American foreign policy.doc

American Foreign Policy
导读
美国赢得独立战争的胜利之后，极力从经济、政治、文化和心理等方面摆脱欧洲列强，尤其是英国的影响；同时，独立、自由、个人主义、实用主义、自由企业等观念使得美国更加关注自身的发展，排斥与其他任何国家之间的纠葛。因此，在随后的很长一段时期，美国政府一直倾向采取孤立主义的外交政策。第二次世界大战结束时，美国已经成为世界上经济和军事力量最强大的大国，其外交政策已经转变为扩张主义。美国提出建立一种美国领导下的国际新秩序，但遭到苏联的抵制，这便是冷战产生的根本原因。二十世纪八十年代末、九十年代初，苏联解体，冷战结束，美国成为当今世界唯一的超级大国，更是以世界秩序制定者和维护者的身份对别国内政品头论足，甚至横加干涉。美国这种单边主义的霸权政策在国际社会招致越来越多的不满，甚至怨恨，在众多领域相当孤立。1001年“911”恐怖袭击事件发生后，美国政府重新制定了“21世纪美国安全战略”， 不难看出，这一战略的出发点仍然是从单边主义维护其世界霸权。本章简要介绍美国外交发展历史，美国外交政策的目标，美国外交相关机构及其职责，以及美国外交政策所折射出的美国文化传统。
Questions for discussion
1. How do you understand the Cold War? In what way has it influenced the world?
2. How did the concept of Manifest Destiny find expression in the US foreign policies?
3. How did America become the only super power with world hegemony after World War II?
4. Is there any change in American foreign policy after September 11 terrorists attack in 2001? Why or why not?
5. Why is it important to understand the American cultural heritage if we are to understand American foreign policy?
6. In terms of American foreign policy, Sino-American diplomatic relationship is one of the important issues. How would you define the relationship between China and the United States—strategic rivalry or strategic partnership?

I. American Foreign Policy
The foreign policy of the United States is the policy by which the United States interacts with foreign nations. United States foreign policy is highly influential on the world stage, as it is the only remaining superpower. The global reach of the United States is backed by a 13 trillion dollar economy, the largest in the world. The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the Untied States, as mentioned in the Foreign Policy Agenda of the U.S. Department of Stated, are to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community. In addition, the United States House Committee of nuclear technology and nuclear hardware; measures to foster commercial intercourse with foreign nations and to safeguard American business abroad; International commodity agreements; international education; and protection of American citizens abroad citizens abroad and expatriation. US foreign policy has been the subject of much debate, criticism and praise both domestically and abroad.

