U.S. Foreign Policy Final

Woodward (Fear)

1. A recurrent theme in the book is that the closest aides of President Donald Trump have been forced to take extraordinary measures in the White House to try to stop what, according to them, are the president's most dangerous impulses. One of these entails bypassing the President. Early in the book, the author documents a dramatic scene in which Gary Cohn, the former Chief Economic advisor, saw a draft letter which according to him was dangerous to national security on the Oval Office desk. The letter would have resulted in the withdrawal of the United States from a critical trade agreement with South Korea, with the fallout jeopardizing a top-secret security program. 2. Another theme is Trump's disregard for national security concerns. The President's philosophy on diplomacy was based around personal feelings, hence his inner circle was worried about the "The Big Problem" - the President's lack of understanding that imposing tariffs could endanger global security. The book suggests that Trump seemingly disregards national security concerns because of his obsession with money - trade deficits and the cost of troops overseas. 3. Throughout the book, the President is portrayed as an individual who is obsessed with his standing in the media as well as with his core supporters. He appears to not only be lonely but also increasingly paranoid, watching television for several hours in the White House residence. The President's top aides described him as a person who always erupts in rage and profanity and who appears to enjoy humiliating others. 4. The President's tweets, along with his infatuation with Twitter are a theme throughout Woodward's book. The author reveals that Trump ordered printouts of his tweets. He then studied them in an attempt to identify the ones that were most popular. Twitter was also a major source of great dismay for top national security leaders, who were afraid and even warned the President that Twitter could get the country into war. Trump's aides were shocked by some of his more outrageous posts, leading them to try and form a Twitter "committee" to vet his tweets, an attempt that was in vain. 5. Throughout the book, the author suggests that there are reasons for us to fear. There is a fear inspired by what it takes to get elected appears to have no bearing on what it takes to run the country, and this is an extremely dangerous precedent for the future. There is also fear that President Trump is not knowledgeable and is also not teachable. He does not know and is unwilling to listen as well as learn from the people who do know and have relevant experience. At approximately two-thirds through the book, the image of the President's character come into a clearer focus. Trump operates based on his instincts and lacks the discipline to listen to other people and weigh their opinions - even people with a more extensive knowledge and experience, as it is evident in the meeting held at the Tank. In the book, the author quotes an unnamed White House official who offered an extremely dire assessment of the meeting, saying it appears to be clear that senior advisors of the president, notably the ones in the national security realm, "are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views."

Korean War

1. After five years of simmering tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when the Northern Korean People's Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated general attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel, the line dividing communist North Korea from the non-communist Republic of Korea in the south. North Korea aimed to militarily conquer South Korea and therefore unify Korea under the communist North Korean regime. Concerned that the Soviet Union and Communist China might have encouraged this invasion, President Harry S. Truman committed United States air, ground, and naval forces to the combined United Nations forces assisting the Republic of Korea in its defense. President Truman designated General Douglas MacArthur as Commanding General of the United Nations Command (UNC). 2. In October, the United Nations, urged by the United States Government, approved the movement of UN forces across the 38th parallel into North Korea in an effort to unify the country under a non-communist government. In spite of warnings issued by the Chinese Government, the United Nations forces moved toward the Yalu River, marking the North Korean border with Manchuria. Discounting the significance of initial Chinese attacks in late October, MacArthur ordered the UNC to launch an offensive, taking the forces to the Yalu. In late November the Chinese attacked in full strength, pushing the UNC in disarray south of the 38th parallel with the communist forces seizing the South Korean capital, Seoul. 3. In early 1951 the Chinese offensive lost its momentum and the UNC, bolstered by the revitalized 8th U.S. Army led by General Matthew B. Ridgway, retook Seoul and advanced back to the 38th parallel. From July 1951, until the end of hostilities the battle lines remained relatively stable and the conflict became a stalemate. The Truman Administration abandoned plans to reunite North and South Korea and instead decided to pursue limited goals in order to avoid the possible escalation of the conflict into a third world war involving China and the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower sought an end to hostilities in Korea through a combination of diplomacy and military muscle-flexing. On July 27, 1953, seven months after President Eisenhower's inauguration as the 34th President of the United States, an armistice was signed, ending organized combat operations and leaving the Korean Peninsula divided much as it had been since the close of World War II at the 38th parallel. 4. The Korean U.N. "police action" prevented North Korea from imposing its communist rule on South Korea. Also, the United States' actions in Korea demonstrated America's willingness to combat aggression, strengthened President Eisenhower's hand in Europe as he sought to organize European military defense under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and insured that the United States would pursue its military buildup called for in the famous cold war document, National Security Council Policy Paper No. 68.

Social Constructivism

1. Analogous to the rational choice theory (not first and foremost a foreign policy theory). 2. Ideas shape material world (opposite of Marxism); ideational forces, we should not reduce our understanding of IR to materialism (helps us deepen our understanding of state origins). 3. Some facts are not facts (social facts vs. brute facts) 4. Cycle: ideas -> international structures (anarchy, rules-based international order (UN Charter backs state sovereignty; borders should not change through military acquisition) -> state identities (interests, policies) -> repeat 5. Realism and Liberalism maintain 2 assumptions: 1) states have innate and fixed interests and 2) states are constrained by material forces; social constructivists refute this 6. Logic of Appropriateness (X) > The logic of appropriateness defines a basis for decision making biased toward what social norms deem right rather than what cost-benefit calculations consider best.

Weinberg (Nuclear Weapons)

1. As the world's leader in conventional weaponry, we have a very strong interest in preserving the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons that has survived since 1945 ("Under no circumstances should we use them"). 2. Developing and testing new nuclear weapons for actual use rather than deterrence teaches the world a lesson that nuclear weapons are a good thing to have (threatening the U.S.' strength in warfare) 3. Should the U.S. choose to create tactical nuclear weapons (for the purpose of destroying underground bunkers, etc., as suggested by the Bush administration) we would undermine ourselves and threaten our hegemony in conventional warfare.

Marxism

1. Class conflict 2. Surplus value (labor theory of value) 3. Materialism; causal relationships (x -> y), causes can be found in the material world (material world -> ideas + dominant class -> bourgeoise = (dominant ideas = bourgeoise ideas)) 4. State upholds dominant class interests under guise of national security (believe the state is an extension of the bourgeoise class) 5. Imperialism; world system = core countries (U.S., France, Great Britain, etc.) and periphery countries (Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc.) -> periphery countries grant access to multinational corporations from core to working class under favorable conditions (periphery bourgeoise profit, working class suffer) 6. Marxists argue for morality; imperialism is an attack on political, economic, and social justice 7. Imperialism grows; capitalism will collapse if it does not expand (argue against free trade as core countries exploit the periphery) *diametrically opposed to liberalism 8. Free trade is an ideology that profits core countries 9. IR theory always serves someone's interests (bourgeoise, marxism is for the proletariat) 10. Revolutionary theory 11. Marxists critique USFP for the harm it causes to the periphery

Rise of a New Nation

1. Colonial era diplomacy focused on two issues: the European balance of power and the colonists' appropriation of land from the Native Americans. Rivalry in Europe, between the French and the British in particular, often influenced the course of events in their North American colonies. In an effort to increase their political and economic power, the British and the French competed to acquire the better share of the available land and control over the new trading opportunities the colonies presented. At the same time, the European colonial governments tried to find ways to coexist with the original inhabitants of North America, often by making alliances with some tribes while alienating others. Sometimes, as in the case of the French and Indian War (which in Europe was referred to as the Seven Years' War), European balance of power politics resulted in conflict in the colonies. As wars in Europe became more heated, fighting broke out between the French and the British in the American colonies. Both sides called upon Native American allies to assist them, exacerbating tensions between the tribes, as well as those between the tribes and colonists. Ultimately, the British Government found it necessary to pour additional troops and resources into protecting its possessions in the Americas and taxed their colonists to pay for it. These taxes eventually became the rallying cry for the American independence movement. 2. The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American revolution. 3. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there. 4. In the 1770s, the increasingly defiant American colonies began exploring the possibility of independence from the British Government. As tensions mounted and armed conflict erupted, the colonists, who were economically dependent on Europe, recognized that European nations were unlikely to conclude trade agreements with the Americans unless they declared their independence. The U.S. Continental Congress endorsed Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and, with it, the conflict with Britain became a full-fledged War of Independence. Unable to defeat the strong British military on their own, the American colonists required foreign assistance. John Adams approached the French with the "Model Treaty" that protected neutral trade and shipping rights in the event of a war. The French decision to sign this commercial treaty with the American colonists made them an ally in the war against Britain. In 1778, the French formally established their position as an ally with a treaty of alliance that committed the French to the war on the condition that the Americans did not seek a separate peace with Britain. Following the British surrender at the Battle of Yorktown, however, the Americans negotiated independently despite their agreement with France. Ultimately, the French reacted mildly out of concern for their own position with regard to Britain and Spain. The final treaty granted full independence and recognized the borders of the new United States of America. 5. During the American Revolution, the American colonies faced the significant challenge of conducting international diplomacy and seeking the international support it needed to fight against the British. The single most important diplomatic success of the colonists during the War for Independence was the critical link they forged with France. Representatives of the French and American governments signed the Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Amity and Commerce on February 6, 1778. The French and the British continued to vie for power in the 1770s, and French officials saw an opportunity in the rebellion of Britain's North American colonies to take advantage of British troubles. Through secret agents, the French Government began to provide clandestine assistance to the United States, much of it channeled through American trader Silas Deane. Between 1778 and 1782 the French provided supplies, arms and ammunition, uniforms, and, most importantly, troops and naval support to the beleaguered Continental Army. The French navy transported reinforcements under the Marquis de Lafayette, fought off a British fleet, and protected Washington's forces in Virginia. French assistance was crucial in securing the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. The United States, Spain, and France formally ended the war with Britain with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, ending the War of the American Revolution. Based on a 1782 preliminary treaty, the agreement recognized U.S. independence and granted the U.S. significant western territory. The 1783 Treaty was one of a series of treaties signed at Paris in 1783 that also established peace between Great Britain and the allied nations of France, Spain, and the Netherlands. 6. Following the end of the American Revolution, the United States struggled to define its foreign policy, to determine how to implement it, and to maintain necessary commercial ties with Europe without becoming embroiled in European conflicts and politics. Differences over foreign policy became a basis for the founding of political parties in the new nation as the debate pitted the Federalists, led by the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, against the Jeffersonians, represented by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. The Federalists supported the development of a strong international commerce and, with it, the creation of a navy capable of protecting U.S. merchant vessels. The Jeffersonians favored expansion across the vast continent that the new republic occupied. The Federalists and Jeffersonians also disagreed over U.S. policy toward political events in Europe. After the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the Federalists distrusted France and encouraged closer commercial ties to England, while the Jeffersonians preferred to support the new French Republic. Conflict in Europe between France, Britain, and Spain in the late 1790s, resulted in President George Washington declaring American neutrality. The Jay Treaty with Britain (1794) and the Pinckney Treaty with Spain (1795) aimed at preserving this neutrality. In his Farewell Address, Washington promoted a vision of American diplomacy that involved no "entangling alliances" with European powers. _________________ - Seven Years War - Treaty of Paris - Isolationism

Neoconservatism

1. Confrontational, hawkish foreign policy (when we are unwilling to fight, we show weakness to enemies, despise defeatism/appeasement, believe in using force) 2. Morality in foreign policy; first and foremost, anti-communist (beyond protecting nation, it is a moral issue), became a more general support of democracy (oppose any sort of authoritarianism) 3. Call on the U.S. to be a benevolent hegemon; argue hegemons (a global hegemonic power) creates maximum stability, benevolent in that it promotes democracy as a moral issue 4. U.S. exceptionalism 5. Unilateralism 6. Neoconservatism is largely unrestrained -- · Commonalities with realism; reject international organizations and international laws as reducing anarchy (neocons believe IOs cause harm) · Commonalities with liberalism; morality is essential to foreign policy (do not support intervention based on a protection of human rights), promotion of democracy (neocons believe in interventionist policies), oppose isolationism "The world needs a hegemonic authority to promote international stability. Because of U.S. exceptionalism and benevolence, the United States is the best state to maintain this authority (U.S. centric). While hawkish against non-democratic states/governments, theoretically, as U.S.-promoted democracy spreads, neocons become more doveish."

