Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 239-242
Author(s):  
David F. Schmitz

The crisis of the 1930s made changes in American foreign policy a necessity, and events demonstrated that Franklin Roosevelt made the correct decisions on the major issues to protect American interests and meet the challenges. For FDR, World War II was the second chance for the United States to create a lasting peace, one based on the Grand Alliance, collective security, and the United Nations. Beyond just the defeat of Germany and Japan, it was an opportunity to build a world order that would produce peace and prosperity through a cooperative, multilateral international system. This was Roosevelt's great legacy, to envision a different world than the one that proceeded the war and to begin to establish the values and institutions it would be built on. In doing so, he transformed American foreign policy. Roosevelt was the most important and most successful foreign policymaker in the nation's history.

Author(s):  
Tony Smith

This chapter examines Franklin D. Roosevelt's liberal democratic internationalism and his efforts to assure American national security by constructing a stable world order based on the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which the United States sought to globalize in the aftermath of the Axis defeat in World War II. It first considers how FDR infused American liberalism with a healthy dose of realism about the appropriateness of democracy for other countries in the aftermath of World War II before discussing anti-imperialism as a component of American foreign policy. It also explores the United States's promotion of democracy and pursuit of a liberal world order as a means of countering Soviet imperialism. It argues that liberal democratic internationalism has been the American way of practicing balance-of-power politics in world affairs, and that the dominant logic of American foreign policy was dictated by concerns for national security.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
David F. Schmitz

Franklin Roosevelt found the traditional American foreign policy of reliance on the Monroe Doctrine, neutrality, and hemispheric defense inadequate, out-of-date, and dangerous. As a sailor, he successfully tacked and navigate in order to establish internationalism as the dominant paradigm of American foreign policy. Roosevelt's support of internationalism was based on his belief in American exceptionalism and conviction that the United States had to act as a world leader to secure peace and prosperity through collective security, and international cooperation through multilateral organizations. In the process, he developed the concept of national security that guided post-World War II American foreign policy.


Author(s):  
Gregorio Bettiza

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.


1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 369-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Schwartz

An older colleague recently observed to me that today we stand further removed in time from the end of World War II than Americans at the beginning of that conflict were from the Spanish American War. To those Americans of 1939, he said, the war with Spain seemed almost antediluvian, while to us World War II lives vividly in memory, and its consequences still shape our lives. As a student of modern American foreign policy, I found my colleague's observation particularly appropriate. American and Soviet soldiers still face each other in the middle of Germany, and Europe remains divided along the lines roughly set by the liberating armies. Yet could we now be facing major changes? Will an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons in Europe, and glasnost in the Soviet Union transform this environment? Will the postwar division of Europe come to an end? What will be the consequences for the United States?


1985 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Michael Bagley ◽  
Juan Gabriel Totkatlian

During 1981 and early 1982 - the first year and a half of Reagan's first term in office - Colombia, under the leadership of Liberal President Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978-82), surfaced as one of the staunchest U.S. allies in the turbulent Caribbean Basin. That Colombia would endorse the broad outlines of Reagan's policies came as no surprise to anyone, for the country had pursued a consistently pro-North American foreign policy throughout the post-World War II period. What did surprise many observers was the extent to which President Turbay abandoned his country's traditional low-profile approach to Caribbean and hemispheric affairs and replaced it with an activist foreign policy closely identified with the Reagan Administration.Colombia is structurally dependent upon the United States in economic, technological and military terms. While the country's industrial capacity has grown substantially in recent decades, the economy still relies heavily on agro-exports-, coffee alone accounts for two-fifths of the country's foreign exchange earnings.


Author(s):  
Tony Smith

This chapter examines Woodrow Wilson's comprehensive program for world order that came to constitute the foundation of liberal democratic internationalism, also known as Wilsonianism. Wilson's policy, designed “to make the world safe for democracy,” was not a radical departure from traditional American national security policy. His proposals to restructure world politics on the basis of a liberal world order were consistent with basic propositions of past American foreign policy. The chapter first considers the theory and practice underlying Wilsonianism before discussing the dilemma of Wilson's policy in Europe. It also explores the virtues of Wilsonianism for the postwar world, such as its acknowledgment of the fundamental political importance of nationalism. Finally, it emphasizes the resurgence of Wilsonianism in American foreign policy in the aftermath of World War II.


Author(s):  
Heather A. Warren

Reinhold Niebuhr’s ability to analyse the most fundamental aspects of human existence and reckon with them on the grandest scale has remained relevant for American foreign policy since the 1930s. In the contexts of the interwar years, the Second World War, the immediate post-war world, and the Cold War, Niebuhr called attention to the importance of justice, pride, national interest, and prudence in deliberations about the United States’ responsibilities in an interdependent world that faced the menace of communism. The Irony of American History (1952) was his extended examination of America in the new international system, and it included recommendations to guide the making of American foreign policy. Niebuhr’s principles provide insight into US successes and failures in the Vietnam, Bosnian, and Gulf Wars.


1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Connery ◽  
Paul T. David

The Mutual Defense Assistance Program represents the military portion of an important foreign policy of the United States, that of aid to free nations. While assisting allies by grants of money and supplies is by no means a new undertaking, even for the United States, the scope of this program, under which expenditures may soon exceed $7 billion annually, makes it a good laboratory specimen to illustrate the impact of a positive foreign policy on the structure of the national government. Furthermore, analysis of the program clearly shows the tremendous changes that have taken place in the methods of formulating and administering American foreign policy since the end of World War II.For more than a generation prior to 1916, the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy occupied the same building at the seat of government.


1952 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip W. Bell

Colonialism has been a sore spot in the handling of American foreign policy in the post-World War II period largely because of ambivalent forces, domestic and foreign, which have been tugging at the United States. At the heart of the colonial problem which has faced this country is the central issue of eventual political status for colonial territories. On this question United States policy has traditionally been and continues to be one of condemnation of colonialism and in favor of independence for colonial peoples, with certain reservations added in small print—the grant of independence should not be too hurried and it should be given only to peoples who desire it and are capable of assuming the responsibilities involved.


1969 ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Paulo Daniel Watanabe

Since the end of World War II the issues regarding Japan’s security and defense have been discussed as a natural continuation of the American Foreign Policy. Although Japan is said to decide its own foreign policy by itself after getting back its sovereignty in the 50’s,Washington has always been deciding along with Japan and justifying its acts on the conflicting international system. At the end of World War II the Cold War was the main reason for the USA to take part almost by itself in the protection of the Japanese archipelago* Nowadays,Japan is still constitutionally prohibited from maintaining conventional armed forces having to delegate this mission to the USA, which has military bases on Okinawa Island- The negative impacts of this policy are already felt by Japan especially under the constant threats from North Korea and the military and economic growth of China. After the attacks of September 11th 2001,new government leaders have been trying to make Japan less dependent on the USA. Washington will not abandon its regional policy,as shown by Prime Minister Hatoyama’s fall. For some authors,Japan must have independent deterrence ways to guarantee its security and integrity in a still hostile environment shaped by the disasters of Japan's imperialist era. This article intends to analyze the evolution of Japan's defense policy since the occupation of the Allied Powers.


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