CHAPTER 15 – FOREIGN POLICY
THE GOALS OF FOREIGN POLICY: The term foreign policy refers to the programs and
policies that determine America’s relations with other nations and foreign entities.
Foreign policy includes diplomacy, military and security policy, international human rights
policy, and various forms of economic policy, such as trade policy and international
energy policy. In fact, foreign policy and domestic policy are not completely separate
categories but are closely intertwined. Domestic politics affects foreign policy, and
foreign policy certainly affects domestic politics. Although U.S. foreign policy has a
number of purposes, two main goals stand out: security and prosperity. Some
Americans also favor a third goal – improving the quality of life for all the world’s people.
Others say the United States should remain focused on its own challenges and not get
involved in solving the world’s problems. These foreign policy goals overlap with one
another, and none can be pursued fully in isolation.
o SECURITY: To many Americans, the chief goal of the nation’s foreign policy is
protection of U.S. security in an often hostile world. Traditionally, the United
States has been concerned about possible threats from other countries, such as
Nazi Germany during the 1940s and then the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
Today, American security policy is concerned with the actions not only of other
nations but also of terrorists and other hostile groups and individuals, often called
non-state actors. To protect the nation’s security from foreign threats, the United
States has built an enormous military apparatus and a complex array of
intelligence-gathering institutions, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
charged with evaluating and anticipating challenges from abroad. Security is, of
course, a broad term. Policy makers must be concerned with Americans’
physical security. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks killed and injured
thousands, and new attacks could be even more catastrophic. Policy makers
must also be concerned with such matters as the security of food supplies,
transportation infrastructure, and energy supplies. Many American efforts in the
Middle East, for example, are aimed at ensuring continuing American access to
vital oil fields. In recent years, cyberspace has become a new security concern.
The nation’s dependence on computers means that the government must be
alert to efforts by hostile governments, groups, or even individual “hackers” to
damage computer networks or access sensitive or proprietary information. The
U.S. government has often charged Chinese and Russian government and
military agencies with stealing American secrets through cyber espionage. In
2017 it appeared that a popular antivirus software marketed by a Russian
company was being used by the Russian government to spy on American
corporations and government agencies. During the 18th and 19th centuries,
American security was based mainly on the geographic isolation of the United
States. Separated by oceans from European and Asian powers, many
Americans thought that the country’s security would be best preserved by
remaining aloof from international power struggles. This policy was known as
isolationism. In his 1796 Farewell Address, President George Washington
warned Americans to avoid permanent alliances with foreign powers; and in
1823, President James Monroe warned foreign powers not to meddle in the
Western Hemisphere. Washington’s warning and what came to be called the
Monroe Doctrine were the cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy until the end of the
19th century. The United States saw itself as the dominant power in the Western
Hemisphere and, indeed, believed that its “manifest destiny” was to expand from
sea to sea. The rest of the world, however, should remain at arm’s length. In the
,20th century, technology made oceans less of a barrier to foreign threats, and the
world’s growing economic interdependence meant that the nation could no longer
ignore events abroad. The United States entered World War I in 1917 on the
side of Great Britain and France when President Woodrow Wilson concluded that
a German victory would adversely affect U.S. economic and security interests. In
1941 the United States was drawn into World War II when Japan, hoping to
become the dominant power in the Pacific, attacked the U.S. Pacific naval fleet
anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Even before the attack, President Franklin
Roosevelt had concluded that the United States must act to prevent a victory by
the German-Japanese-Italian Axis alliance. Until Pearl Harbor, however, he had
been unable to overcome isolationist arguments that American security was best
served by leaving foreigners to their own devices. The attack proved that the
Pacific Ocean could not protect the United States from foreign foes and
effectively discredited isolationism as a security policy. Following World War II,
the United States developed a new security policy known as containment to
check or “contain” the growing power of the Soviet Union, which by the end of the
1940s had built a huge empire and enormous military forces, including nuclear
weapons and bombers capable of attacking the United States. The United
States committed itself to maintaining its own military might as a means of
deterrence, to discourage the Soviets from attacking the United States or its
allies. Some Americans wanted a more aggressive policy and argued that we
should attack the Soviets before it was too late, a policy known as preventive
war. Others said we should show our peaceful intentions and attempt to placate
the Soviets, a policy called appeasement. The disastrous results of the British
effort to prevent World War II by appeasing Nazi Germany, however, had left
most Americans with little confidence in appeasement as a policy. The policies
that the United States actually adopted, deterrence and containment, could be