Ornstein and Mann, "When Congress Checks Out"

1. Congress has abandoned oversight because it lacks a strong institutional identity; members of the majority party, including congressional leaders, act as field lieutenants in the president's army rather than as members on an independent branch of government 2. Members of Congress have ratcheted down the amount of time they spend in Washington, which has led to a sharp decline in the number of days Congress is in session and the number of committee meetings that are held 3. Close voting margins have also contributed to the problem, as members of Congress have focused more on holding (or overturning) slender majorities than on broad matters of governance 4. Ideological polarization combined with near parity between the parties raised the stakes of majority control, weakening the institutional incentives that the founders had designed to ensure vigorous congressional oversight of the executive. 5. Although fixing the oversight problem is an urgent goal in and of itself, it is also part of a larger challenge: to mend the broken legislative branch and restore a healthy balance to U.S. democracy 6. At a minimum, oversight demands an aroused public willing to hold its elected representatives accountable and even to toss majorities out of power when they underperform; that, in turn, means having enough competitive seats to permit more frequent changes of party control on Capitol Hill, reforming campaign finance and redistricting, and having fewer ideological zealots and partisan warriors and more institutionalists would go a long way toward toughening congressional oversight of the executive 7. Overhaul appropriations and authorization processes 8. If Congress falters again, the chances of policy lapses, mismanagement, corruption, and mistakes borne of arrogance or stubbornness happening will be even higher--and too high for Americans to tolerate. 9. Written in 2006: condemnation of Bush administration's classification of documents, lack /refusal of information sharing -- Would likely support the Legislative Model

Legislative (Congressional) Model

1. Congress should decide policy, president should execute it 2. Deliberation: in a democracy, matters of life and death should be debated in front of a public audience (Congress is the deliberative branch of U.S. government) 3. Constitutional: Congress has the only authority to raise an army and declare war (war power), ratify treaties (president circumvents this through executive agreements) 4. Restraint (argued primarily by isolationists): president is more interventionist than Congress, assume that we will engage in less conflict if Congress takes lead on foreign policy 5. Democracy: legislators are closer to the people and Congress answers to the people more than the president, it is ideal to have decisions be made by representatives that are directly accountable to constituents (senators and representatives)

Liberalism

1. Cooperation is possible 2. International institutions promote cooperation; reduces anarchy which produces less conflict 3. Interdependence (economic linkages) 4. Non-state actors 5. State seeks prosperity (suffice) 6. Regimes/rules-based international order; treaties, "international regime" 7. Increasing harmony of interests among states 8. Morality 9. Collective security; every state joins one alliance and agrees to abstain from aggression and protect states who are attacked ___ · Principle of Self-determination; assumes that nations are the largest natural grouping of humans (each nation has the right to govern itself, free from foreign influence/domination) · Expansion of Free Trade (free trade among states benefits rich and poor, barriers restrict growth and economic well-being across borders, foster peace, precludes imperialism (you cannot free trade with a colonial holding), can only take place between sovereign states) · Spread of Democracy (democratic Peace Theory (creates zones of peace), democracies are a better form of government (i.e., do not permit genocide, famine, etc.)) · Protection of Human Rights (the state derives its authority from the people, rights are given on the basis of individual dignity (think Kant), side note: you can violate human rights, not take them away)

Congressional Powers

1. Declare war 2. Raise an army 3. Prepare for the common defense 4. Appoint/approve ambassadors 5. Ratify treaties 6. Override presidential veto with 2/3 vote 7. Budget/Appropriations 8. Can remove president from office -- There is little in the U.S. constitutional framework that encourages executive dominance of the foreign policy-making system (although the president usually does)

The U.S. and the Middle East

1. Despite the physical distance between the United States and the Middle East, U.S. influence has been felt in every country within the region. Throughout the 20th century, strategic interests, including a longstanding competition with the Soviet Union, have provoked a variety of U.S. interventions ranging from diplomatic overtures of friendship to full-blown war. American economic interests -- particularly in assuring access to Middle Eastern oil -- have long motivated presidents and lawmakers to intervene in the region. 2. For most of the 20th century and now into the 21st, the U.S. has had global interests and a global reach to match. In the Middle East, the U.S. has made itself a key player by using its diplomatic, economic, and military power in support of its national interests. The U.S. began to involve itself more deeply in regional politics in the late 1940s. It acted to support what it saw as its national interests, the most important being fighting the Communists during the Cold War, ensuring a steady supply of oil, and making sure that no single power dominated the region. More recently, it added fighting terrorism. The U.S. has supported leaders and governments it considered to be stable allies, like the Saudi royal family, Israel, and Egyptian governments since Anwar Sadat. 3. Concerned about growing Soviet influence in Iran during the Cold War, the U.S. toppled the regime of Iran's elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who intended to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. The U.S.-backed coup against Mossadeq in 1953 reinforced the power of the young Mohammed Reza, Shah of Iran. The pro-Western Shah was viewed by many in Iran as increasingly autocratic and oppressive. He tried to institute many Western social reforms by decree, and his secret police, SAVAK, viciously silenced opposition voices. A 1979 Islamist revolution against the Shah's regime swept a new kind of Islamic state into power, the Islamic Republic of Iran, governed by Islamic jurists and scholars. The popular hatred of the Shah also tarred his American supporters, and the revolution's anti-American passion led to the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 53 hostages were held for more than a year. 4. The U.S. supported Iraq's Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), when Iran's new post-revolutionary Islamic regime appeared to be the region's biggest threat. Hussein, however, has since become a significant focus of American anger because of his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 -- which led to the Gulf War -- in an effort to control more of the region's oil. His known desire to develop weapons of mass destruction is also a concern. The U.S. began bombing Iraqi targets during the Gulf War and continues to enforce a no-fly zone. The U.S.-led economic embargo of Iraq, intended to force Hussein from power and keep Iraq from rearming and further developing weapons of mass destruction, has had a devastating impact on the health and living conditions of the Iraqi people, and sympathetic Arabs hold this grievance against the United States. 5. The most significant direct U.S. military intervention came in response to the Iraqi invasion of oil-rich Kuwait in August of 1990, which led to the Gulf War. Although the invasion didn't directly threaten American territory, a vital U.S. economic interest -- oil -- was at stake, along with principles of international law that protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations. The Gulf War won the U.S. the gratitude of the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf for eliminating the Iraqi military threat, but these regimes have had to deal with increased internal criticism for allowing U.S. troops to remain in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf War also left charges that the U.S. had abandoned some of its most vulnerable allies. The Kurds and Shiis of Iraq were encouraged to revolt against Saddam Hussein by the U.S., with assurances of U.S. support. But little support materialized when the uprising actually got under way, and Iraqi retaliation against both rebelling groups was harsh. Limited U.S. intervention allowed the creation of Kurdish safe havens in the north and assisted Shii refugees fleeing into Iran in the south, but charges that the U.S. abandoned its regional allies linger to this day, leading to skepticism that George W. Bush's call for a new government in Iraq would be accompanied by full American support. 6. While American interest in the region isn't motivated by the pursuit of fossil fuels alone, the historically complicated U.S. relationships with Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf states have often revolved around oil -- specifically, ensuring an adequate supply at a reasonable cost. Since Standard Oil's 1936 discovery of massive oil deposits in Saudi Arabia, ensuring access to the region's fossil fuels has been on America's foreign policy agenda. The 1973-1974 OPEC oil boycott and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 are both dramatic examples of how regional forces have challenged U.S. access to fuel. The 1973 boycott was particularly powerful; at the time, Arab nations supplied 37 percent of the oil consumed by the noncommunist world. To this day, ensuring the supply of oil from the region factors heavily in the development of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Post-War Period

1. During his tenure as president, Woodrow Wilson encouraged Americans to look beyond their economic interests and to define and set foreign policy in terms of ideals, morality, and the spread of democracy abroad. The United States continued its efforts to become an active player on the international scene and engaged in action both in its traditional "sphere of influence" in the Western Hemisphere and in Europe during the First World War. The Wilsonian vision for collective security through American leadership in international organizations, like the newly established League of Nations, appealed to the American public, but the United States ultimately declined membership in the League due to Article X of its charter that committed the United States to defending any League member in the event of an attack. In voting down American participation, however, Congress challenged the informal tradition of the executive branch determining U.S. foreign policy. 2. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany's violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. 3. Wilson's idealism pervades the fourteen points, but he also had more practical objectives in mind: keeping Russia in the war by convincing the Bolsheviks that they would receive a better peace from the Allies; bolstering Allied morale; and undermining German war support. The address was immediately hailed in the United States and Allied nations, and even by Lenin, as a landmark of enlightenment in international relations. Wilson subsequently used the Fourteen Points as the basis for negotiation of the Versailles Treaty that ended the First World War. Although the treaty did not fully realize Wilson's unselfish vision, the Fourteen Points still stand as the most powerful expression of the idealist strain in American diplomacy. 4. Disillusionment with the war, international commitments that could lead to war, and economic uncertainty discouraged ambitious U.S. involvement in global affairs during the interwar period. The United States, however, did not retreat into complete isolation as the necessities of commercial growth dictated continued government support for overseas private investment that drove both American engagement with Latin America and the rebuilding of Europe in the 1920s. The United States also played an important role in international negotiations to set arms limitations and create pacts that aimed at securing a lasting peace. By the mid-1920s, however, a general feeling of economic uncertainty reinforced isolationist tendencies and encouraged new legislation that placed severe limits on immigration to the United States, particularly from Asia. During the 1930s, the rise of fascism as a threat to international peace sparked concern in the United States, but the severe economic depression curtailed American willingness to act. In this environment, keeping the nation out of the brewing tension in Europe and Asia became an important foreign policy goal. 5. By the late 1930s, the United States continued its efforts to stay out of the wars in Europe and Asia. As the failure of disarmament, the peace movement, and the doctrine of appeasement became clear, Congress passed a series of neutrality acts designed to prevent the United States from being drawn into the widespread international conflict that the U.S. Government believed to be inevitable. In 1940, U.S. policy slowly began to shift from neutrality to non-belligerency by providing aid to the nations at war with the Axis Powers--Germany, Italy and Japan. In response to the growing emergency, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called upon the American people to prepare for war. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval installation at Pearl Harbor, and the United States formally entered the Second World War. Meetings between those powers allied in the war against the Axis powers provided the framework for the postwar world. Two major issues would become of major importance to postwar foreign policy, the prevention of another global conflict and the influence of nuclear weapons on the international balance of power. 6. The United States emerged from World War II as one of the foremost economic, political, and military powers in the world. Wartime production pulled the economy out of depression and propelled it to great profits. In the interest of avoiding another global war, for the first time the United States began to use economic assistance as a strategic element of its foreign policy and offered significant assistance to countries in Europe and Asia struggling to rebuild their shattered economies. In contrast to American unwillingness to politically or militarily entangle itself in the League of Nations, the United States became one of the first members of the international organization designed to promote international security, commerce, and law, the United Nations. The United States also took an active interest in the fate of the colonies the European powers were having difficulty maintaining. In addition to these challenges, the United States faced increasing resistance from the Soviet Union which had rescinded on a number of wartime promises. As the Soviets demonstrated a keen interest in dominating Eastern Europe, the United States took the lead in forming a Western alliance to counterbalance the communist superpower to contain the spread of communism. At the same time, the United States restructured its military and intelligence forces, both of which would have a significant influence in U.S. Cold War policy. 7. Concerns about the international spread of communism and the growing power of the Soviet Union dominated most foreign policy decisions during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. U.S. foreign policymakers observed with concern as the Soviets tightened their hold on Eastern Europe. In Africa and Asia nationalist movements challenged colonial governments. U.S. officials suspected that communists dominated these movements and received support directly from the Soviet Union. In order to counterbalance the Soviet threat, President Eisenhower supported a doctrine of massive retaliation, which called for the development of technology necessary to match and even surpass Soviet nuclear capability. Recognizing that nuclear war was a last resort, U.S. officials supported engaging in conventional limited wars. In an effort to prepare for potential military conflicts, President Eisenhower exercised unprecedented executive authority in deploying the U.S. military abroad, without specific authorization from the U.S. Congress. These Cold War policies served to increase the foreign policymaking power of the presidency and to expand U.S. international obligations. 8. Mounting tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, and war in Vietnam determined U.S. foreign policy in the 1960s. In 1961, the Soviet Union erected the most iconic image of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, which physically divided the Western and Eastern Blocs of Germany's city of Berlin. The following year, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of armed conflict, as U.S. ships blockaded Cuba preventing Soviet attempts to deliver nuclear warheads to the island. On the other side of the world, burgeoning conflict in Vietnam created a major dilemma for U.S. foreign policymakers. Determined not to lose either the nation of South Vietnam or the broader region of Southeast Asia to communism, U.S. officials committed the United States to military action to stop North Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh. After President John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson continued to commit significant military expenditures to the conflict in Vietnam, particularly after a 1964 Congressional resolution that gave the President unprecedented power to increase the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. This costly foreign policy eventually influenced domestic politics as the war in Vietnam grew increasingly unpopular with the American public. 9. The war in Vietnam continued into the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, who initially sought a resolution to the conflict in Southeast Asia by decreasing the number of troops on the ground while extending air raids into Cambodia and Laos. However, the combination of domestic anti-war fervor and Congressional determination to extend limits on Presidential war power meant that finding an end to the conflict was a political necessity. The administration introduced the policy of "Vietnamization," a program designed to shift the responsibility of the war from the U.S. to the South Vietnamese, allowing the United States to gradually withdraw its troops from Vietnam. Although this process was not successful, the United States negotiated a peace agreement in 1973 and withdrew from South Vietnam, which soon fell to the communist regime in the north. As the Nixon Administration worked to end the Vietnam War, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger worked toward achieving detente with the Soviet Union. Arms limitation talks with the Soviets reduced military spending and increased the sense of security, and established formal commitments to future discussions between the two powers. President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger also reached out to the other major communist power and cleared the way for future American recognition of the People's Republic of China by establishing an American policy toward Taiwan. 10. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 created a massive shift in the international balance of power and left the United States as the sole remaining superpower. Early conflicts like the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that led to the Gulf War and clashes in the newly independent Balkan states brought the United States together with new allies to solve international problems. President George H. W. Bush defined the shift as a "New World Order," and for the first time since World War II, the United States and Russia fought together on the same side of a conflict. The administrations of President William J. Clinton during the 1990s were shaped by attempts by American foreign policymakers to redefine what constituted a "threat" and what foreign policy would serve the "national interest" in the post-Cold War era. Some experts argued that the United States should work toward preventing ethnic conflict and genocide in places such as Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo. Others maintained that U.S. foreign policy should focus instead on preserving U.S. economic and trade interests.

