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period of the easing Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union between 1967 to 1979. The era was a time of increased trade and cooperation with the Soviet Union and signing of the SALT treaties. Relations cooled again with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
- Usually associated with the relations between USA, USSR and China
China: fearful of isolation in the world, fearful of what USA had done in Vietnam, small amount of nuclear weapons compared to USA, decomposing relations with USSR
USA: realized there were better ways of containing communism than what was pursued previously, nuclear weapons extremely costly, peaceful relations with USSR would be beneficial
USSR: spending too much on nuclear weapons not enough on internal economy, weakening economy, declining relations with China |
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| policy with regard to China, it was first advanced by the United States in the Open Door Notes of September-November 1899[1]. In 1898, the United States had become an East Asian power through the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and when the partition of China by the European powers and Japan seemed imminent, the United States felt its commercial interests in China threatened. U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China. The open door policy stated that all European nations, and the United States, could trade with China. |
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| Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union that were aimed at curtailing the manufacture of strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The first agreements, known as SALT I and SALT II, were signed by the US and USSR in 1972 and 1979 respectively and were intended to restrain the arms race in strategic ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons. |
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strategic foreign policy pursued by the United State since the late 1940s and the early 1950s in order to check the expansionist policy of the Soviet Union and limit and prevent it.
- Theory that communism would spread to weak countries and this was meant to prevent that
- Policy present by George Kennen
- Truman Doctrine of 1947, with its guarantee of immediate economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey, was an initial application of the policy of containment
- Ultimate objective was to prevent the expansion of Soviet power |
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| this document claimed that the Soviets were aggressively expansionist and had to be countered wherever they attempted to do so; a policy of crusading activism was called for in the face of overwhelming Soviet power. Recognized that force was all that could be used because that was all they would understand |
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strategy of forcing change in the major policies of a state, usually by replacing its ruling class. Contrasts with containment, which means preventing the expansion of that states; and with détente – Regan wanted to bring Eisenhower’s “rollback” policy to replace contianment
- Tried and fialed in Korea in ‘50s and Cuba in ‘61
- Strategy succeeded in Grenada in ‘83
- Ultimately the policy of totally annihilating an enemy army and occupying the country
- NSC-68 had set rollback as an objective, but failed to specify how to achieve that goal
- Switch from isolationism to rollback (postwar rollback was nationalism) |
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actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1940s and 1950s, signifies the extreme anti-Communist movement that occurred in the US
- The act of making serious but unsubstantiated charges against people in public life
- Associated with the Red Scare and often referred to as the Second Red Scare
- 1954 McCarthy took on the US army and issued summonses to army officers – accused the army of giving an honorable discharge to an alleged communist sympathizer
- Reputation of the US abroad suffered badly
- Eventually overreached himself when he attacked the Army on security grounds and was censured by Congress in the end |
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a term used by Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill to refer to a new period of history evidencing a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power after WW1 and WW2
- Led to the creation of international organizations such as the UN and NATO, and international regimes such as the Bretton Woods system and the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade – maintain balance of power = peaceful phase of capitalism |
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post Cold War environment – the USA was the sole superpower in the world
- Period of time right after the Cold war when the US clearly emerged as the lone superpower
- Origin: end of the cold war soviet union crumbles, no challenger to the US to be the world superpower
- Impact: after this point the US had to decide what it’s direction of foreign policy is going to be – world policemen, etc.. |
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Meaning: established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces
Declared immediate economic and military aid to the governments of Greece, threatened by Communist insurrection, and Turkey, under pressure from Soviet expansion
Origin: US and Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power and when the British announced they could no longer financially afford to aid Mediterranean countries, which were vulnerable to Soviet influence the Truman responded
Impact on US relations with specific foreign countries: specifically enforced to aid the Greek and Turkish governments, since the British withdrew their aid |
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Meaning: US foreign policy pronouncement by President Dwight Eisenhower promising military or economic aid to any Middle Eastern country needing help in resisting communist aggression
Origin: Intended to check increased Soviet influence in the Middle East, which had resulted from the supply of arms to Egypt by communist countries as well as from strong communist support of Arab states against Israel, French and British attack of Egypt
Impact on US relations with specific foreign countries: Eisenhower said he would use the armed forces to protect the independence of any Middle Eastern country seeking American help – no radical change in US policy, continuation of the containment policy/resistance to any extension of Soviet sphere of influence |
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Meaning: called for allied nations, especially in Asia, to take more responsibility for their own defense, but would still aid in defense as requested