seen as midway between preventive war and appeasement. Deterrence signals,
on the one hand, peaceful intentions but also, on the other hand, a willingness
and ability to fight if attacked. Thus, during the era of confrontation with the
Soviet Union, known as the Cold War, the United States frequently asserted that
it had no intention of attacking the Soviet Union but also built a huge military
force, including an arsenal of over 1,500 nuclear warheads, and frequently
asserted that it had the ability and will to respond to a Soviet attack with
overwhelming force. The Soviet Union, which had also built powerful nuclear and
conventional military forces, announced that its nuclear weapons were also
intended for deterrent purposes. Eventually, the two sides possessed such
enormous arsenals of nuclear missiles that each had the ability to destroy the
other many times over. This heavily armed standoff came to be called a posture
of “mutually assured destruction,” which discouraged either side from attacking
the other. Eventually, this situation led to a period of “détente,” in which a
number of arms control agreements were signed and the threat of war was
reduced. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the new Russia, though still a
formidable power, at the time seemed to pose less of a threat to the United
States. A policy of deterrence requires that a nation not only possess large
military forces but also convince potential adversaries with certainty that it is
willing to fight if attacked. Thus, during the Cold War the United States engaged
in wars in Korea and Vietnam, where it had no particular interests, because
American policy makers believed that if it did not, the Soviets would be
emboldened to pursue an expansionist policy elsewhere, thinking that the
Americans would not respond. This arrangement may not be valid or relevant in
, the context of some contemporary security threats. The September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, for example, demonstrated the threat that non-state actors and
so-called rogue states might acquire significant military capabilities, including
nuclear weapons, and would not be affected by America’s deterrent capabilities.
Unlike nation-states, which are countries with governments and fixed borders,
terrorist groups have no fixed geographic location that can be attacked.
Terrorists believe they can attack and melt away, leaving the United States with
no one against whom to retaliate. Hence, the threat of massive retaliation does
not deter them. Rogue states are nations with often unstable and erratic leaders
who seem to pursue policies driven by ideological or religious fervor rather than
careful consideration of economic or human costs. The United States considers
North Korea and Iran to be rogue states, though most academic analysts see
both nations’ leaders as behaving belligerently but not necessarily irrationally. To
counter these new security threats, the George W. Bush administration shifted
from a policy of deterrence to one of preventive war – the willingness to strike
first in order to prevent an attack, particularly by enemies that might be armed
with weapons of mass destruction. The United States declared that, if necessary,
it would take action to disable terrorist groups and rogue states before they could
develop the capacity to harm the United States. The Bush administration’s
“global war on terror” was an expression of prevention, as was the U.S. invasion
of Iraq in 2003. The United States also refused to rule out the possibility that it
would attack North Korea or Iran if it deemed those nation’s nuclear programs to
be imminent threats to American security. Accompanying this shift in military
doctrine was an enormous increase in overall U.S. military spending. President
Obama took a less aggressive line, saying that the United States would rely on
diplomacy and economic sanctions. President Trump, however, said that the
United States was prepared to use overwhelming force against its adversaries.
Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man” and declared
that only force would thwart Kim’s ambitions. Nevertheless, in 2018 and 2019,
Trump met with Kim three times to discuss ways of reducing tensions on the
Korean Peninsula. Yet no agreements were reached. Also in 2018, Trump met
with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump called the meeting a great
success, but critics charged that Trump had not demanded an accounting for
Russian attempts to influence the 2016 American election. In April 2020, Kim
temporarily dropped from sight, leading to speculation that he might have serious
health problems. The United States began to ponder the impact of a leadership
change in North Korea. Generally speaking, President Trump has taken a
belligerent tone toward America’s adversaries while seeking to avoid military
involvements. President Theodore Roosevelt once declared that in foreign
affairs it was important to speak softly and carry a big stick. Critics have accused
Trump of speaking loudly with a small stick. Thus, in 2019, while denouncing the
Assad regime in Syria, Trump withdrew most American troops from the region,
leaving America’s longtime Kurdish allies without protection. President Trump
said America could not afford to be drawn into every regional conflict.
o ECONOMIC PROSPERITY: A second major goal of U.S. foreign policy is
promoting American prosperity. America’s international economic policies are
intended to expand employment opportunities in the United States, to maintain
access to foreign energy supplies, to promote foreign investment in the United
States, and to lower the prices Americans pay for goods and services. Among
the key elements of U.S. international economic policy is trade policy, which
seeks to promote American goods and services abroad. The United States is the
THE GOALS OF FOREIGN POLICY: The term foreign policy refers to the programs and
policies that determine America’s relations with other nations and foreign entities.