Eisenhower (1953-1961)

1. Dwight D. Eisenhower brought a "New Look" to U.S. national security policy in 1953. The main elements of the New Look were: (1) maintaining the vitality of the U.S. economy while still building sufficient strength to prosecute the Cold War; (2) relying on nuclear weapons to deter Communist aggression or, if necessary, to fight a war; (3) using the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out secret or covert actions against governments or leaders "directly or indirectly responsive to Soviet control"; and (4) strengthening allies and winning the friendship of nonaligned governments. Eisenhower's defense policies, which aimed at providing "more bang for the buck," cut spending on conventional forces while increasing the budget for the Air Force and for nuclear weapons. 2. One of the legacies of the Korean War was that U.S.-Chinese relations remained hostile and tense. Like Truman, Eisenhower refused to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC). Instead, he continued to support Jiang Jieshi's (Chiang Kai-shek's) Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan. After PRC guns began shelling the Nationalist Chinese islands of Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu) in September 1954, Congress granted Eisenhower the authority to use U.S. military power in the Taiwan Strait. The President knew that these specks of territory had no real strategic value but that they had symbolic importance, as both the PRC and the Nationalists claimed to be the only legitimate ruler of all of China. 3. During his last years in office, Eisenhower hoped to achieve a détente with the Soviet Union that could produce a treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and oceans. Hopes rose after Khrushchev visited the United States in September 1959 and met with Eisenhower at the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains. This summit produced no arms control agreement, but it did lead to good will and optimism known as "the spirit of Camp David." Eisenhower and Khrushchev agreed to meet again, along with the leaders of France and Britain, in Paris in May 1960. The summit collapsed, however, in acrimony and bitterness in a dispute over the U-2 incident. As the meeting with Khrushchev approached, Eisenhower authorized another U-2 flight over Soviet territory. Damaged by a surface-to-air missile, the U.S. plane crashed on May 1, 1960, during the Soviet celebration of May Day. Not knowing that the Soviets had captured the pilot, the State Department and the White House issued a series of cover stories that the Kremlin exposed as lies. Despite his embarrassment, Eisenhower took responsibility for the failed U-2 mission and asserted that the flights were necessary to protect national security. Khrushchev tried to exploit the U-2 incident for maximum propaganda value and demanded an apology from the President when they met in Paris. Eisenhower refused, Khrushchev stormed out of the meeting, and the emerging détente became instead an intensified Cold War. 4. Eisenhower prosecuted the Cold War vigorously even as he hoped to improve Soviet-American relations. He relied frequently on covert action to avoid having to take public responsibility for controversial interventions. He believed that the CIA, created in 1947, was an effective instrument to counter Communist expansion and to assist friendly governments. CIA tactics were sometimes unsavory, as they included bribes, subversion, and even assassination attempts. But Eisenhower authorized those actions, even as he maintained plausible deniability, that is, carefully concealing all evidence of U.S. involvement so that he could deny any responsibility for what had happened. 5. In Southeast Asia, Eisenhower sent U.S. weapons and dollars instead of troops. Like Truman, Eisenhower provided military aid to the French, who had begun fighting a war in 1946 to regain control over their colonial possession of Indochina, which included the current nations of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. By 1954, the Eisenhower administration was paying more than 75 percent of the French costs of the war. Yet the French were unable to defeat the Vietminh, a nationalist force under the leadership of the Communist Ho Chi Minh. A crisis occurred in early 1954, when Vietminh forces surrounded a French garrison at the remote location of Dienbienphu. The French garrison surrendered after weeks of brutal siege. At an international conference in Geneva, the French government granted independence to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 6. Eisenhower hoped to salvage a partial victory by preventing Ho Chi Minh from establishing a Communist government over all of Vietnam. In 1954-1955, U.S. aid and support helped Ngo Dinh Diem establish a non-Communist government in what became South Vietnam. Eisenhower considered the creation of South Vietnam a significant Cold War success, yet his decision to commit U.S. prestige and power in South Vietnam created long-term dangers that his successors would have to confront. 7. In his Farewell Address, Eisenhower concentrated not on the threats he had confronted abroad but on the dangers of the Cold War at home. He told his fellow citizens to be wary of the "military-industrial complex," which he described as the powerful combination of "an immense military establishment and a large arms industry." Defense was a means to an end, and the American people had to be careful that they did not allow special interests to absorb an ever-increasing share of national wealth or to "endanger our liberties or democratic processes." ============ Before his presidency, Eisenhower had an impressive military career, including as supreme commander of the Allied forces in Western Europe in World War Two. Eisenhower managed to obtain a truce in the Korean War, and although he authorized covert anti-communist operations, worked to reduce Cold War tensions. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, Eisenhower authorized NASA's establishment, beginning the Space Race.

Nuclear Weapons

1. First Strike Capability: The capacity to strike another nuclear power and destroy enough of their arsenal so that any retaliation only creates acceptable damage (the state remains operational). 2. Second Strike Capability: The ability to retaliate against a first strike and inflict unacceptable damage (render the state inoperable). 3. Mutually Assured Destruction: State A and B both possess second strike capability. A nuclear attack by one superpower would be met with an overwhelming nuclear counterattack such that both the attacker and the defender would be annihilated. 4. The five current members of the UN Security Council are permitted to possess nuclear weapons under the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPFT) - U.S. (5,500), Russia (6,200), Britain (200), France (300), China (280). 5. NPFT is one of the most successful treaties ever. Violators: India, Pakistan, Israel (81), and North Korea (15).

Afghanistan War

1. Following the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban immediately extradite al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to the United States; the Taliban refused to do so without evidence of bin Laden's involvement. The US declared Operation Enduring Freedom, as part of the earlier-declared war on terror. Afghanistan was invaded and the Taliban and its allies were soon expelled from major population centers by the US-led forces, supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance; however, bin Laden relocated to neighboring Pakistan. The US-led coalition remained in Afghanistan, forming a security mission (ISAF)—sanctioned by the United Nations—with the goal of creating a new democratic authority in the country that would prevent the Taliban from returning to power.[79] A new Afghan Interim Administration was established, and international rebuilding efforts were launched.[80] By 2003, the Taliban had reorganized under their founder, Mullah Omar, and began a widespread insurgency against the new Afghan government and coalition forces. Insurgents from the Taliban and other Islamist groups waged asymmetric warfare, fighting with guerrilla warfare in the countryside, suicide attacks against urban targets, and reprisals against perceived Afghan collaborators. By 2007, large parts of Afghanistan had been retaken by the Taliban. In response, the coalition sent a major influx of troops for counter-insurgency operations, with a "clear and hold" strategy for villages and towns; this influx peaked in 2011, when roughly 140,000 foreign troops were operating under ISAF command across Afghanistan. 2. A US covert operation in neighboring Pakistan led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, and NATO leaders began planning an exit strategy from Afghanistan. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and officially transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. Unable to eliminate the Taliban through military means, coalition forces (and separately, the Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani) turned to diplomacy to end the conflict. These efforts culminated in the US-Taliban deal in February 2020, which stipulated the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan by 2021. In exchange, the Taliban pledged to prevent any militant group from staging attacks from Afghan territory against the US and its allies. However, the Afghan government was not a party to the deal and rejected its terms. Coinciding with the withdrawal of troops, the Taliban launched a broad offensive throughout the summer of 2021, successfully reestablishing their control over Afghanistan, including the capital city of Kabul on 15 August. On the same day, the last president of the Islamic Republic, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country; the Taliban declared victory and the war was formally brought to a close. By 30 August, the last American military aircraft departed from Afghanistan, ending the protracted US-led military presence in the country. 3. The 9/11 Commission in the US found that under the Taliban, al-Qaeda was able to use Afghanistan as a place to train and indoctrinate fighters, import weapons, coordinate with other jihadists, and plot terrorist actions. While al-Qaeda maintained its own camps in Afghanistan, it also supported training camps of other organizations. An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 men passed through these facilities before 9/11, most of whom were sent to fight for the Taliban against the United Front. A smaller number were inducted into al-Qaeda. 4. 9/11 - Osama Bin Laden planned and coordinated the attacks, and the US desire to hold him accountable became the casus belli for invasion. Historian Carter Malkasian writes that "seldom in history has one man so singlehandedly provoked a war." Bin Laden sought, successfully, to draw the US into an extended war similar to that fought against the Soviets. 5. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the United States National Security Council agreed that military action would probably have to be taken against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. However, Bush decided to issue an ultimatum to the Taliban first. President Bush issued an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, "close immediately every terrorist training camp, hand over every terrorist and their supporters, and give the United States full access to terrorist training camps for inspection." In the weeks ahead and at the beginning of the US and NATO invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban demanded evidence of bin Laden's guilt but subsequently offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country if the US stopped its bombing and provided evidence of bin Laden's guilt. A Bush administration official later stated that their demands were "not subject to negotiation" and that it was "time for the Taliban to act now." Covert US military action began soon after, and the War started officially on 7 October 2001. -------------- - Global War on Terror

Gerald Ford (1974-1977)

1. Ford and Kissinger made it clear to the Soviets that despite Nixon's resignation, the United States still hoped to pursue détente. 2. The President furthered détente in August 1975 when he joined with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and the heads of other European nations to sign the Helsinki Accords, which recognized the existing boundaries of European countries established at the end of World War II. The accords also included statements in support of human rights, to which the Soviets reluctantly acquiesced. Ford and the Soviets agreed in November 1974 to the Vladivostok Accords, which provided a general outline for a successor treaty to SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty), negotiated by Nixon and Kissinger in 1972. 3. The Paris Peace Agreement of January 1973 established a ceasefire between North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Communist insurgents in the South. Nevertheless, the war between North Vietnam (with its allies in the South) and South Vietnam resumed in 1973. In late 1974, he reiterated Nixon's request for a fresh infusion of aid; Congress responded by granting South Vietnam $700 million in military and humanitarian assistance, an amount that was far less than Nixon's original request. A renewed assault by Communist forces in the first months of 1975, however, brought South Vietnam to the brink of defeat. Ford made the case for more military aid, but Congress offered only humanitarian assistance. The end came in late April as Communist forces overran Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. At virtually the same time, America's allies in neighboring Cambodia and Laos were also falling from power. Ford ordered the evacuation of all U.S. personnel and South Vietnamese citizens with connections to the United States. Americans watched on television as U.S. helicopters, some with South Vietnamese civilians clinging to their landing gear, departed from the roofs of various buildings, including the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. These scenes stood as an ignominious ending to America's disastrous involvement in Indochina. ----------- The Fall of Saigon ended America's presence in Vietnam, and Ford helped reduce Cold War tensions by signing the 1975 Helsinki Accords, moving toward détente.

Executive (Presidential) Model

1. Foreign policy should be left almost exclusively to the president and his/her national security team 2. Efficiency/expediency: without it could put our nation at risk 3. Information: president has access to top secret information and has a full understanding of the situation 4. National mandate: only individual who can speak for the nation as a whole (national constituency), single voice, rally around the flag effect 5. Resources: president controls resources needed to guide foreign policy 6. Constitutional: president as commander-in-chief

Co-equal Branch Model

1. Foreign policy should be made jointly by the president and Congress 2. President and Congress jointly create legislation/policy, president executes

Rival of the U.S. as a Great Power

1. In 1861, eleven states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America and, over the course of the next four years, the U.S. fought to bring the Confederate States back under control. During the Civil War the Confederacy repeatedly sought international support for its cause, often calling upon foreign reliance on its cotton exports to obtain it. The Union, on the other hand, strove to prevent other nations from recognizing the Confederacy as a legitimate nation and from getting involved in the Civil War. In an attempt to starve the Confederate economy and to cut it off from its international supporters, the Union engaged in a blockade of Confederate ports--a move that was of questionable legality in international law. Despite the Confederacy's significant international commercial ties, the lack of definitive military victories for the South and the success of Union efforts to link the Confederacy with the institution of slavery ultimately prevented any of the European powers from officially recognizing or supporting the South. 2. The outcome of the Civil War resulted in a strengthening of U.S. foreign power and influence, as the definitive Union defeat of the Confederacy firmly demonstrated the strength of the United States Government and restored its legitimacy to handle the sectional tensions that had complicated U.S. external relations in the years before the Civil War. The renewed strength of the U.S. Government led to the defeat of French intervention in Mexico, and hastened the confederation of Canada in 1867. Union victory also ensured continuing support for the international abolishment of racial slavery. 3. The renewed international image of the United States also helped Secretary of State William Seward in his attempts to acquire additional territory in the postwar period. In 1867, Seward succeeded in purchasing Alaska from the Russian Government. Seward also sought to acquire territories in the Caribbean, and to negotiate permission to build the Panama Canal. The postwar period also saw attempts by U.S. political leaders, including Seward, to resettle freed slaves abroad in either Mexico or Brazil, but the governments of those countries dissuaded Seward from these efforts. 4. In the wake of the Civil War, the United States continued to expand into new territory and new markets. In 1867, the U.S. nearly doubled its holdings with the purchase of the territory of Alaska from the Russians. During this period, U.S. economic power grew, driven by new inventions in communication and transportation that closed the distance from coast to coast, and by a massive influx of immigration that sparked an explosion of industrialization and urbanization throughout the country. The combination of high productivity and the industrial revolution resulted in a production rate that vastly outstripped that which people in the United States could consume. Following two devastating economic recessions, U.S. foreign policy leaders focused on finding foreign markets to absorb excess goods. This renewed emphasis on exploring international business opportunities resulted in a build up of U.S. naval forces to protect commercial shipping and overseas interests. 5. The Spanish-American War of 1898 ended Spain's colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere and secured the position of the United States as a Pacific power. U.S. victory in the war produced a peace treaty that compelled the Spanish to relinquish claims on Cuba, and to cede sovereignty over Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States. The United States also annexed the independent state of Hawaii during the conflict. Thus, the war enabled the United States to establish its predominance in the Caribbean region and to pursue its strategic and economic interests in Asia. 6. Following the defeat Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States acquired overseas colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific. In its new status as an imperial power, the United States pursued a series of policies designed to protect American territories and aggressively expand its international commercial interests. These policies included the promotion of the "Open Door" policy in China and the attachment of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that formally announced the intention to use military force to defend the Western Hemisphere against European incursions. At the same time, President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the construction of the Panama Canal, which would have profound economic implications for American trade, and engaged in great power diplomacy in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War. In just over a decade, the United States had redefined its national and international interests to include a large overseas military presence, overseas possessions, and direct engagement in setting priorities in international affairs. 7. President Theodore Roosevelt's assertive approach to Latin America and the Caribbean has often been characterized as the "Big Stick," and his policy came to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Although the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was essentially passive (it asked that Europeans not increase their influence or recolonize any part of the Western Hemisphere), by the 20th century a more confident United States was willing to take on the role of regional policeman. In the early 1900s Roosevelt grew concerned that a crisis between Venezuela and its creditors could spark an invasion of that nation by European powers. The Roosevelt Corollary of December 1904 stated that the United States would intervene as a last resort to ensure that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their obligations to international creditors, and did not violate the rights of the United States or invite "foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations." As the corollary worked out in practice, the United States increasingly used military force to restore internal stability to nations in the region. Roosevelt declared that the United States might "exercise international police power in 'flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence.'" Over the long term the corollary had little to do with relations between the Western Hemisphere and Europe, but it did serve as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. ------------ - Growth of economy after the collapse of slavery - Spanish-American War