II. Diplomatic Relations
The United States has one of the largest diplomatic presences of any nation. Almost every country in the world has both a U.S. embassy and an embassy of its own in Washington, D.C. only a few countries do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States. They are:
Bhutan (the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India has consular responsibilities for Bhutan)
Cuba
Iran (The ambassador of Switzerland acts a intermediary between Iran and United States)
North Korea
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara)
In practical terms however, this lack of formal relations do not impede the U.S.’s communication with these nations. In the cases where no U.S. diplomatic post exists, American relations are usually conducted via the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, or another friendly third-party. While this does not create a formal diplomatic relationship, it fulfils most other typical embassy functions.
The U.S. maintains a Normal Trade Relations list and several countries are excluded from it, which means that their exports to the Untied States are subject to significantly higher tariffs.
III. A Brief History
1776—1898
From the establishment of the United States after the American Revolution until the Spanish-American War, U.S. foreign policy reflected the country’s regional, as compared to global, focus.
During the American Revolution, the United States established relations with several European powers, convincing France, Spain, and the Netherland to intervene in its war against Britain, a mutual enemy. After the revolution, the U.S. moved to restore peace and resume its substantial trade with Great Britain in what is called the “Olive Branch Policy”. Following French involvement in the Revolution, the United States maintained significant relations with France, as manifested by France presenting the United States with the Statue of Liberty in 1886.
In general, though, the United States followed an isolationist foreign policy until attacks against U.S. shipping by Barbary Coast corsairs spurred the country the country into developing a naval force projection capability, resulting in the First Barbary War in 1801. Early politicians debated the wisdom of developing a navy and becoming involved in international affairs, but the United States Navy was created to prevent further economic losses: payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary pirate states amounted to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800. Following that conflict, the United States engaged in a quasi-war with France and the War of 1812 with Great Britain.
In response to the new independence of Spanish colonies in Latin America in the early 1800s, the Untied States established the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, a policy declaring its opposition to European interference in the Americas. Around the same time, U.S. expansion, ideologically fueled by “manifest destiny”, led to the Indian Wars and war against Mexico, with the U.S. taking what are now the territories of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, and to diplomatic conflict with the Untied Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Russia over the Oregon Territory and Spain over Florida. In 1854, the U.S. used its Navy to force Japan to open to international trade. During the American Civil War, the Union states accused Britain and France of supporting the Confederate States.
After the end of conflict with the Britain military in 1815, consolidating its territories following the Civil War and the withdrawal of the last remnants of French influence in the region in 1867 when Mexican forces deposed Emperor Maximilian, the United States was unchallenged regionally. This stability, combined with the country’s natural resources and growing population, resulted in substantial domestic prosperity and growth of geopolitical influence.
1893—1914
On January 16, 1893, United States diplomatic and military personnel conspired with a small group of individuals to overthrow the constitutional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom and prepared to provide for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the Untied States of America, under a treaty of annexation submit the United States Senate, on February 15, 1893.
Victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and subsequent acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam, marked the United States’ shift from a regional to a more global power and ejected Spain form the Americas, South East Asia and Oceania. The Philippine-American War arose from the on-going Philippine Revolution against imperialism. The 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, proclaiming a right for the Untied States to intervene to stabilize weak states in the Americas, further weakened European influence in Latin America and established U.S. regional hegemony.
1914—1918（World War I）
Despite its reluctance to directly involve itself in continental European affairs, the United States provided substantial loans to the Allies, but only entered Would War I after attacks by German U-boats substantially interfered with U.S. shipping. During the peace conference at Versailles, U.S. attempts to shift international relations to an idealist model, envisioned by President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, became bogged down in the secret agreements made during the war and geopolitical horse-trading. The United States benefited from its expanded visibility and role in international commerce but did not sign politics turned against idealist, international policies and the country returned to a more isolationist stance. The United States signed separate peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary in August 1921.
1941—1945 (World War II)
Similar to their involvement in WWI, the United States made significant loans to the Allies, and following the depression, its domestic industries boomed to produce war materials. The United States entered World War II in 1941, again on the Allied side, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war against the U.S. by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After the war and devastation of its European and Asian rivals, the United States completed its transition from regional to global power. The United States was a major player in the establishment of the United Nations and became one of five permanent members of the Security Council, which holds greater power than the General Assembly.
1945—1981 (The Cold War )
What is Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension, and competition that existed after World War II. On one side were the Soviet Union and its satellites, and on the other were the powers of the Western world under the leadership of the United States. The Cold War began in the mid-1940s and lasted into the early 1990s. Although the two superpowers never fought one another directly, the conflict was expressed through military coalitions, espionage, weapons development (including a massive conventional and nuclear arms race), numerous proxy wars, propaganda, and competitive technological development, which included the space race.
The Rivalry between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
The soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc of countries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet Socialist Republics and maintaining others as satellite states that would later form the Warsaw Pact. The United States and various western European countries began a policy of “containment” of communism and forged myriad alliances to this end. Several of these western countries also coordinated efforts regarding the rebuilding of western Europe, including western Germany, which the Soviets opposed. In other regions of the world, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union fostered communist revolutionary movements, which the United States and many of its allies opposed and, in some cases, attempted to “roll back”. Many countries were prompted to align themselves with the nations that would later form either NATO or the Warsaw Pact, though other movements would also emerge.
The Cold War saw periods of both heightened tension and relative calm. International crises arose, such as the Berlin Blockade (1948-1949), the Korean War (1950-1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959-1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)，the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and NATO exercises in November 1983. There were also periods of reduced tension as both sides sought détente. Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction using deliverable nuclear weapons.
The Cold War drew to a c lose in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. the United States under President Ronald Reagan increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the Soviet Union, which was already suffering from severe economic stagnation. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power, though Russia retained much of the massive Soviet nuclear arsenal.
The legacy of the Cold War
The legacy of the Cold War continues to influence world affairs. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post-Cold War world is widely considered as unipolar, with the United States the sole remaining superpower. The Cold War defined the political role of the United States in the post-World War II world: by 1989 the US held military alliances with 50 countries, and had 1.5 million troops posted abroad in 117 countries. The Cold War also institutionalized a global commitment to huge, permanent peacetime military-industrial complexes and large-scale military funding of science.
Military expenditures by the US during the Cold War years were estimated to have been $8 trillion, while nearly 100,000 Americans lost their lives in the Korean War and Vietnam War. In addition to the loss of life by uniformed soldiers, millions died in the superpowers’ proxy wars around the globe, most notably in Southeast Asia. Most of the proxy wars and subsidies for local conflicts ended along with the Cold War; the incidence of interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, as well as refugee and displaced persons crises has declined sharply in the post-Cold War years. The legacy of Cold War conflict, however, is not always easily erased, as many of the economic and social tensions that were exploited to fuel Cold War competition in parts of the Third World remain acute.
US Foreign Policy during the Cold War
From about 1947 until 1991, U.S. foreign policy was dominated by the Cold War, and characterized by its significant international military presence and greater diplomatic involvement. Seeking an alternative to the isolationist policies pursued after World War I, the United States defined a new policy called containment to oppose the spread of communism. The Cold War was characterized by a lack of global wars but a persistence of regional wars, often fought between client states and proxies of the United States and Soviet Union. During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy objectives seeking to limit Soviet influence, involved the United States and its allies in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Six Day War and Yom Kuppur War in the Middle East, and later, the policy of aiding anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan. Diplomatic initiatives included the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO), The Opening of People’s Republic of China and Détente. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. had military and economic interests in every region of the globe.
1992-Present
December 1991 marked both the collapse of the Soviet Union and the initiation of the Gulf War against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. During the 1990s, the United States mostly scaled back its foreign policy budget while focusing on its domestic economic prosperity. The United States also bombed and participated in UN peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the United States declared a “ War on Terrorism.” Since then, the United States launched wars against Afghanistan and Iraq (Second Gulf War) while pursuing AL-Qaeda and other militant organizations on a global level.
In his first formal television interview as President, Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world through an Arabic-language satellite TV network. He expressed interest and a commitment to repair relations that have continued to deteriorate under the previous administration.
IV. Foreign Affairs Bureaucracy