Origin: Nixon was president when a resolution for the Vietnam War was a growing demand from the public, lead to US retreat from unconditional defense
Impact on US relations with specific foreign countries: Most directly impacted the war in Vietnam, was when the US began to turn the actual fighting of the war over to the South Vietnamese, which provided the US for a way to exit the conflict |
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Meaning: Jimmy Carter declared that any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf would be viewed as an attack on the vital interests of the US and pledge to form a Rapid Deployment Force to defend the region
Origin: Doctrine was in response to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and was intended to deter the Soviet Union from seeking hegemony in the Gulf
Impact on US relations with specific foreign countries: |
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Meaning: Reagan administration expanded military and economic assistance to friendly Third World governments battling leftist insurgencies, yet he actively support guerilla movements and other opposition forces in countries with leftist governments
-was designed to serve the dual purposes of diminishing Soviet influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America, while also potentially opening the door for capitalism in nations that were largely being governed by Soviet-supported socialist governments
Origin: In order to keep with Reagan’s belief that the US should do more to prevent the spread of communism
Impact: Was applied to with particular zeal in Latin America, US in the 80s supported military-dominated government in El Salvador |
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Meaning: US invested $13 billion over six years to revive Europe
- Offered $20 billion for relief, only if the European nations would get together and draw up a plan for using aid - for
Origin: Europe still devastated by the war and had just survived one of the worst winters on record, had nothing to sell for hard currency and socialist governments weren’t doing anything – something had to be done
- To create stable conditions in which democratic institutions could survive
Impact on US relations with Specific foreign countries: Very successful, western European countries experienced rise in economy – US established better connections
- Offered it to USSR and allies but thought it was a trick and declined |
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Meaning: Latin American policy pursued by the administration of FDR
Origin: During late 19th and early 20th centuries US periodically intervened military in Latin America nations to protect its interests, especially the commercial interests of American business community beginning to feel too imperialistic – started to breed a culture of resentment and anti-Americanism in the region – also financial costs of military interventions were high
Impact on US Relations with Specific foreign countries: Policy marked a departure from traditional American interventionism, US renounced its right to unilaterally intervene in the internal affairs of other nations
- Sanction US intervention in Cuba and US Marines were withdrawn from Haiti and Nicaragua in 1934
- Negotiation of compensation for Mexico’s nationalization of foreign assets in the oil industry |
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Meaning: An agreement between the US and Great Britain that established the vision of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill for a post WW2 worlds
Origin: Wanted a new economic order ending the trading preferences Britain and other colonial powers had with their colonies, Secretary of State Hull advised in order to create American domination of the world’s trade after the war was to break the stranglehold of the colonial powers
Impact on US relations with specific foreign countries: Improved relations with Britain and applied this treaty to Germany and Japan as well
- There would be self-determination
- First steps towards United Nations |
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Meaning: It stated: in cases of flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American nation, the US could intervene in the internal affairs of that nation – hemispheric police power was designed to preclude violation of the Monroe Doctrine by European countries seeking redress of grievances
Origin: Interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine became increasingly broad- - came to define a recognized sphere of influence so Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
Impact on US relations with specific foreign countries: Most European responses were quietly supportive, little immediate reaction in Latin America – as the years passed and the US increasingly intervened attitudes changed sharply |
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Meaning: The diplomacy of the Taft administration that was pursued between 1909 and 1913 – concentrated on assisting American businessmen in the protection and expansion of investment and trade, especially in Latin America and the Far East
Origin: Goal of diplomacy was to make the US a commercial and financial world power – narrowly constructed view of foreign relations
Impact: Diplomacy had to support American financiers and businessmen by finding opportunities abroad – in the end it failed to bring results that contributed to world peace – instead it had even added to disorder |
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Meaning: peace document signed at the end of WWI by the Allied and Associated Powers and by Germany on June 28, 1919
Origin: Woodrow Wilson wrote up his Fourteen Points that German government accepted - official treaty was drafted during the Paris Peace Conference
Impact: Territorial: land was taken away from Germany,
Military: Germany’s army was reduced and tanks prohibited
Financial: Loss of industrial territory weakened economy, forbidden to unite with Austria
General: League of Nation was set up to keep world peace |
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Meaning: Proclamation defining the terms for Japanese surrender
- Chief participants: US President Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin
Origin: Japan’s initial rejection of the ultimatum led to the atomic bombs |
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Meaning: System by which the US aided its WW2 allies with war materials, such as ammunition, tanks, airplanes and other raw materials
- Solution that FDR proposed
- Legislation gave the president the authority to aid any nation whose defense he believed vital to the US and to accept repayment in property or any other direct or indirect benefit