Barack Obama (2009-2017)

1. In addition to inheriting an economy in crisis when he took office, President Obama inherited two wars, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. An early opponent of President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Obama promised during the 2008 election campaign to withdraw American troops as soon as possible. In February 2009, he announced a plan to bring troop levels down from 160,000 to 50,000 by August 2010, including the removal of all combat forces. The remaining troops, he added, would be withdrawn by the end of 2011. For several years, the withdrawal proceeded smoothly, in part because Obama was able to build on the gains achieved by Bush's "surge" of 20,000 additional troops in 2007, which had helped the government of Iraq to restore a measure of stability to the country. By 2012, only 150 American troops were in Iraq, a number that remained level for about three years. 2. Obama's other war-related campaign promise was to step up the US military commitment in Afghanistan in order to keep the extremist Taliban regime from regaining power and allowing al Qaeda once again to use the country as a base of terrorist operations against the United States and its allies. Soon after taking office, Obama granted the military's request, initially made at the end of the Bush presidency, to send an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan, raising the American military presence there to about 60,000. 3. Even after United States soldiers killed bin Laden in May 2011 and began disengaging from Iraq and Afghanistan, the president expanded the strategic deployment of special forces and drones in a "secret war" against suspected terrorists. Moreover, the White House joined with NATO to help Libyan rebels end the reign of dictator, Colonel Muamar el-Qaddafi. The administration argued that the War Powers Resolution, which requires the president to report to Congress when he deploys American forces, did not apply because a state of "hostilities" did not exist. 4. During the first year of his second term, President Obama seemed determined to take the United States off a "perpetual war footing." Sensing the country's war fatigue and noting resistance from both Democrats and Republicans to additional commitments in the Middle East, the president decided not to launch missile strikes in Syria in support of rebels fighting the autocratic regime of Bashar al-Assad, even though the brutal dictator had crossed Obama's stated "red line" by using chemical weapons against civilians. 5. Obama's foreign policy goals extended beyond the wars he inherited or that broke out while he was in office. At the start of his second term in 2013, he and the leaders of five other nations began negotiations with Iran that resulted in a 2015 agreement designed to prevent that country from developing nuclear weapons for at least a decade in return for removing United Nations-imposed economic sanctions. Under the agreement, Iran surrendered 97 percent of its enriched uranium. 6. Obama also restored diplomatic relations with communist Cuba in December 2014 for the first time in more than a half century and visited the country in March 2016. In 2014, the president reached a bilateral climate agreement in which China and the United States agreed to substantially reduce carbon emissions. That agreement laid the foundation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, at which nearly every country in the world agreed to monitor their emissions and develop plans to reduce them. 7. In an effort to tie Pacific nations more closely to the United States than to China, Obama negotiated a multinational trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with twelve trading partners from round the Pacific basin. TPP was caught up in election-year politics in 2016, however, when the leading candidates in both major political parties opposed it, and it was never presented to Congress. So controversial had free trade become by the end of Obama's second term that even Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state had called TPP "the gold standard" in trade agreements, opposed it. ------------- Obama was the first African-American president, and was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Key foreign policy actions included the killing of Osama bin Laden (the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks) and the Iran Nuclear Deal. Additionally, Obama normalised relations with Cuba, authorised military involvement in Libya and Iraq, and eventually ended US combat in Afghanistan. Obama initiated sanctions against Russia following its invasion in Ukraine and US election interference, and condemned Syria's use of chemical weapons on civilians.

Emergence of U.S. as a Regional/Continental Power

1. In the early part of the 1800s, the United States developed more confidence as an independent nation. Opportunities to expand westward strengthened the notion that the United States should continue its quest to occupy more territory of the vast North American continent. The European powers did little to stop the young nation from extending its borders as they were embroiled in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars in Europe. Indeed, the economic pressure of these European conflicts compelled the French and the Spanish to sell the Louisiana and Florida territories to the U.S. Government, more than doubling the size of the United States. During this period, the U.S. also built an economy based on trade and commerce, and premised on the same neutrality as outlined by the founders in the Early Republic. The United States even went to war with Britain in 1812, when British actions threatened American neutrality and trading rights. Finally, the United States used the newfound independence of the Latin American states from their former colonial ruler of Spain to establish the idea of an American sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere and to announce to the European powers the end of the era of colonization in the Americas. 2. During this crucial period, the United States pursued a policy of expansion based on "manifest destiny," the ideology that Americans were in fact destined to extend their nation across the continent. The United States even proved to be willing to go to war to secure new territories. While it managed to negotiate an agreement with Great Britain to secure the Oregon territory, acquiring the valuable territory south of it--including California and its important Pacific harbors--required the use of force, and, in 1845, the United States embarked on its first offensive war by invading Mexico. In addition to advancing westward, the United States also continued to expand economically through investment in foreign markets and international trade. With these growing commercial interests, came a larger navy and increased international presence. The United States began to turn to the Pacific for new economic opportunities, establishing a presence in China, and opening Japan and Korea to western commercial interests. 3. During his tenure, U.S. President James K. Polk oversaw the greatest territorial expansion of the United States to date. Polk accomplished this through the annexation of Texas in 1845, the negotiation of the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain in 1846, and the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, which ended with the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. These events brought within the control of the United States the future states of Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Washington, and Oregon, as well as portions of what would later become Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana. 4. Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which was signed in Mexico City on February 2, 1848. Under the terms of the treaty, Mexico ceded to the United States approximately 525,000 square miles (55% of its prewar territory) in exchange for a $15 million lump sum payment, and the assumption by the U.S. Government of up to $3.25 million worth of debts owed by Mexico to U.S. citizens. 5. Following the First Opium War in the 1840s, the Western powers concluded a series of treaties with China in an effort to open its lucrative markets to Western trade. In the 1850s, the United States and the European powers grew increasingly dissatisfied with both the terms of their treaties with China and the Qing Government's failure to adhere to them. The British forced the issue by attacking the Chinese port cities of Guangzhou and Tianjin in the Second Opium War. Under the most-favored-nation clause contained in the existing treaties, all of the foreign powers operating in China were permitted to seek the same concessions of China that Great Britain achieved by force. As a result, France, Russia, and the United States all signed treaties with China at Tianjin in quick succession in 1858. These treaties granted the Western powers a number of rights and privileges. The number of treaty ports increased, with new ports opened to Western trade along the Chinese coast, on the islands of Taiwan and Hainan, and along the Yangtze River in the interior. With the opening of the Yangtze River, foreigners also gained full access to the interior, and were free to travel and conduct business or missions anywhere in China. The British demanded the right of Chinese citizens to emigrate on British ships. British (and therefore, French, American and Russian) diplomats were permitted to establish legations and live in Beijing. The agreements reached at Tianjin also set a new, low tariff for imported goods, giving foreign traders an important advantage. __________________ - Settling of the West - War of Mexico - Expansion into Asia

Brown and Irwin (Trump's Assault on the Global Trading System)

1. Most traditional supporters of free trade are not so naive as to believe that the United States should tolerate China's bad behavior as long as cheap goods continue to flow into the United States. China, they agree, breaks the rules. But the Trump administration's clumsy unilateral approach is not the right answer. A better response would be to identify specific instances in which China has violated international agreements and then join with trading partners and allies to file cases with the w to. (This is not as hopeless a tactic as it might sound: China has complied with findings from the w to surprisingly often.) Where China has not explicitly violated agreements, Washington could still sanction unfair practices, preferably together with other countries so as to exert the maximum pressure possible, but unilaterally if that is the only feasible option. 2. The final plank of a sensible trade policy would be to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the revised trade deal struck by the remaining members of the TPP after the U.S. withdrawal. Joining the CPTPP would establish a large zone of trade rules favorable to the United States and unfavorable to China. That would help push China to resume its progress toward economic reform. Historians will look back on Trump's precipitous decision to quit the TPP as a major blunder. 3. If Trump becomes a one-term president, the next administration will have an opportunity to reverse many of its predecessor's trade policies—eliminating the steel and aluminum tariffs, repairing relationships with the United States' NAFTA partners, joining the CPTPP, and improving the w to. That would not only help restore U.S. credibility on the world stage but also enable other countries to lift their retaliatory duties on U.S. exports, helping suffering farmers. If Trump wins reelection and continues down the path of economic nationalism, however, the prospect of continued, and perhaps intensified, trade conflict is likely to destroy the world trading system. That would do incalculable damage to the world economy. 4. The system of world trade that the United States helped establish after World War II is often described as multilateral. But it was not a global system; it originally consisted of a small number of Western, market-oriented economies and Japan and excluded the Soviet Union, its eastern European satellites, and other communist countries. That division was about more than politics. Market and non-market economies are in many ways incompatible. In a market economy, a firm losing money has to adjust or go bankrupt. Under state capitalism, state-owned firms get subsides to maintain production and save jobs, forcing non-state-owned firms—at home or abroad—to make the painful adjustment instead. The Trump administration, together with China, as it retreats from pro-market reforms, may be moving the world back to the historic norm of political and economic blocs. 5. On China, it has become clear that the administration is bent on severing, not fixing, the relationship. The separation of the world's two largest economies would trigger a global realignment. Other countries would be forced to choose between rival trade blocs. Even if Trump loses reelection in 2020, global trade will never be the same.

Donald Trump (2017-2021)

1. On the campaign trail and in his Inaugural Address, Donald Trump declared his commitment to what he called an "America First" approach to foreign policy. The slogan itself had been especially prominent in the 1930s, when right-wing political activists sympathetic to Nazi Germany and fascism rallied against American intervention in World War II. More generally, Trump's foreign policy reflected an isolationist strand that had largely been marginalized in national affairs since World War II. Although mainstream politics and the foreign policy establishment had remained committed to the exercise of US global leadership for decades, Trump capitalized on a sense of discontent that had been building since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s and was galvanized by the so-called "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In addition to capturing a growing weariness of foreign military involvement, Trump also linked foreign policy to his populist campaign rhetoric about the "forgotten men and women" whom the global economy had left behind. 2. Both Trump's rhetoric and his policy positions contained contradictions, as Trump simultaneously called for isolationism and a more robust military. 3. Trump also significantly drew down the US troop presence in Afghanistan, which the US military had maintained since invading the country in 2001. In February 2020, Trump officials signed a deal with the Taliban, which had been engaged in an insurrection against the US-backed government, leading to the full withdrawal of all US troops the next year. The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in September 2021. 4. A cornerstone of Trump's America First policy agenda was the abrogation of bilateral and multilateral agreements and treaties in favor of unilateral arrangements, conducted country to country. Trump was openly hostile to the European Union, which he regarded as a competitor. He frequently threatened to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an organization formed after World War II to create a mutual defense alliance against the Soviet Union (and, after 1991, Russia), arguing that providing military defense for Western Europe was too expensive. In June 2017, Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement to combat climate change; Joe Biden reversed that decision early in his presidency. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the World Health Organization, which he accused of absolving China from responsibility for the pandemic. As with the Paris Accords, the Biden administration immediately rejoined the World Health Organization in January 2021. 5. In May 2018, the Trump administration announced that the United States would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal, a 2015 agreement among the United States, Iran, five other countries, and the European Union. The deal allowed Iran to pursue nuclear technology for non-military purposes, under strict foreign supervision, in exchange for relaxed economic sanctions. Trump, along with many Republicans, had long disapproved of the agreement, which many conservatives believed made excessive and unwise concessions to Iran and risked the security of Israel in the event Iran broke the agreement and developed nuclear weapons. In November 2018, the United States reimposed all economic sanctions that had previously been in effect on Iran. Upon taking office, Joe Biden indicated his desire to rejoin the deal. 6. President Trump's approach to trade likewise departed from recent practice. Within days of becoming president, Trump withdrew the United States from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, designed to reduce barriers to trade between countries along the Pacific rim. Making good on his campaign promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, which liberalized the movement of goods between Mexico, Canada, and the United States, Trump reached an agreement in 2018 to replace the treaty with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Although the new agreement largely retained the framework of the original treaty, it updated a number of specific terms to take account the advances of digital technology and online sales. It also created new incentives for automobile production in the United States. 7. Trump also fulfilled his campaign promise to address trade competition with China, whom he accused of unfair competition and theft of intellectual property that resulted in the decline of American industrial manufacturing. Beginning in January 2018, Trump imposed new tariffs, or import taxes, on a range of products from China, including especially steel and aluminum, driving up the cost of those imports for American consumers in the hope of boosting sales of American-made products. In response, China imposed tariffs on products it imported from the United States, hurting the sales of American exporters. The trade war escalated through 2019 before the Trump administration and the government of China reached an agreement that eased tensions. Trump received praise from some politicians for sticking up for American manufacturers, but criticism from others, from within his own party as well as from Democrats, for hurting global trade and driving up costs for American consumers. ------------- Trump's perception that America had been taken advantage of led to his polarizing 'America First' foreign policy agenda, most significantly withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran Nuclear Deal. He also met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Allegations were made that Trump encouraged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump was impeached in 2019 after soliciting Ukraine to investigate presidential contender Joe Biden, but later acquitted. He was impeached again in 2021, this time for incitement for insurrection, following the 6 January 2021 Capitol Attack, in which supporters of Donald Trump sought to overturn his defeat in the 2020 Presidential election.

