American Foreign Policy

American Foreign Policy PS 123/PACS 130
Spring 2003
Monday and Wednesday 4-5:30
4 LeConte
Professor Crawford
202 Moses Hall
Office Hours: M 10-11:30

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Required readings:

  • A subscription to the New York Times, Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal.
  • Thomas G. Paterson, J. Garry Clifford, and Kenneth J. Hagan, American Foreign Relations: A History Since 1895, latest edition
  • All other readings are available on line

Week 1k 1
No Readings assigned

Week 2:
Theoretical Perspectives:

What are the most important factors shaping US Grand Strategies and foreign policy decisions? Some analysts believe that the external environment and the US power position within that environment is the most important force shaping American foreign policy. Others believe that internal domestic forces drive policy decisions. Which force, external or internal, carries more weight?

A. External vs. Internal Factors
The circumstances that face policy makers: the security dilemma and international institutions
Read: * Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Jan., 1978), pp. 167-214.
Thucydides, The Melian dialogue


The attitudes of the decision-making elite, The Media and Public Opinion
Read: * Valerie M. Hudson; Christopher S. Vore, “Foreign Policy Analysis Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” Mershon International Studies Review, Vol. 39, No. 2. (Oct., 1995), pp. 209-238.
* Alexis de Tocqueville, Demcracy in America, Book II
Chapter XXII “WHY DEMOCRATIC NATIONS NATURALLY DESIRE PEACE, AND DEMOCRATIC ARMIES, WAR” (5 pages)

B. Isolation and Internationalism; The sources of Grand strategies
* Samuel Huntington, “American Ideals vs. American Institutions” in G. John Ikenberry, ed., American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays
* Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics”

Week 3 First Newspaper Assignment Due
I. The basic principles of the American Diplomatic Tradition
A. America as Promised Land

American Exceptionalism
Read: * John Quincy Adams's "Warning Against the Search for "Monsters to Destroy," 1821
* C. Vann Woodward, "The Age of Reinterpretation," American Historical Review, LXVI (October 1960), 2-8.

Unilateralism
Read: *George Washington’s Farewell Adress 1796
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm

Expansionism
Read: * The Monroe Doctrine
http://www.freedomshrine.com/documents/monroe.html
* Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia 1831

Week 4
B. America as a Crusader
Imperialism
Read: * THEODORE ROOSEVELT: Obstacles to Immediate Expansion, 1897* William McKinley: War Message
* The Open Door Note Submitted by U.S. Secretary of State, John Hay, September 6, 1899

Liberal internationalism
Read: * Woodrow Wilson: War Message
* Senator Henry Cabot Lodge : Case against the League of Nations
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/mdbquery.html type in Henry Cabot Lodge, then go to “League of Nations”
*Paterson, Clifford, and Hagan, American Foreign Relations, pp. 55-62, 68-92, 117-125, 128-136, 141-153, 173-215.

Week 5 Second Newspaper Assignment Due
C. America as a Global Power

Containment and Roll Back
Read: * George Kennan Mr. X article
* John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 1-25

Week 6 and 7
II. Foreign Policy in Action
A. Early Cold War Crises
Read: * Paterson, Clifford and Hagan, American Foreign Relations, pp. 222-249, 266-275
*The CIA and Assassinations: Guatemala
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/index.html

B. The Cuban Missile Crisis
* Paterson, Clifford and Hagan, American Foreign Relations, pp. 335-340
* Cuban Missile Crisis transcripts and audio Files http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/
* Film: Thirteen Days

C. Vietnam
* Paterson, Clifford and Hagan, American Foreign Relations, pp. 315-333, 340-354
* Eisenhower explains the domino theory
http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/DominoTheory.html
* The Geneva Conference on Indochina http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/indoch/inch005.htm
* Film: Hearts and Minds
* Film: Bombies
* Lyndon B. Johnson: “Peace without Conquest”
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/650407.asp
* The Tonkin Gulf
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/tonkin-g.htm
* The Nixon Doctrine
http://www.uiowa.edu/~c030162/Common/Handouts/POTUS/Nixon.html

Week 8 First Midterm
D. Détente and the Cold War Revival
* Paterson, Clifford, and Hagen pp. 361-402

* Kissinger on Detente
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/kissinger/kiss03.htm
* Henry Kissinger: Address to the Commonwealth Club, Feb. 3, 1976
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/76-02kissinger-speech.html

The Carter Doctrine
* Paterson, Clifford, and Hagen, pp. 406-453

* Multinational Oil Corporations and U.S. Foreign Policy - REPORT together with individual views, to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, by the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations; (Washington, Janusry 2, 1975, US Government Printing Office).