Origin: FDR had committed the US in June 1940 to materially aiding the opponents of fascism, but under existing US law, GB had to pay for its growing arms purchases from the US with cash, but Churchill warned that GB could not pay cash for war material much longer
Impact: Because of this act more than 40 nations received lend-lease help |
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Meaning: Theory that if one country fell under communist influence or control, its neighboring countries would soon follow
Origin: Of all the countries that were communist during the Vietnam War, only the Soviet Union and Cuba had become so without bordering on lands already under communist control
- President Eisenhower predicted if Vietnam were to become communist, this would increase the threat to neighboring countries
Impact: US was committed to opposing the spread of communism, felt that if communism was stopped in South Vietnam it would also be keeping other countries from going communist – America’s reason for being involved in the Vietnam War |
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Meaning: Exploit the rivalry between the Soviet Union and China to win advantages for the US
Origin: Days of US military superiority were over, Nixon and Kissinger believed that international peace could be achieved by using the US as a power broker in conflicts between the Soviet Union and China
Impact: Nixon went to china to meet Mao Zedong, soon after the US dropped its opposition to Chinese entry into the UN and groundwork was laid for eventual establishment of diplomatic relations
- Nixon made a trip to Moscow to support a nuclear arms agreement, lead to the establishment of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) – pledged to limit the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles each sides would build
- Ultimately, the Cold War still continued, Nixon and Kissinger’s efforts led to a temporary thaw |
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Meaning: declared that in the future a US response to aggression would be “at places and with means of our own choosing” - interpreted as threatening nuclear attack against targets in the Soviet Union and China in response to conventional aggression anywhere in the world
Origin: Eisenhower administration came to power after WW2 and saw things differently – reflected on the frustrating experience of the inconclusive conventional war fought in Korea and wondered why the West had not made more use of its nuclear superiority
Impact: Assigning greater priority to nuclear weapons provided the opportunity to scale down expensive conventional forces
- Influenced Soviets to increase missile production – led to “missile gap”
- Mutual assured destruction |
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Meaning: Nixon’s idea that there were enough nuclear weapons and didn’t need to make more because if the US already has more missiles than the Soviets, we would have enough to blow up the world
Origin: Reflected assumption that it was too costly to maintain US superiority in strategic military missiles, but before Nixon could change a policy, the US had to have more missiles than the Soviets or else the US would be vulnerable/seen as weak |
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Meaning: Called for the continued presence in Europe of sizable conventional forces, which served two function: a deterrent function and the function to fight limited wars
- Mutual Deterrence at strategic, tactical and conventional levels, giving the US the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of warfare, not limited to only nuclear arms
Origin: Defense strategy implemented by JFK in ’61 to address the Kennedy administration’s skepticism of Eisenhower’s “New Look” and its policy of Massive Retaliation
Impact: Realized that the Soviets had exaggerated their nuclear capabilities, however was an advantage because US ultimately had a military buildup in response = military superiority |
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Meaning: Aimed to persuade the Soviet Union and Communist china to cooperate in restraining revolutions in the 3rd World in return for concession in nuclear and economic fields
Origin: Premise was to connect political and military issues, thereby establishing a relationship making progress in area “A” dependent in progress in area “B”
Impact: Fundamentally undermined due to the amount of revolutions occurring this time independent of Soviet involvement |
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Meaning: In a political-military sense, amounts to a set of criteria that should be met if the US is to commit troops to combat, the criteria must be satisfied if public support for military intervention is to be sustained
- The US should not employ force in an international conflict unless just cause can be demonstrated
Origin: Many lessons were learned from the Vietnam War – President began to feel the need to maintain public support for their foreign policy largely because it grants the moral legitimacy that became so lacking in Vietnam
Impact: These conditions have become increasingly institutionalized with each successive administration, the planning and conduct of all major uses of force since the Vietnam War have been influenced directly by the Vietnam syndrome
- E.g.: Gulf War, with its emphasis on an air war and in particular the decision not to pursue the war to Baghdad once the objective of liberating Kuwait had been achieved, was carefully designed to comply with the Vietnam syndrome |
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| "Star Wars" Defense System |
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Meaning: Multi-layered defense system designed to attack Soviet Missiles before they attack American targets
- Program to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union
- Planned to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles while they still flew high about the earth, minimizing their effects
Origin: Needed a better strategy than the suicidal mutual destruction strategy
- US response to possible nuclear attacks from afar
- Soviets were trying to develop a similar system devised of laser based weapons, however they would be offensive instead of defensive
Impact: Many say Reagan won the Cold War because he increased the arms war to a level the Soviet’s couldn’t compete with and maintain the economy at the same time |
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| New World Order under the Bush Administration |
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| this time period where the US is the only superpower remaining, the US didn’t really have a clear foreign policy but was more flexible and kind of had to feel its way by trial and error whether it would be super involved in other countries’ affairs or pull back a bit |
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