John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)

1. Once in office, it was clear that Kennedy would likely face several international challenges that could come from any number of directions. Recurring flare-ups in Berlin, periodic crises with Communist China, and an increasingly vexing situation in Southeast Asia, all threatened to erupt. 2. It was Cuba, however, that was the site of an immediate crisis, largely of the administration's own making. Kennedy had only been in office two months when he ordered the implementation of a covert CIA plan inherited from the Eisenhower administration—which he altered dramatically—to topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Assured by military advisers and the CIA that its prospects for success were good, Kennedy gave the green light. In the early hours of April 17, 1961, approximately 1,500 anti-Castro Cuban refugees landed at Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on Cuba's southern coast. A series of crucial assumptions built into the plan proved false, and Castro's forces quickly overwhelmed the refugee force. Moreover, the Kennedy administration's cover story collapsed immediately. It soon became clear that despite the president's denial of US involvement in the attempted coup, Washington was indeed behind it. The misadventure cost Kennedy dearly. Yet his administration continued to press for Castro's ouster, launching the CIA-backed Operation Mongoose in November 1961 to harass and destabilize the Cuban regime. 3. Kennedy met with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961. Khrushchev renewed his threat to "solve" the long-running Berlin problem unilaterally, an announcement that in turn forced Kennedy to renew his pledge to respond to such a move with every means at his disposal, including nuclear weapons. In a dramatic move two months later, in mid-August 1961, the Soviets and East Germans constructed a wall separating East and West Berlin, providing the Cold War with its most tangible incarnation of the Iron Curtain. 4. By the fall of 1962, Cuba again took center-stage in the Cold War. In an effort to protect the Castro government, compete with China for the hearts of revolutionaries worldwide, and neutralize the massive American advantage in nuclear weapons—particularly as part of any new Berlin gambit—Khrushchev ordered a secret deployment of long-range nuclear missiles to Cuba along with a force of 42,000 Soviet troops and other associated conventional and atomic weaponry. For months, despite close American scrutiny, the Soviets managed to keep hidden the full extent of the buildup. But in mid-October, US aerial reconnaissance detected the deployment of Soviet ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba which could reach most of the continental United States within a matter of minutes. Kennedy eventually chose a blockade, or quarantine, of Cuba, backed up by the threat of imminent military action. In announcing his decision on national television on October 22, 1962—breaking the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the crisis to that point—Kennedy warned that the purpose of the Soviet missiles in Cuba could be "none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere" and that he would protect the United States from such a threat no matter what the cost. The lines, suddenly, were drawn very firmly indeed, and the world held its breath. After several days of action and reaction, each seeming to bring the world closer to the brink of nuclear war, the two sides reached a deal. Khrushchev would order the withdrawal of offensive missiles, and Kennedy would promise not to invade Cuba; Kennedy also secretly promised to withdraw American ballistic nuclear missiles based in Turkey targeting the Soviet Union. Difficult negotiations aimed at finalizing the deal and verifying its implementation dragged on for several weeks but, on November 20, 1962, Kennedy finally ordered the lifting of the naval blockade of Cuba. 5. President Kennedy created the Peace Corps by executive order in 1961, a reaction to both the growing spirit of activism throughout the West and Communist efforts to capitalize on the decolonization process. Through the promotion of modernization and development, Peace Corps volunteers sought to improve social and economic conditions throughout the world; their work also supported Kennedy's efforts in the Cold War battle for hearts and minds. 6. Although Laos presented Kennedy with an initial (and recurring) challenge in the region, by the end of his presidency it was Vietnam that proved at least as difficult, and potentially more dangerous. America had been sending military advisers to Saigon since the early 1950s to help France in its war against Vietnamese Communists for control of the nation. In 1961, Kennedy increased this allotment and ordered in the Special Forces, an elite army unit, to train the South Vietnamese in counter-insurgency warfare. But war continued to spread, and by the end of Kennedy's presidency, 16,000 American military advisers were serving in Vietnam. 7. Just months before his death, Kennedy secured an agreement, with Britain and the Soviet Union, to limit the testing of nuclear weapons in space, underwater, and in the earth's atmosphere. Not only did it seek to reduce hazardous nuclear "fallout," it also signaled the success of Kennedy's efforts to engage the Soviet Union in constructive negotiations and reduce Cold War tensions, a goal captured most famously in his June 1963 remarks at American University. In the wake of the close call over Cuba, Kennedy considered this agreement his greatest accomplishment as president. ------------- Kennedy authorised an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro's government in Cuba's Bay of Pigs. Later, US spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases, resulting in 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly ended in nuclear war. This resulted in a slowing of the arms race and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Presidential Powers

1. Power to receive foreign ambassadors 2. Grant pardons 3. Execute the laws of Congress 4. Serve as commander-in-chief (although only Congress has the authority to declare war, raise an army, and prepare for the common defense) -- There is consensus that the president's office has become more powerful, especially in foreign policy. After WWII, Congress has never declared war (Vietnam, Korea, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq - the president has essentially subsumed the war power)

Joe Biden (2021-Present)

1. President Biden faced a number of challenges in foreign affairs. After years of erratic policy decisions under President Trump, Biden aimed to bring a state of normalcy to US foreign policy, rejoin treaties and alliances the previous administration abandoned, and restore the county's standing in the world. The Biden approach jettisoned Trump's "America First" nationalism in favor of rebuilding relationships with US allies and bolstering international institutions that Trump denigrated such as NATO and the World Health Organization. President Biden planned for the United States to return to the Paris climate agreement, focus on repairing the damage done to the Iran nuclear deal, and try to tame China's widening international influence. 2. Withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. 3. Increased sanctions on China. ---------- Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. became President of the United States on 20 January 2021. He had previously served as the 47th vice president between 2009 and 2017 under Barack Obama. He completed the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and imposed sanctions on Russia following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Truman (1945-1953)

1. President Harry S. Truman confronted unprecedented challenges in international affairs during his nearly eight years in office. Truman guided the United States through the end of World War II, the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the dawning of the atomic age. Truman intervened with American troops in the conflict between North Korea and South Korea and he supported the creation of the state of Israel in the Middle East. In sum, Truman's foreign policy established some of the basic principles and commitments that marked American foreign policy for the remainder of the twentieth century. 2. Established DoD, CIA, NSC with the National Security Act of 1947. 3. Atomic Age - On the morning of August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Estimates of the casualties are notoriously slippery, but upwards of 100,000 people, perhaps—mostly civilians—perished instantly. Two days later, hearing no word from the Japanese government (which was in deep negotiations about whether to surrender), Truman let the U.S. military proceed with its plans to drop a second atomic bomb. On August 9, that weapon hit Nagasaki, Japan. The Japanese agreed to surrender on August 14 and then did so, more formally, on September 2. World War II was over. 4. America sharpened its approach toward the U.S.S.R. in 1947. The President and his advisers grew more concerned that west European nations, still reeling from the devastation wrought by World War II, might elect indigenous Communist governments that would orient their nations—politically, economically, and militarily—toward the Soviet Union. Moreover, after the British government told American officials that it could no longer afford to serve as the watchdog of the eastern Mediterranean, Truman announced in March 1947 what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine. He pledged U.S. support for the pro-Western governments of Greece and Turkey—and, by extension, any similarly threatened government—arguing that the United States had a duty to support "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." In the summer of 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall announced a multi-billion dollar aid program for Europe, which became known as the Marshall Plan, that he hoped would encourage both political and economic stability and reduce the attraction of communism to Europe's suffering populations. 5. Truman had hoped that in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the development of atomic energy (for both peaceful and martial uses) would be placed under U.N. control. In early 1946, the Soviets rejected the U.S.-sponsored plan, which would have left the American atomic monopoly in place. Instead, the Kremlin redoubled its efforts to build a bomb which, through the aid of atomic espionage, came to fruition much more quickly than American policymakers and intelligence experts ever predicted. Moscow's successful test of an atomic weapon in the late summer of 1949 forced the Truman administration to re-evaluate its national security strategy. Truman decided in January 1950 to authorize the development of an even more powerful weapon—the hydrogen bomb—to counter the Soviets, thus accelerating the Cold War arms race. 6. In the years after World War II, Truman worked diligently to assure that the United Nations—conceived by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a forum in which differences between nations could be resolved before they led to war - would be a significant player in international life. 7. Truman's troubles in Asia exploded on the Korean peninsula. In the wake of World War II, Korea had been partitioned at the 38th parallel, with the Soviets supporting a communist regime north of that boundary and the Americans a non-communist one in the south. On June 25, 1950, North Korea launched a surprise invasion of South Korea. The United Nations immediately condemned North Korea, while Truman and his advisers in Washington discussed the American response. Certain that the Soviet Union lay behind the invasion, they reasoned that failure to act would lead U.S. allies to question America's commitment to resist Soviet aggression. Truman resolved not to repeat the mistake of Munich, where the European powers appeased and condoned Hitler's expansionism. Scholars now know that the invasion was the brain-child of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and that Stalin acceded to it only after making clear that the Soviets themselves would not become involved militarily and that Mao provide ground troops. Ultimately, the Soviets did provide the North Koreans with air support. 8. Truman's decision to stand and fight in Korea was a landmark event in the early years of the Cold War. Truman reassured America's European allies that the U.S. commitment to Asia would not come at Europe's expense—a commitment made more tangible in 1951 by increased American troop deployments to Europe and not Korea. The President thus guaranteed the United States to the defense of both Asia and Europe from the Soviet Union and its allies. Likewise, the Korean War locked in the high levels of defense spending and rearmament called for by NSC-68. Finally, the American effort in Korea was accompanied by a serious financial commitment to the French defense of a non-communist Indochina. In a very real sense, Korea militarized the Cold War and expanded its geographic reach. 9. On May 15, the United States, at Truman's direction, became the first country to recognize the state of Israel. --------------- Soon after Truman took office, the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, ending Word War Two. After the Cold War's onset, Truman implemented the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe's economy. Truman strongly opposed Soviet expansionism, establishing the Truman Doctrine and NATO. He later initiated American involvement in the Korean War and supported the state of Israel's creation.

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)

1. President Jimmy Carter came into office determined to follow a more idealist foreign policy, in the grand tradition of Woodrow Wilson. He intended to broaden the scope of U.S. foreign policy to include the promotion of human rights around the world. To this end, the Carter administration successfully forged a tentative peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, and negotiated an agreement over the future of the Panama Canal that ensured continued American access to the important commercial route. It also completed the process of recognizing the People's Republic of China begun by President Nixon. Despite these successes, the spirit of detente with the communist world faded with renewed crises in the Third World and a breakdown in arms negotiations between the superpowers. By 1980, a combination of a weak domestic economy, a continuing hostage crisis in Iran, and increased tensions with the Soviet Union contributed to Carter losing his bid for re-election. 2. The greatest foreign policy success of the Carter presidency involved the Middle East. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973 between Israel and its Arab enemies, Egypt and Syria, the Israelis had gradually disengaged their forces and moved a distance back in the Sinai Peninsula. They were still occupying Egyptian territory, however, and there was no peace between these adversaries. In the fall of 1978, Carter invited Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat to sit down with Carter at Camp David, a rural presidential retreat outside Washington. Between September 5 and September 17, 1978, Carter shuttled between Israeli and Egyptian delegations, hammering out the terms of peace. Consequently, Begin and Sadat reached a historic agreement: Israel would withdraw from the entire Sinai Peninsula; the U.S. would establish monitoring posts to ensure that neither side attacked the other; Israel and Egypt would recognize each other's governments and sign a peace treaty; and Israel pledged to negotiate with the Palestinians for peace. 3. Carter continued to expand American contacts with communist China, granting the communist regime formal diplomatic recognition on January 1, 1979. To do so required the severing of diplomatic ties and withdrawal of recognition of non-communist Taiwan (also known as the Republic of China). Carter's recognition of China significantly reduced tensions in East Asia. Hard-liners in China were replaced by communists who were more interested in economic growth than in military confrontations. Beneficial trade relations were established between China and the U.S., leading to huge imports of finished consumer goods from China, in return for U.S. lumber and foodstuffs. To substitute for diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. It provided for the creation of an American Institute on Taiwan, which bought the old American embassy. Institute staffers consisted of newly retired American foreign service officers experienced in Far Eastern Affairs. Taiwan established a corresponding institute in Washington, D.C., staffed with its retired diplomats. Thus each side continued with quasi-diplomatic relations, even though the pretense was that they had cut off the relationship. The U.S. continued to supply arms to Taiwan to defend itself from the mainland, a step that kept some friction in U.S.-Chinese relations. 4. Iran had become important to the 20th century chessboard for two reasons. Oil had been discovered there in 1909, and it was considered the geographic cork that kept Russia in the Asian bottle and out of the Middle East. The British, through Anglo-Dutch Shell Oil, had reaped Iranian oil for almost nothing through mid-century, but in 1951 a volatile new prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, threw them out. The American government became concerned that Iran was now ripe for a Soviet takeover. The Central Intelligence Agency staged a coup that toppled the prime minister and restored power to the Pahlavi ruling dynasty, whose monarch at the time had been reduced to a figurehead under Mossadeq. This leader, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlava, ("Shah" meaning "ruler") was allowed to govern once rights to 80 percent of the oil were ceded (transferred) to American and British interests. This made the Shah a Western puppet in the eyes of many Iranians. But the Shah, emboldened by American support over the years, became increasingly tyrannical towards his people. He outlawed rival political factions and deployed one of the world's most feared secret police agencies. This resulted in countless human rights violations. By the time of the Carter presidency, discontent with the Shah was widespread in Iran, and so was civil disorder. The Shah's most virulent opposition was led by a radical Islamic group that wanted to create a government adhering more strictly to their faith's teachings. Their supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, had been in exile in Paris for fifteen years. But by early 1979 the conservative Islamic movement had become so strong that the Shah was forced to flee Iran and turn over power to a new group of Western oriented technocrats. The Ayatollah returned to his homeland soon afterward and was instantly installed by a million Iranians marching on the capital as the nation's undisputed leader. The Shah was now in exile in Mexico, dying from cancer, and President Carter allowed him to come to the United States for refuge and medical treatment. This enraged Muslim fundamentalists in Iran. In November 1979, Islamic student militants loyal to the Ayatollah overran the American embassy in Teheran, Iran's capital. They seized sixty-six Americans and held them hostage, demanding the Shah's return to stand trial. In addition they demanded money and property that the Shah had stashed outside Iran, and an apology from America, who they considered "The Great Satan." Carter took immediate action. He froze billions of dollars of Iranian assets in the United States, then began secret negotiations, but nothing worked. The manner in which television network news reported on the crisis served to build up America's frustration. Mobs burned the American flag and shouted "Marg bar Amerika" ("Death to America") on nightly television news broadcasts in Iran. These film clips were rebroadcast in the United States, creating feelings of apprehension for the hostages and anger at Iran. By counting the number of days that the hostages had been held in capacity, nightly announcements such as "America Held Hostage, Day Eighty-nine" focused on the prolonged aspect of the situation. Americans grew impatient with the seemingly ineffective president who could not win the hostages' release. The Iranians heightened this political tension by making bright promises and then going back on them almost daily. Finally, Carter approved a secret military mission to attempt to free the hostages. Unfortunately, three of the eight helicopters carrying the assault force developed mechanical problems. One crashed into a transport aircraft in a remote desert in Iran, killing eight soldiers. After the failure, Iran dispersed the hostages to hideouts throughout the country, making rescue impossible. The failure of the rescue mission doomed Carter politically. It seemed to reinforce the widespread notion that he could not get things done, and that America had lost its edge. His approval rating dropped badly and he was up for reelection within a year, when Republicans would make a major issue of his performance in the crisis. Near the end of his administration Carter concluded an agreement that led to the release of the hostages. His executive agreement with Iran specified that the U.S. would unblock all Iranian funds, and the U.S. and Iran would utilize a tribunal at the Hague, Netherlands, to settle their financial claims. The U.S. also promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran. In return, Iran agreed to release the hostages. The U.S. embassy subsequently became a training camp for the Revolutionary Guards, the most militant and most anti-American wing of the groups backing the Islamic regime. --------- 'Jimmy' Carter's presidency was dominated by inflation, the energy crisis, the war in Afghanistan and 1979-81 Iran hostage crisis. Carter also accomplished the Camp David Accords, Panama Canal Treaties and established diplomatic relations with China. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the SALT II Treaty wasn't ratified, and Carter ended détente.

