy with China between 1890 and 1909, taking as reference the historiographical interpretation of the revisionist authors William Appleman Williams and Walter LaFeber. It is proposed that the "imperial anticolonialism" engendered by the United States in the process of dispute over the opening of the Chinese market is at the origin of conflicts with the traditional imperialist powers. The paper thus explores the revisionist historiographical thesis that US foreign policy rooted in the principles of the Open Door Policy is fundamental to understanding the antagonisms that contributed to the Cold War. Resumen El objetivo del artículo es analizar la conducción de la política exterior estadounidense con China, entre 1890 y 1909, tomando como referencial la interpretación historiográfica de los autores revisionistas William Appleman Williams y Walter LaFeber. Se propone que el "anticolonialismo imperial" engendrado por Estados Unidos en el proceso de disputa por la apertura del mercado chino es el origen de los conflictos con las tradicionales potencias imperialistas. El trabajo explora, por lo tanto, la tesis historiográfica revisionista según la cual la política exterior norteamericana radicada en los principios de la "Open Door Policy" es fundamental para la comprensión de antagonismos que contribuyeron a la Guerra Fría

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez and Guion Bluford

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-166
Author(s):  
Cathleen Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Adverse Impact ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
Black Man ◽  
The Cold War

Cathleen Lewis argues that throughout the Cold War, race played an important role in foreign policy with the United States painfully aware that its civil rights situation could have an adverse impact on foreign policy ambitions abroad. The USSR preyed on that U.S. sensitivity, calling the country out on its failures. In the early 1980s, almost a decade after U.S. foreign policy had all but abandoned race as a Cold War issue, the race issue reemerged, albeit briefly when the USSR launched the first black man into space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, beating NASA’s own Guion Bluford. This final battle over race in the Cold War ultimately revealed American domestic progress and the hollowness of Soviet space stunts.

Hawk in the Cold War Twilight

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Bashevkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Left Feminism

Chapter 3 considers Jeane Kirkpatrick’s influence during the early 1980s as the first woman ambassador from the United States to the United Nations. Kirkpatrick built a reputation as an outspoken diplomat with a visceral belief in America’s greatness. She supported a muscular but prudent defense of US interests well before her cabinet appointment. As the only woman in President Ronald Reagan’s initial cabinet, Kirkpatrick helped to ensure that the foreign policy directions of his first presidency reflected her views. Critical of left feminism prior to her time in executive office, Kirkpatrick served a Republican administration that won office thanks to support from an electorate that held similar views.

The Cold War Politics of Soviet Federal Structures, 1945–1965

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-207
Author(s):  
Étienne Forestier-Peyrat
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Federal Structure

Abstract This article shows how official discussions of federal arrangements within the USSR affected Soviet foreign policy from the 1940s through the 1960s, especially on questions of decolonization and relations with the United States and other Western countries. Connecting Soviet domestic history and international developments, the article shows how the federal structure of the USSR was used in transnational debates on composite polities, race, and nationality and also how it was debated internally. Attacks on the highly centralized nature of Soviet federal structures in international arenas and the countermeasures adopted as part of the ideological Cold War had long-term as well as short-term effects on Soviet politics and foreign policy. Within the USSR, such attacks raised questions about the ethnofederal structure of the USSR and provided comparison points for both loyalist and dissident proponents of national rights in the country.

17. US foreign policy in Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Patman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Africa. It first considers the United States’ historical engagement with Africa, particularly during the Cold War era that saw the intensification of US–Soviet Union superpower rivalry, before discussing the rise of a New World Order in the immediate post–Cold War period that held out the possibility of positive US involvement in Africa. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a more realist approach after Somalia, as well as its renewal of limited engagement between 1996 and 2001. It also analyzes US policy towards Africa after 9/11, with emphasis on President George W. Bush’s efforts to incorporate Africa into Washington’s global strategic network as part of the new war on terror, as compared to the approach of the Obama administration calling for political transformation in Africa.

Cross-Domain Deterrence in American Foreign Policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-49
Author(s):  
Michael Nacht ◽  
Patricia Schuster ◽  
Eva C. Uribe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Korean War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter assesses the role of cross-domain deterrence in recent American foreign policy. Cross-domain deterrence is not a new phenomenon, even if our consciousness of it may be. Prominent cases from the Cold War, such as the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, can be interpreted through the lens of cross-domain deterrence and fruitfully compared with more contemporary cases, such as the Stuxnet attack on Iran. These cases illustrate the variation across domains by the adversary and U.S. responses. Considered together, the United States generally responded to these crises by initially limiting itself to the domain where a crisis started and only later expanding into other domains. The United States has typically been cautious when shifting domains and has tried to escalate in ways that would not produce adversarial retaliation.

scholarly journals SKYHAWK, SKYSHIELD, AND THE SOVIETS: REVISITING CANADA'S COLD WAR

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-475
Author(s):  
ASA MCKERCHER ◽  
TIMOTHY ANDREWS SAYLE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The Past ◽  
Canadian Foreign Policy ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractFor the past two decades, Canadian international historians have largely missed the Cold War, or at least a significant portion of it. Certainly, there has been no shortage of studies of Canadian foreign policy featuring the bipolar struggle, and yet historians have largely confined their attention to Canada's admittedly crucial relationship with the United States, while Canadian–Soviet relations have been ignored. Indeed, in the historiography of Canada's Cold War international relations, the communist powers are largely missing. Hoping to challenge this limited focus, we frame our article around two Canada–US air defence exercises held in 1959 and 1960. While historians have viewed these exercises within the context of Canada's relationship with the United States, we highlight the wider Cold War framework in which Canadian policy was formed. After all, these exercises occurred during the mini-détente of the late 1950s and the collapse of the Paris summit in May 1960. As we demonstrate, the failure to take full account of the Cold War is a shortcoming of much of the writing on Canadian international relations, and so we offer an example of the need to take seriously Canada's foreign policy toward the communist bloc.

The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy

2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keir A. Lieber ◽  
Daryl G. Press
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Long Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Nuclear Exchange ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

For nearly half a century, the world's most powerful nuclear-armed states have been locked in a condition of mutual assured destruction. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the nuclear balance has shifted dramatically. The U.S. nuclear arsenal has steadily improved; the Russian force has sharply eroded; and Chinese nuclear modernization has progressed at a glacial pace. As a result, the United States now stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy, meaning that it could conceivably disarm the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia and China with a nuclear first strike. A simple nuclear exchange model demonstrates that the United States has a potent first-strike capability. The trajectory of nuclear developments suggests that the nuclear balance will continue to shift in favor of the United States in coming years. The rise of U.S. nuclear primacy has significant implications for relations among the world's great powers, for U.S. foreign policy, and for international relations scholarship.

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