Foreign policy includes diplomacy, military and security policy, international human rights
policy, and various forms of economic policy, such as trade policy and international
energy policy. In fact, foreign policy and domestic policy are not completely separate
categories but are closely intertwined. Domestic politics affects foreign policy, and
foreign policy certainly affects domestic politics. Although U.S. foreign policy has a
number of purposes, two main goals stand out: security and prosperity. Some
Americans also favor a third goal – improving the quality of life for all the world’s people.
Others say the United States should remain focused on its own challenges and not get
involved in solving the world’s problems. These foreign policy goals overlap with one
another, and none can be pursued fully in isolation.
o SECURITY: To many Americans, the chief goal of the nation’s foreign policy is
protection of U.S. security in an often hostile world. Traditionally, the United
States has been concerned about possible threats from other countries, such as
Nazi Germany during the 1940s and then the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
Today, American security policy is concerned with the actions not only of other
nations but also of terrorists and other hostile groups and individuals, often called
non-state actors. To protect the nation’s security from foreign threats, the United
States has built an enormous military apparatus and a complex array of
intelligence-gathering institutions, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
charged with evaluating and anticipating challenges from abroad. Security is, of
course, a broad term. Policy makers must be concerned with Americans’
physical security. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks killed and injured
thousands, and new attacks could be even more catastrophic. Policy makers
must also be concerned with such matters as the security of food supplies,
transportation infrastructure, and energy supplies. Many American efforts in the
Middle East, for example, are aimed at ensuring continuing American access to
vital oil fields. In recent years, cyberspace has become a new security concern.
The nation’s dependence on computers means that the government must be
alert to efforts by hostile governments, groups, or even individual “hackers” to
damage computer networks or access sensitive or proprietary information. The
U.S. government has often charged Chinese and Russian government and
military agencies with stealing American secrets through cyber espionage. In
2017 it appeared that a popular antivirus software marketed by a Russian
company was being used by the Russian government to spy on American
corporations and government agencies. During the 18th and 19th centuries,
American security was based mainly on the geographic isolation of the United
States. Separated by oceans from European and Asian powers, many
Americans thought that the country’s security would be best preserved by
remaining aloof from international power struggles. This policy was known as
isolationism. In his 1796 Farewell Address, President George Washington
warned Americans to avoid permanent alliances with foreign powers; and in
1823, President James Monroe warned foreign powers not to meddle in the
Western Hemisphere. Washington’s warning and what came to be called the
Monroe Doctrine were the cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy until the end of the
19th century. The United States saw itself as the dominant power in the Western
Hemisphere and, indeed, believed that its “manifest destiny” was to expand from
sea to sea. The rest of the world, however, should remain at arm’s length. In the
,20th century, technology made oceans less of a barrier to foreign threats, and the
world’s growing economic interdependence meant that the nation could no longer
ignore events abroad. The United States entered World War I in 1917 on the
side of Great Britain and France when President Woodrow Wilson concluded that
a German victory would adversely affect U.S. economic and security interests. In
1941 the United States was drawn into World War II when Japan, hoping to
become the dominant power in the Pacific, attacked the U.S. Pacific naval fleet
anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Even before the attack, President Franklin
Roosevelt had concluded that the United States must act to prevent a victory by
the German-Japanese-Italian Axis alliance. Until Pearl Harbor, however, he had
been unable to overcome isolationist arguments that American security was best
served by leaving foreigners to their own devices. The attack proved that the
Pacific Ocean could not protect the United States from foreign foes and
effectively discredited isolationism as a security policy. Following World War II,
the United States developed a new security policy known as containment to
check or “contain” the growing power of the Soviet Union, which by the end of the
1940s had built a huge empire and enormous military forces, including nuclear
weapons and bombers capable of attacking the United States. The United
States committed itself to maintaining its own military might as a means of
deterrence, to discourage the Soviets from attacking the United States or its
allies. Some Americans wanted a more aggressive policy and argued that we
should attack the Soviets before it was too late, a policy known as preventive
war. Others said we should show our peaceful intentions and attempt to placate
the Soviets, a policy called appeasement. The disastrous results of the British
effort to prevent World War II by appeasing Nazi Germany, however, had left
most Americans with little confidence in appeasement as a policy. The policies
that the United States actually adopted, deterrence and containment, could be