Richard Nixon (1969-1974)

1. President Richard Nixon, like his arch-rival President John F. Kennedy, was far more interested in foreign policy than in domestic affairs. It was in this arena that Nixon intended to make his mark. Although his base of support was within the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and although he had made his own career as a militant opponent of Communism, Nixon saw opportunities to improve relations with the Soviet Union and establish relations with the People's Republic of China. Politically, he hoped to gain credit for easing Cold War tensions; geopolitically, he hoped to use the strengthened relations with Moscow and Beijing as leverage to pressure North Vietnam to end the war—or at least interrupt it —with a settlement. He would play China against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union against China, and both against North Vietnam. 2. A year before his election, Nixon had written in Foreign Affairs of the Chinese, that "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation." Relations between the two great communist powers, the Soviet Union and China, had been deteriorating since the 1950s and had erupted into open conflict with border clashes during Nixon's first year in office. The President sensed opportunity and began to send out tentative diplomatic feelers to China. Reversing Cold War precedent, he publicly referred to the Communist nation by its official name, the People's Republic of China. A breakthrough of sorts occurred in the spring of 1971, when Mao Zedong invited an American table tennis team to China for some exhibition matches. Before long, Nixon dispatched Kissinger to secret meetings with Chinese officials. As America's foremost anti-Communist politician of the Cold War, Nixon was in a unique position to launch a diplomatic opening to China, leading to the birth of a new political maxim: "Only Nixon could go to China." The announcement that the President would make an unprecedented trip to Beijing caused a sensation among the American people, who had seen little of the world's most populous nation since the Communists had taken power. Nixon's visit to China in February 1972 was widely televised and heavily viewed. It was only a first step, but a decisive one, in the budding rapprochement between the two states. 3. The announcement of the Beijing summit produced an immediate improvement in American relations with the U.S.S.R.—namely, an invitation for Nixon to meet with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in Russia. It was a sign that Nixon's effort at "triangulation" was working; fear of improved relations between China and America was leading the Soviets to better their own relations with America, just as Nixon hoped. In meeting with the Soviet leader, Nixon became the first President to visit Moscow. Of more lasting importance were the treaties the two men signed to control the growth of nuclear arms. The agreements—a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty—did not end the arms race, but they paved the way for future pacts which sought to reduce and eliminate arms. Nixon also negotiated and signed agreements on science, space, and trade. 4. While Nixon tried to use improved relations with the Soviets and Chinese to pressure North Vietnam to reach a settlement, he could only negotiate a flawed agreement that merely interrupted, rather than ended, the war. Nixon told South Vietnamese president Thieu that if he did not agree to the settlement, Congress would cut off aid to his government—and that conservatives who had supported South Vietnam would lead the way. He promised that the United States would retaliate militarily if the North violated the agreement. To back up this threat, he launched the "Christmas Bombings" of 1972. When negotiations resumed in January, the few outstanding issues were quickly resolved. Thieu backed down. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 23, 1973, bringing an end to the participation of U.S. ground forces in the Vietnam War. ---------- Nixon forged détente and diplomatic ties with China and the Soviet Union, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and signed the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, ending America's direct combat role in the Vietnam War. He also presided over the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Realism

1. State > principal actors 2. States are self-interested 3. Survival (security) 4. Power (military); relative, war is decided by relative strength of competing actors. 5. Rational actor; states engage in cost-benefit analyses 6. Anarchy; international institutions have little power over states and cannot constrain them 7. Power politics; force or threat of force (powerful) 8. Wicked human nature 9. International system is a self-help system 10. Conflict is inevitable; zero-sum game 11. Morality has no place in IR/foreign policy 12. Balance of power (if two powers are equally matched they are less likely to go to war; nations will likely form alliances of relatively equal power)

George W. Bush (2001-2009)

1. The Bush administration's responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, expanded presidential power in matters of national security. Bush transformed from being a President with questionable legitimacy, who had been selected in a controversial election, to taking on immense presidential emergency powers, defining the threat, and attacking the enemy. His administration justified its actions by citing Article II of the U.S. Constitution that outlines the powers of the President as commander in chief as well as legal authorizations passed by Congress. Following 9/11, Bush's leadership became a rallying point for the nation. The American people were inclined to trust him because they believed in his ability to maintain their safety. In the weeks after the attack, Bush's approval rating rose to 90 percent—the highest recorded job-approval rating in U.S. presidential history. 2. Global War on Terror 3. The Bush administration inherited a policy toward Iraq that was shaped by the country's refusal to abide by the ceasefire agreement that went into effect in the early 1990s after the Persian Gulf War. The international community had passed a number of U.N. resolutions to deter Saddam Hussein's aggression, support of terrorism, and violations related to human rights and disarmament. The United States, along with the international community, had enacted a weapons inspection process and economic sanctions to try to force Iraq to comply, but their efforts had met with limited success. President Bush went on a public-opinion offensive, stressing that Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction were a threat to U.S. security. In an August 2002 speech, Vice President Cheney made the Administration's case by laying out Saddam's efforts over many years to deceive weapons inspectors: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use them against our friends, against our allies, and against us." The Bush administration asserted that the United States could not trust Saddam Hussein with WMDs as Iraq continued to violate U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 that required the country to destroy its weapons capabilities, among other requirements. On March 17, 2003, Bush ordered Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq within 48 hours. In a speech to the nation, Bush noted: "Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it." Characteristically, Saddam Hussein chose confrontation. On March 19, British and U.S. forces launched a bombing campaign of military and government offices in Baghdad. Ground troops invaded soon after, cleanly destroying the targets with relatively few American casualties. Iraq did not use any weapons of mass destruction against the invading force. The international community later learned that the regime had disposed of much of its WMD capabilities. 4. Although the United States and its allies quickly overthrew Saddam Hussein and defeated his forces, the situation in Iraq became increasingly unstable over time. Critics charged that the Bush administration did not have an adequate plan for Iraq after the initial war was won and Saddam Hussein was ousted from power. The Bush administration's strategy had been to reduce the U.S. military presence as Iraq's stability improved. Yet the goal proved unattainable, owing in part to the power vacuum left by the dismantling of the Iraqi army and the rise of sectarian violence within the two dominant strains of Islam in Iraq. After the United States toppled the government, Iraq soon began to descend into chaos with increasing instability and violence from suicide attacks, car bombs, kidnappings, and beheadings. Sectarian violence racked the country as religious and ethnic sects battled for control. Insurgent forces targeted U.S. troops and supporters, as they sought to overthrow the new government. By the summer of 2006, an average of 120 Iraqis were dying each day from insurgent attacks. Al Qaeda saw an opportunity to exploit the instability in Iraq, and its recruits flooded into the country to train terrorists. To counter the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the Bush administration developed a plan for a troop surge to increase the number of U.S. troops in order to stabilize Iraqi society and secure the civilian population. General David Petraeus was appointed to oversee a "surge" of 20,000 troops in January 2007. American troops patrolled cities on foot with members of the Iraqi military to prepare them to step into a more independent role. The Democrat-controlled Congress vehemently disapproved of Bush's actions and attempted to pass a war-funding bill mandating a troop withdrawal deadline later in 2007. Bush vetoed the bill, and, on May 25, 2007, he signed a bill fully funding the war with no set withdrawal date. American military deaths were at their highest average for the first several months of the surge, but there was a clear shift in the culture; counterinsurgency tips from Iraqi civilians doubled by May 2007 as U.S. troops created coalitions with Iraqis to increase stability. By the end of 2008, U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths had both declined by more than 60 percent. 5. Bush emphasized a policy of "return on success"; essentially, the more successful the war effort, the more troops that could return home. The administration's plan for withdrawal was to reduce the number of troops as the situation improved until the number deployed reached pre-surge levels; the United States would then reassess the situation. In 2008, the Bush administration entered into the Strategic Framework Agreement, which established a political, economic, and security relationship with the new government of Iraq; the agreement encouraged Iraqi sovereignty and created a normalized diplomatic relationship with it. Bush also signed the Status of Forces Agreement, defining the security relationship between the United States and Iraq as well as providing a plan for U.S. withdrawal by December 31, 2011, provided that stability continued to increase. In all, more than 4,200 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq during Bush's presidency. ------------- In response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and launched a 'war on terror'. This included the 2001 war in Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq after Bush's administration argued Saddam Hussein's regime owned weapons of mass destruction. Despite Hussein's capture, the war was unpopular, as were scandals involving terrorist suspect treatment.

Iraq War

1. The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict are ongoing. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's war on terror following the September 11 attacks, despite no connection between Iraq and the attacks. 2. In October 2002, Congress granted Bush the power to decide whether to launch any military attack in Iraq. The Iraq War began on 20 March 2003, when the US, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as coalition forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam Hussein was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year and executed three years later. The power vacuum following Saddam's demise, and mismanagement by the Coalition Provisional Authority, led to widespread civil war between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against coalition forces. The United States responded with a build-up of 170,000 troops in 2007. This build-up gave greater control to Iraq's government and military. In 2008, President Bush agreed to a withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq. The withdrawal was completed under Barack Obama in December 2011. 3. The United States based most of its rationale for the invasion on claims that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and posed a threat to the United States and its allies. Additionally, some US officials accused Saddam of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no evidence of any relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda. No stockpiles of WMDs or active WMD program were ever found in Iraq. Bush administration officials made numerous claims about a purported Saddam-al-Qaeda relationship and WMDs that were based on insufficient evidence rejected by intelligence officials. The rationale for war faced heavy criticism both domestically and internationally. Kofi Annan, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter. The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry into the United Kingdom's decision to go to war, concluded that not every peaceful alternative had been examined, that the UK and US had undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, that the process of identification for a legal basis of war was "far from satisfactory", and that, these conclusions taken together, the war was unnecessary. When interrogated by the FBI, Saddam Hussein confirmed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the US invasion. 4. In the aftermath of the invasion, Iraq held multi-party elections in 2005. Nouri al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006 and remained in office until 2014. The al-Maliki government enacted policies that alienated the country's previously dominant Sunni minority and worsened sectarian tensions. In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State launched a military offensive in northern Iraq and declared a worldwide Islamic caliphate, leading to Operation Inherent Resolve, another military response from the United States and its allies. 5. Strong international opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime began following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The international community condemned the invasion, and in 1991 a military coalition led by the United States launched the Gulf War to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. 6. Following the Gulf War, the US and its allies tried to keep Saddam Hussein in check with a policy of containment. This policy involved numerous economic sanctions by the UN Security Council; the enforcement of Iraqi no-fly zones declared by the US and the UK to protect the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan and Shias in the south from aerial attacks by the Iraqi government, and ongoing inspections to ensure Iraq's compliance with United Nations resolutions concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. 7. In the decade following the Gulf War, the United Nations passed 16 Security Council resolutions calling for the complete elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Member states communicated their frustration over the years that Iraq was impeding the work of the special commission and failing to take seriously its disarmament obligations. Iraqi officials harassed the inspectors and obstructed their work, and in August 1998, the Iraqi government suspended cooperation with the inspectors completely, alleging that the inspectors were spying for the US. 8. In October 1998, removing the Iraqi government became official US foreign policy with the enactment of the Iraq Liberation Act. The act provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." This legislation contrasted with the terms set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which focused on weapons and weapons programs and made no mention of regime change. 9. One month after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, the US and UK launched a bombardment campaign of Iraq called Operation Desert Fox. The campaign's express rationale was to hamper Saddam Hussein's government's ability to produce chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but US intelligence personnel also hoped it would help weaken Saddam's grip on power. 10. Following the election of George W. Bush as president in 2000, the US moved towards a more aggressive Iraq policy. The Republican Party's campaign platform in the 2000 election called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act as "a starting point" in a plan to "remove" Saddam. 11. Little formal movement towards an invasion occurred until the September 11 attacks although plans were drafted and meetings were held from the first days of his administration. -------------- - Global War on Terror

Wildavsky, "The Two Presidencies"