* The Reagan Doctrine
http://www.reagan.dk/newreadoc.htm

Week 9
E. Foreign Economic Policy
* Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-39, Chapter 14, "An Explanation of the 1929 Depression," (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 291-308
* Helen Milner, "International Political Economy: Beyond Hegemonic Stability," Foreign Policy, No. 110, Spring 1998

* Herman Schwartz, "HEGEMONY, INTERNATIONAL DEBT AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INSTABILITY," Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia,Charlottesville VA 22901

Week 10
III. After the Cold War’s End: Current Issues

* Samuel P. Huntington, "The Coming Clash of Civilizations: Or, the West Against the Rest," New York Times, June 6, 1993
* Francis Fukuyama “Second thoughts: The last man in a bottle…” 1999.

A. Human Rights and Intervention
Read: * “American Intervention in the Third World: Less would be better http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR16.5/vanevera.html
* Charles, William Maynes "Relearning Intervention," Foreign Policy, no. 68 (Spring 1995)
* Barry Blechman, "The Intervention Dilemma," The Washington Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 3 (Summer 1995)

* Adam Roberts, "NATO's 'Humanitarian War' Over Kosovo," Survival, Vol. 41, no. 3 (1 October 1999)
* Shashi Tharoor, "Are Human Rights Universal?" World Policy Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 4 (Winter 1999/2000)

Week 11-12 Third Newspaper Assignment Due

B. The Environment and Economic Justice
* Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State, "The Global Environment and the National Interest," US Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 7, no. 36, September 2, 1996
* WILLIAM K. STEVENS, "How Much Is Nature Worth? For You, $33 Trillion," New York Times, May 20, 1997
* Ethan B. Kapstein, "A Global Third Way Social Justice and the World Economy," World Policy Journal, Vol. XV, No. 4 (Winter 1998/99)

B. Terrorism and Iraq
Read: * The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002 www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf
* President George W. Bush, "The National Security Strategy of the United States," New York Times, 20 September 2002

* William Saletan, "Bush's whitewashed national security manifesto," Slate, 20 September 2002
* John Lewis Gaddis, "A Grand Strategy," Foreign Policy, November/December 2002
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_novdec_2002/gaddis.html
* Remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney Before the Council on Foreign Relations, New York Times, 16 February 2002
* Michael Klare “Washington’s Oilpolitik”
http://greatchange.org/ov-klare,oilpolitik.html
* US, Department of State, "White House Chronicles Iraqi Obstruction of Unconditional Inspections in Iraq," 17 September 2002
* John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "An Unnecessary War," Foreign Policy, January/February 2003
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/wwwboard/walts.html

* Nicholas Lemann, "The War on What? The White House and the Debate About Whom to Fight Next," The New Yorker, 9 September 2002

Week 13 Second Midterm Due
C. The United States and its Allies
Read: * Josef Jofee, "Bismarck's Lessons for Bush," New York Times, 29 May 2002
* Robert Kagan, “Power and Weakness” Policy Review June 2002
http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan.html
* Gabriel Kolko, “The Perils of Pax Americana” The Australian, Jan. 13, 2003
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,5829495,00.html

Week 14
D. Globalization and American Leadership
Read: * A. T. Kearney “Measuring Globalization,” Foreign Policy, Jan-Feb 2001
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_janfeb_2001/atkearney.html

* Alan Tonelson, "Globalization and Trade: The Need for Debate," Current, No. 399, January 1998

* John Ikenberry, "Getting Hegemony Right," The National Interest, No. 63 (Spring 2001)
* James Chace, "An Empty Hegemony?" World Policy Journal, 1997
* Clark S. Judge, "Hegemony of the Heart," Policy Review, No. 110 (December 2001/January 2002)
* Stanley Kurtz, "The Future of 'History'" Policy Review, No. 113 (June and July 2002)
* Mark Landler, "As the World Tracks Wall St., U.S. Leadership Is Two-Edged," New York Times, 25 July 2002

Week 15 Conclusions
Fourth newspaper assignment due

Read * Barry Posen and Andrew Ross "Competing Visions of US Grand Strategy"