seen as midway between preventive war and appeasement. Deterrence signals,
on the one hand, peaceful intentions but also, on the other hand, a willingness
and ability to fight if attacked. Thus, during the era of confrontation with the
Soviet Union, known as the Cold War, the United States frequently asserted that
it had no intention of attacking the Soviet Union but also built a huge military
force, including an arsenal of over 1,500 nuclear warheads, and frequently
asserted that it had the ability and will to respond to a Soviet attack with
overwhelming force. The Soviet Union, which had also built powerful nuclear and
conventional military forces, announced that its nuclear weapons were also
intended for deterrent purposes. Eventually, the two sides possessed such
enormous arsenals of nuclear missiles that each had the ability to destroy the
other many times over. This heavily armed standoff came to be called a posture
of “mutually assured destruction,” which discouraged either side from attacking
the other. Eventually, this situation led to a period of “détente,” in which a
number of arms control agreements were signed and the threat of war was
reduced. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the new Russia, though still a
formidable power, at the time seemed to pose less of a threat to the United
States. A policy of deterrence requires that a nation not only possess large
military forces but also convince potential adversaries with certainty that it is
willing to fight if attacked. Thus, during the Cold War the United States engaged
in wars in Korea and Vietnam, where it had no particular interests, because
American policy makers believed that if it did not, the Soviets would be
emboldened to pursue an expansionist policy elsewhere, thinking that the
Americans would not respond. This arrangement may not be valid or relevant in
, the context of some contemporary security threats. The September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, for example, demonstrated the threat that non-state actors and
so-called rogue states might acquire significant military capabilities, including
nuclear weapons, and would not be affected by America’s deterrent capabilities.
Unlike nation-states, which are countries with governments and fixed borders,
terrorist groups have no fixed geographic location that can be attacked.
Terrorists believe they can attack and melt away, leaving the United States with
no one against whom to retaliate. Hence, the threat of massive retaliation does
not deter them. Rogue states are nations with often unstable and erratic leaders
who seem to pursue policies driven by ideological or religious fervor rather than
careful consideration of economic or human costs. The United States considers
North Korea and Iran to be rogue states, though most academic analysts see
both nations’ leaders as behaving belligerently but not necessarily irrationally. To
counter these new security threats, the George W. Bush administration shifted
from a policy of deterrence to one of preventive war – the willingness to strike
first in order to prevent an attack, particularly by enemies that might be armed
with weapons of mass destruction. The United States declared that, if necessary,
it would take action to disable terrorist groups and rogue states before they could
develop the capacity to harm the United States. The Bush administration’s
“global war on terror” was an expression of prevention, as was the U.S. invasion
of Iraq in 2003. The United States also refused to rule out the possibility that it
would attack North Korea or Iran if it deemed those nation’s nuclear programs to
be imminent threats to American security. Accompanying this shift in military
doctrine was an enormous increase in overall U.S. military spending. President
Obama took a less aggressive line, saying that the United States would rely on
diplomacy and economic sanctions. President Trump, however, said that the
United States was prepared to use overwhelming force against its adversaries.
Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man” and declared
that only force would thwart Kim’s ambitions. Nevertheless, in 2018 and 2019,
Trump met with Kim three times to discuss ways of reducing tensions on the
Korean Peninsula. Yet no agreements were reached. Also in 2018, Trump met
with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump called the meeting a great
success, but critics charged that Trump had not demanded an accounting for
Russian attempts to influence the 2016 American election. In April 2020, Kim
temporarily dropped from sight, leading to speculation that he might have serious
health problems. The United States began to ponder the impact of a leadership
change in North Korea. Generally speaking, President Trump has taken a
belligerent tone toward America’s adversaries while seeking to avoid military
involvements. President Theodore Roosevelt once declared that in foreign
affairs it was important to speak softly and carry a big stick. Critics have accused
Trump of speaking loudly with a small stick. Thus, in 2019, while denouncing the
Assad regime in Syria, Trump withdrew most American troops from the region,
leaving America’s longtime Kurdish allies without protection. President Trump
said America could not afford to be drawn into every regional conflict.
o ECONOMIC PROSPERITY: A second major goal of U.S. foreign policy is
promoting American prosperity. America’s international economic policies are
intended to expand employment opportunities in the United States, to maintain
access to foreign energy supplies, to promote foreign investment in the United
States, and to lower the prices Americans pay for goods and services. Among
the key elements of U.S. international economic policy is trade policy, which
seeks to promote American goods and services abroad. The United States is the