1. The U.S. has one president, but two presidencies: one for domestic affairs, and the other for defense/foreign policy 2. Since WWII, presidents have had more success controlling foreign policies than domestic 3. In foreign policy, the president can almost always get support for policies that he believes will protect the nation 4. Given the overriding fact that the world is dangerous and that small causes are perceived to have potentially great effects in an unstable world, it follows that presidents must be interested in relatively "small" matters (few failures in domestic policy, presidents soon realize, could have as disastrous consequences as any one of dozens of mistakes in the international arena) 5. Foreign policy concerns tend to drive out domestic policy (the importance of foreign affairs to presidents is intensified by the increasing speed of events in the international arena) 6. Because the consequences of events in foreign affairs are potentially more grave, faster to manifest themselves, and less easily reversible than in domestic affairs, presidents are more willing to use up their resources 7. Presidents formal powers to commit resources in foreign affairs and defense are vast (particularly important is their power as commander-in-chief to move troops) 8. Presidents possess both the formal power to act and the knowledge that elites and the general public expect them to act (once they have committed American forces, it is difficult for Congress or anyone else to alter the course of events) 9. Presidential discretion in foreign affairs also makes it difficult for Congress to restrict their actions (presidents can use executive agreements instead of treaties, enter into tacit agreement instead of written ones, and otherwise help create de facto situations not easily reinforced) 10. Presidents also have far greater ability than anyone else to obtain information on developments abroad through DoS or DoD 11. The need for secrecy also restricts the ability to use information to achieve goals. 12. Although presidents have rivals for power in foreign affairs, the rivals do not usually succeed; presidents prevail not only because they have superior resources but because their potential opponents are weak, divided, or believe they should not control foreign policy 13. Potential rivals: the general citizenry, special interest groups, Congress, the military, the military-industrial complex, and the State Department 14. None of these rivals are effective because it is difficult to get operational policy directions from the general public; the interest groups structure is weak, unstable, and thin; Congress does not think it is their job to determine the nation's defense policies; the military is disunited on any major matters of defense policy; military-industrial complex is vying for contracts not policy objectives; and State cannot ordinarily resist the president, however it is more influential when the president has a weaker stance on a certain policy issue. -- Would likely support the Executive Model

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

1. The election of President Ronald Reagan brought back a policy of hard-line anti-communism and U.S. military build-up. The Reagan Doctrine committed the United States to a foreign policy that made a fundamental shift away from the idea of containing the spread of communism to that of actively working to roll it back. Rollback meant aiding forces around the world engaged in fighting left-leaning governments. President Reagan also undertook a massive buildup of the nuclear arsenal, investing in such programs as the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as "Star Wars." Struggling with its own economic crises, the Soviet Union could not keep up in this arms race, and during President Reagan's second term, the two sides met with increasing frequency to discuss arms control and limiting hostility. The rise of a new generation of leadership in the Soviet Union, less attached to its Stalinist past and more determined to cooperate with the world, led to internal reforms and the dramatic end of the Cold War with the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 2. In the decades before his presidency, Reagan had read and thought deeply about American foreign policy and brought with him to the White House a number of strong convictions. He regarded Communism as an immoral and destructive ideology and believed that the Soviet Union was bent on world domination. In a famous speech on March 8, 1983, the one in which he referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," he also called the Soviets "the focus of evil in the modern world."At the same time, Reagan was deeply worried about the accepted national policy that had prevailed since the Soviets acquired atomic weapons of "mutual assured destruction." This assumed that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States would ever attack each other out of mutual fear that both nations would be effectively destroyed in a nuclear exchange. This, said Reagan, was "a truly mad policy." He believed that it was immoral to destroy the civilian population of another country in a retaliatory attack. He also worried that the two sides might blunder into nuclear war—in fact, that almost happened on September 26, 1983, when a defective Soviet satellite system mistakenly reported a supposed U.S. missile attack. 3. The Reagan defense buildup was predicated on an analysis that the Soviet Union had not abided by the limitations of the SALT II treaty intended to maintain nuclear parity between the superpowers. Instead, Reagan believed, the Soviets had continued its drive to nuclear dominance. The buildup had three objectives: strengthening the military in case of war, persuading European allies that the United States would not abandon them, and encouraging the Soviets to come to the bargaining table. This surge in military spending reaped a number of benefits. First, the military upgraded and modernized its forces and equipment. Second, the money invested in military-related research and development proved a spur to certain segments of the economy, especially the high-tech sector. Finally, the increases in defense spending, coupled with promises that the American military would again be unsurpassed, boosted the confidence of the public. 4. Reagan believed that it was necessary for the United States to combat the spread of Soviet-backed Marxist and leftist regimes throughout the globe. He was particularly concerned about Afghanistan, where the brutal Soviet invasion and occupation killed an estimated one million people and made another five million refugees. Central America was also a focus: Reagan continued the Carter administration's support of El Salvador's efforts to wipe out Marxist rebels in a cruel civil war, and he viewed the Marxist government of Nicaragua as a menace to hemispheric stability. Reagan blamed much of the trouble on Cuba, which supported both Nicaraguan government and the Salvadoran rebels. Cuban leader Fidel Castro never missed a chance to tweak the United States; how much material aid he actually provided to his Marxist allies in the Hemisphere remains a matter of historical dispute. To Reagan, the soldiers and insurgents struggling against Communism on battlefields throughout the world were "freedom fighters," a description he particularly applied to the Contras opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. In his February 6, 1985, State of the Union message, Reagan called for support of anti-Communist forces "from Afghanistan to Nicaragua" and proclaimed that "support for freedom fighters is self-defense." Seizing on this passage, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer announced what came to be known as "the Reagan Doctrine." In Krauthammer's words, this was a policy of "democratic militance" that "proclaims overt and unabashed support for anti-Communist revolution." But Reagan pursued this doctrine selectively. Apart from Afghanistan, which was a bipartisan affair, Reagan tried to roll back Communism only in Nicaragua, and to a limited degree in Angola, where Cuban troops were trying to impose Marxist rule. Apart from these examples, Reagan usually followed State Department guidance in dealing with most world trouble spots and continued policies that were already in place. 5. Iran-Contra Affair - "Iran-Contra," short-handed in history to a single scandal, actually involved two separate initiatives. The first was the clandestine sale of a small amount of U.S. military equipment—primarily anti-tank missiles—to Iran in contradiction of the Reagan administration's public policy of remaining neutral in the Iran-Iraq War. The Contra part of the affair was the attempt by a small group of National Security Council staff members and former military men to funnel proceeds from the sale of these weapons to the Contra rebels opposing the Nicaraguan government. Reagan said in his diary and later acknowledged to the American people that he authorized the Iran arms sales, but he insisted he had no knowledge of the diversion of funds to the Contras. ---------- Foreign affairs dominated his second term, including the bombing of Libya, the Iran-Iraq War and the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan sought "peace through strength" and was fervently anti-communist, describing the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire'. Although increasing defense spending, he encouraged Gorbachev to negotiate a nuclear arms reduction agreement, pressuring the Soviet Union to hasten the Cold War's end.

Peterson, "The President's Dominance in Foreign Policy Making"

1. The external constraints that differentiate foreign from domestic policy making are evident even in the years of partisan politics and divided government that characterized the post-Vietnam year 2. The capacity to formulate foreign policy remained concentrated in the hands of the executive branch 3. Even the notable instances when Congress played a significant role do not necessarily demonstrate that external constraints are irrelevant to the foreign policy-making process 4. In many of these instances, the president's policy proposals constituted a dubious assessment of the country's long-term interest within the international system 5. It may be argued that the need for the executive to defend its foreign policy positions before Congress helps to ensure that foreign policy decisions are carefully reasoned; the sharing of information between key congressional committees and key executive branch agencies, and the close cooperation between these institutions may strengthen the influence of those who are best able to articulate the long-range interests of the country within the framework imposed by the international system 6. If a country is going to be led by people who take into account the long-term interest of the nation, the policy must be rooted in accurate assessments of the international situation, not based on myths or ideologies 7. To the extent that one branch or another indulges in fanciful myths or ideological thinking, the other branch should - and often does - become a more influential participant; Congress becomes more influential on defense and arms control policies when executive branch proposals seem unreal and fanciful, but when Congress ignores the interdependence of the United State and international economies, as it tends to do in the case of trade policy, the executive assumes a dominant role 8. if a leader is not to be found in the executive branch of government, one will emerge in the legislative -- Would likely support the Co-equal Branch Model

Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)

1. The major initiative in the Lyndon Johnson presidency was the Vietnam War. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had already lost 30,000 Americans there. Johnson's approval ratings had dropped from 70 percent in mid-1965 to below 40 percent by 1967, and with it, his mastery of Congress. "I can't get out, I can't finish it with what I have got. So what the hell do I do?" he lamented to Lady Bird. Johnson never did figure out the answer to that question. 2. The Vietnam War was a conflict between North and South Vietnam, but it had global ramifications. The North was led by a Communist and nationalist regime that had fought against the Japanese in World War II and against French colonial rule in the late 1940s. In 1954, it won control of North Vietnam when the French agreed to a partition in the Geneva Accords. The South was led by a non-Communist regime; after 1956, it was headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. A Catholic, Diem was unable to consolidate his rule with a predominantly Buddhist population. He governed with the support of a military supplied and trained by the United States and with substantial U.S. economic assistance. By the late 1950s, a Communist guerrilla force in the South, the Viet Cong, was fighting to overthrow the Diem regime. By the early 1960s, it was receiving substantial military and logistical assistance from the Communists in the North. Thus the Vietnam conflict could be seen through three lenses: (1) it was a civil war between pro- and anti-Diem groups in the South; (2) it was a war of reunification waged by the North against the South; and (3) it was viewed by the United States as part of the conspiracy by the Sino-Soviet bloc to conquer the Third World and install Communist regimes. Throughout the conflict, American Presidents were unwilling to see South Vietnam conquered by Communist forces, and thus each of them made the same commitment to forestall a Communist victory. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower had commenced American involvement there by sending military advisers. Kennedy had begun assigning Special Forces military personnel to Vietnam, ostensibly in an advisory capacity as well, and there were about 20,000 there when he was assassinated in 1963. 3. Johnson's decisions were based on complicated political and military considerations. LBJ steered a middle course: The "hawks" in Congress and in the military wanted him to engage in massive bombing of enemy cities, threaten to use nuclear weapons, and even threaten to invade North Vietnam. This might have led to Chinese entry into the war, as had happened in the Korean War, or even Soviet engagement. "Doves" in Congress, the State Department, and even Vice President Hubert Humphrey wanted Johnson to negotiate with Hanoi for a "neutral" South Vietnam and eventual reunification with the North. The President's "middle way" involved a commitment of U.S. ground forces, designed to convince the regime in Hanoi that it could not win, and some punishing bombing campaigns, after which serious U.S. negotiations might ensue. One of Johnson's major problems was that Hanoi was willing to accept the costs of continuing the war indefinitely and of absorbing the punishing bombing. It would do so until the United States decided to give up its commitment to aid the South. McNamara and his "war game" analysts in the Department of Defense failed to account adequately for this eventuality. 4. Just weeks before the elections, Johnson announced a halt in the bombings of North Vietnam in a desperate attempt to portray his administration as peacemakers. In the fall, Richard Nixon won the presidency, defeating the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, by claiming he had a "secret plan" to end the conflict. Meanwhile, the war dragged on. 5. Although Johnson's relationship with the Soviets was colored by the Vietnam War, the President nonetheless made some progress on arms control. In January 1967, Johnson signed the Outer Space Treaty with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, which banned nuclear weapons in earth orbit, on the moon or other planets, or in deep space. In 1968, the U.S. became a party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons to other nations and the assistance to enable other nations to join the "nuclear club."Johnson was able to defuse one potential nuclear crisis: In 1967, after the Arab-Israeli War, the President met with Soviet Premier Kosygin to sort out conflicting U.S. and Russian interests in the Middle East. The two sides agreed to defuse tensions in the area. 6. When Panamanians rioted against U.S. control of the Panama Canal Zone, Johnson dealt firmly with the violence, but after it ended, he agreed to negotiations that eventually culminated in the return of the Canal Zone to Panama in 1999. ------------- Johnson launched ambitious reforms and social service programmes to create a 'Great Society' and 'War on Poverty', which also had a lasting impact in health and education. He also signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Despite these achievements, Johnson's legacy was tainted by his vast escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Controversy and growing public unease with the war created a strong anti-war movement and riots.

Lindsay, "Congress and Foreign Policy"

1. The president enjoys inherent advantages over Congress in foreign policy; but, even a subordinate Congress may influence foreign policy in important ways 2. Indirect influences: anticipated reactions, changes in the decision-making process in the executive branch, and political grandstanding 3. Anticipated reactions: Congress and the executive branch anticipate one another's behavior and modify their own behavior accordingly (presidents are especially likely to anticipate the mood in Congress because public defeat threatens to undermine their credibility abroad); the president's reading of the congressional mood tells them what policies are practically impossible, but it seldom compels the president to pursue specific policies 4. Structures and procedures: rather than change policy directly, Congress members aim to change structures and procedure; the decision to delegate authority to the executive branch could indicate that Congress may have created a decision-making process that incorporates congressional views or that provides Congress with opportunities to influence the development or implementation of policy (Congress has a veto over executive actions; Congress can stipulate the conditions the executive must meet before it proceeds with policy; it can impose reporting requirements on agencies; Congress can enfranchise new groups into the decision-making process) 5. Grandstanding: because of the power of the presidency, playing to the galleries is an essential tool of policy entrepreneurs; the glare of the public spotlight is often the best weapon legislators have to dislodge a bill from a hostile committee, to force the administration to reverse its course of action, or to build public support for new policy initiatives

Lantis and Moskowitz (The Return of the Imperial Presidency? - Iraq)

1. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 represented a watershed moment for U.S. Foreign Policy. It enabled the executive branch to assume an unusual amount of influence over policymaking in the U.S. George W. Bush and his top advisers used that influence in a variety of ways, including implementing a new strategy calling for preemptive strikes against potential enemies. The U.S. would rely most often on unilateral exercise of power rather than on international law and organizations to achieve its security objectives. Some observers suggest that the Bush doctrine, the larger war on terror, and the 2003 Iraq war represent the resurgence of the "imperial presidency." 2. The Iraq war has provided some important lessors for U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 era. In many ways, an ongoing war on terror lends itself to an imperial presidency. The Bush doctrine (holds that enemies of the US use terrorism as a war of ideology against the nation. The responsibility of the US is to protect itself by promoting democracy where the terrorists are located so as to undermine the basis for terrorist activities) and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq all suggest the ability of a strong executive to dominate USFP decision making. The Iraq war and its aftermath also demonstrate some of the problems that result from executive branch dominance in foreign policymaking. A highly personalized and aggressive executive decision process, especially with an acquiescent Congress, can be prone to making decisions without an adequate range of information. The result can be a series of flawed decisions, including, in the case of U.S. military action against Iraq, underestimating the danger of intervening without adequate international support, failing to make adequate preparations for the occupation of Iraq, and only belatedly recognizing that the counterinsurgency strategy in effect was failing. 2. The constraints on an imperial president can be limited. Party loyalty among Congress members of the president's party and the president's veto power normally limit Congress' ability to check the president. The most potent constitutional too available to Congress, a funding cutoff, is under most circumstances too blunt a political tool to wield effectively. It may be that an imperial president can only be checked by his own electoral fate, the presidential two-term limit, or the abandonment of his cause by his own party.

Bill Clinton (1993-2001)

1. Trained as a student at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Clinton eventually focused on the creation of a new approach to international affairs, a policy his advisers called the "doctrine of enlargement." This doctrine, based on the idea of expanding the community of market democracies around the world, embraced free trade, multilateral peacekeeping efforts and international alliances, and a commitment to intervene in world crisis situations when practical (i.e., with little risk and low cost in U.S. lives) and morally defensible. The policy promoted an activist role for America and was designed to extend and protect basic human and civil rights insofar as it was within the power of the United States to successfully achieve those goals without undermining national security or depleting national resources. In Clinton's mind, the United States must continue its role as the principal leader of the world in promoting human dignity and democracy, with the understanding that it must never act in isolation or overextend its reach. 2. Pushed through Congress two new massive trade agreements: NAFTA in 1993 and a revision of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994. Administration initiatives also staved off an impending economic collapse of Mexico in 1995 and helped produce remedies in similar crises with Asian markets two years hence. 3. The President lobbied successfully for the inclusion of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), indicating to Russia that neither nuclear weapons nor large numbers of troops would be placed in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, some Russians regarded expansion as an aggressive step by NATO and the United States. 4. Working through the provisions of the Nunn-Lugar Act, the administration provided extensive technical assistance and funding to the former Soviet states in the safeguarding of nuclear power plants and dismantling of nuclear weapons—an astounding achievement in view of the animosity that once existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. By the end of the Clinton presidency, the likelihood of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers was almost nonexistent. -------------- Bill Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion. In foreign policy, he ordered military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, and signed the Iraq Liberation Act, opposing Saddam Hussein. He also assisted the Israeli-Palestinian and Northern Ireland peace processes.

Stoessinger (Vietnam)

1. Vietnam War spans 5 presidencies: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon. 2. The American involvement in Indochina began almost imperceptibly, rather like a mild toothache. At the end, it ran through Vietnam and America like a pestilence. Each president based his policies on exaggerated fears and, later, on exaggerated hopes. Consequently, each president left the problem to his successor in worse shape than he had found it. 3. In 1978 Vietnam, now a communist nation back by the Soviet Union, invaded and virtually dismembered Cambodia, which was receiving the support of China. Very soon after the American withdrawal from Vietnam the only wars in Asia were fought by Communists against other Communists. As the twentieth century drew to a close, Communism the world over was in full retreat. Even Communist Vietnam was busy trading with the United States, and Ho Chi Minh City was full of Americans looking for new business opportunities. The reasons for the outbreak of the war had become almost irrelevant. When considered in this perspective, the awesome truth about Vietnam is clear: it was in vain that combatants and civilians had suffered, the land had been devastated, and the dead had died. 4. Truman originally opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Saw the French battle against Ho Chi Minh as a colonial struggle. Truman doctrine (the principle that the US should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or Communist insurrection. First expressed in 1947 by US President Truman in a speech to Congress seeking aid for Greece and Turkey, the doctrine was seen by the Communists as an open declaration of the Cold War) - as communism spread, Truman chose to reverse course and support French who were patriots of democracy against a communist Ho Chi Minh. Supported France economically, not militarily. 5. Eisenhower believed China would intervene in Vietnam as it had in Korea. To forestall such an intervention, U.S. increased military aid to France to $500 million. U.S. was paying over half the cost of the Indochina war. Supported President Diem with military advisers, and by 1960 almost 1,000 Americans were serving in South Vietnam in that capacity. 6. Kenned deepened American involvement in Vietnam. By the time of his death, the U.S. had greatly increased the number of military advisers in Vietnam; napalm and other antipersonnel weapons had been authorized for limited use against the enemy; and the U.S. had become identified with the highly unpopular regime of President Diem. 7. Johnson sent massive combat troops to Vietnam. Despite relentless bombing raids on both North and South Vietnam and the introduction of more than a half million troops, the enemy was not defeated. Instead, Johnson's ego, stubbornness, and pride destroyed his presidency and divided his people in a spiritual civil war. 8. Nixon withdrew the U.S. from Vietnam. The withdrawal of American ground troops began in June 1969, when the peak figure of 541,000 men was reduced to 25,000. As withdrawal gathered momentum, a serious weakness became increasingly apparent in the "Vietnamization" strategy: As American strength was slowly ebbing, Communist forces became better able to attack and try to topple the South Vietnamese regime. In July 1969, the President announced the Nixon Doctrine, to the effect that, in the future, the U.S. would avoid entanglements like Vietnam by limiting its support to economic and military aid rather than active combat participation. Tonkin Gulf Resolution (On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia). On January 23, 1973, a cease-fire was reached. The Paris Accords provided for the withdrawal of all American troops and military advisers, an exchange of prisoners, consultations between South and North Vietnam on general elections, new supervisory machinery, and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Laos and Cambodia. 9. Essentially, what was achieved in Paris in 1973 was Vietnam's reversion to status at the time of the 1954 Geneva Accords. The U.S. had come full circle in Vietnam, and the clock was turned back twenty years. Progress was regress: 1954 by 1973.

Vietnam War

1. Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam. Following its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho's Viet Minh forces immediately rose up, taking over the northern city of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho as president. Seeking to regain control of the region, France backed Emperor Bao and set up the state of Vietnam in July 1949, with the city of Saigon as its capital. 2. The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades. After Ho's communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh's decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina. The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva Conference split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees north latitude), with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the South. The treaty also called for nationwide elections for reunification to be held in 1956. In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam. 3. With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem's security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed. By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem's repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese army in firefights. In December 1960, Diem's many opponents within South Vietnam—both communist and non-communist—formed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime. Though the NLF claimed to be autonomous and that most of its members were not communists, many in Washington assumed it was a puppet of Hanoi. 4. A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to further increase U.S. military and economic support. In August of 1964, after DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U.S. planes began regular bombing raids, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, the following year. The bombing was not limited to Vietnam; from 1964-1973, the United States covertly dropped two million tons of bombs on neighboring, neutral Laos during the CIA-led "Secret War" in Laos. The bombing campaign was meant to disrupt the flow of supplies across the Ho Chi Minh trail into Vietnam and to prevent the rise of the Pathet Lao, or Lao communist forces. The U.S. bombings made Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world. In March 1965, Johnson made the decision—with solid support from the American public—to send U.S. combat forces into battle in Vietnam. By June, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for 175,000 more by the end of 1965 to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army. Despite the concerns of some of his advisers about this escalation, and about the entire war effort amid a growing anti-war movement, Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of 100,000 troops at the end of July 1965 and another 100,000 in 1966. In addition to the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand also committed troops to fight in South Vietnam (albeit on a much smaller scale). Even as the enemy body count (at times exaggerated by U.S. and South Vietnamese authorities) mounted steadily, DRV and Viet Cong troops refused to stop fighting, encouraged by the fact that they could easily reoccupy lost territory with manpower and supplies delivered via the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia and Laos. Additionally, supported by aid from China and the Soviet Union, North Vietnam strengthened its air defenses. 5. By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government's reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington's repeated claims that the war was being won. Between July 1966 and December 1973, more than 503,000 U.S. military personnel deserted, and a robust anti-war movement among American forces spawned violent protests, killings and mass incarcerations of personnel stationed in Vietnam as well as within the United States. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon. 6. Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a "silent majority" of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the training and weapons needed to effectively control the ground war. In addition to this Vietnamization policy, Nixon continued public peace talks in Paris, adding higher-level secret talks conducted by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger beginning in the spring of 1968. 7. The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.S. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968. After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of protest marches and gatherings throughout the country. By the end of June 1972, however, after a failed offensive into South Vietnam, Hanoi was finally willing to compromise. Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives drafted a peace agreement by early fall, but leaders in Saigon rejected it, and in December Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong. Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation. 8. In January 1973, the United States and North Vietnam concluded a final peace agreement, ending open hostilities between the two nations. War between North and South Vietnam continued, however, until April 30, 1975, when DRV forces captured Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City (Ho himself died in 1969). More than two decades of violent conflict had inflicted a devastating toll on Vietnam's population: After years of warfare, an estimated 2 million Vietnamese were killed, while 3 million were wounded and another 12 million became refugees. Warfare had demolished the country's infrastructure and economy, and reconstruction proceeded slowly. In 1976, Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, though sporadic violence continued over the next 15 years, including conflicts with neighboring China and Cambodia. Under a broad free market policy put in place in 1986, the economy began to improve, boosted by oil export revenues and an influx of foreign capital. Trade and diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. resumed in the 1990s. In the United States, the effects of the Vietnam War would linger long after the last troops returned home in 1973. The nation spent more than $120 billion on the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73; this massive spending led to widespread inflation, exacerbated by a worldwide oil crisis in 1973 and skyrocketing fuel prices. 9. Psychologically, the effects ran even deeper. The war had pierced the myth of American invincibility and had bitterly divided the nation. Many returning veterans faced negative reactions from both opponents of the war (who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians) and its supporters (who saw them as having lost the war), along with physical damage including the effects of exposure to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, millions of gallons of which had been dumped by U.S. planes on the dense forests of Vietnam.

George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)

1. When Bush became President in 1989, the United States had already begun to see a thawing of relations with the Soviet Union. As vice president, he attended the December 1988 summit between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Bush spoke of softening relations in his inaugural address, claiming that "a new breeze is blowing," and adding that "great nations of the world are moving toward democracy through the door to freedom." 2. In a December 1989 summit between Bush and Gorbachev in Malta, the two leaders discussed arms reductions and strengthening their relations. At a summit in Washington, D.C., in June 1990, the two men signed a broad arms reduction agreement in which the United States and Soviet Union consented to decreasing their nuclear arsenals. Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, worked hard to establish a meaningful relationship with Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister. By most accounts, they were very successful in redefining relations with the Soviet Union in a post-Cold War environment. In July 1991, Bush met Gorbachev in Moscow and signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START. 3. Events in 1989 moved along at such a rapid pace that President Bush's natural inclination toward gradual change was severely challenged. After the Berlin Wall fell in November of that year, members of the Bush administration discussed German reunification. In February 1990, the "Two-plus-Four" approach was formally approved. East and West Germany dealt with the internal details while the four victors of World War II worked with the two Germanys on external issues. The talks began in May and finally concluded in September 1990. The main sticking point to German reunification was whether the country would be part of NATO. The Soviets initially opposed having a united Germany as part of NATO, preferring it to be part of the Warsaw Pact or exist as a neutral, non-aligned country. In the end, the Bush administration helped broker a compromise: Germany would be part of NATO but no NATO troops would be stationed in East Germany. In addition, Soviet troops would have three to four years to withdraw from East Germany, and Germany agreed to provide economic assistance to the Soviet Union. 4. On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded its neighbor Kuwait. Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, had long held designs on Kuwait's land, wealth, and oil. Although intelligence agencies had watched Iraq's military buildup along its border with Kuwait, both the United States and Iraq's Arab neighbors did not believe that Hussein had plans to invade the small country to its south. But they misread Hussein's intentions. The invasion violated international law, and the Bush administration was alarmed at the prospect of Iraq controlling Kuwait's oil resources. "Operation Desert Storm" began on January 17, 1991, when U.S.-led coalition forces began massive air strikes against Iraq. The coalition launched the ground war on February 24 and quickly overwhelmed the Iraqi forces. Coalition troops reached Kuwait City by February 27, and a ceasefire was declared the next day. On March 3, General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief of the U.S. forces, met with the Iraqi leadership to dictate the terms of the ceasefire. The war had ended in less than two months, and the Bush administration had successfully committed to the largest military action since the Vietnam War without getting bogged down or suffering high casualties. (One hundred and forty eight U.S. soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War.) On March 6, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and declared, "tonight Kuwait is free." 5. The Persian Gulf War helped restore the morale of the U.S. military and dampened memories of the Vietnam War. It also showed the possibility of what Bush referred to as the "New World Order," breaking down Cold War alliances and using peaceful nations to stand united against rogue states. 6. Again, on January 16, 1991, in an address to the nation about the start of the Persian Gulf War, President Bush used the term in explaining the motivations and justifications for using force against Iraq:We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order—a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful—and we will be—we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.'s founders. President Bush's New World Order involved collective security with multinational cooperation, and it broke down Cold War conceptions and created new allies. Many people debated whether the New World Order was a realistic foreign policy tenet or simply an idealistic approach to the future. Critics claimed that the Bush administration did not fully articulate the goals of the New World Order and how it hoped to accomplish them. Some were unsure whether the term was meant as a new approach or simply a catchphrase. Realists complained that it was hard to justify U.S. involvement in situations without a clear national interest. But others felt that once the Cold War ended, the United States had to take on a large role as a world leader to guard against human rights abuses, defend democratic regimes, and lead humanitarian efforts. ------------ George H W Bush skilfully navigated the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, playing a key role in Germany's reunification, and signed the mutual non-aggression pact with Gorbachev in 1990, symbolically ending the Cold War. He also built a coalition of western European and Arab states in the Gulf War 1990-91, ending Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.