“George Kennan came as close to authoring the diplomatic doctrine of his era as any diplomat in our history,” said former-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kennan, known for his “X” article, inadvertently coined the term “containment” which became the leading diplomatic doctrine of the cold war era. Since the late 1940s, America changed its doctrine and shifted to a more globalized approach to international affairs -- a system based on international cooperation, both politically and economically. These foreign entanglements are inspired, in part, by the Soviet-American estrangement, but also indicate a convenient opportunity to reorient U.S. dominance on the world stage by engaging with a host of other countries, including Japan and South Korea. In this paper I will hone in on Kennan’s definition of national interest and assess the adherence to a new doctrine of global governance. I will then examine alliances like NATO, ANZUZ, MEDO and SEATO to support my historical argument that the U.S. saw a convenient opportunity to reorient her doctrine for political and economic gain, and other nations who joined in alliance had a national interest to do so.
Kennan argues that national interest in international affairs boils down to institutional survival. To this end, he argued that national interest can be defined in two parts, the first, is “to protect the security of the nation, by which is meant the continued ability of this country to pursue the development of internal life without serious interference.” The second, and perhaps the most pertinent to the emergence of global alliances and partnerships, is to “advance the welfare of its people, by promoting a world order in which this nation can make the maximum contribution to the p...
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...alliances that emerged during the cold war era. MEDO, or the Middle East Defense Organization, was a proposal made by the United States that never came to fruition. Another alliance that formed was the Australia, New Zealand, and U.S. Security Treaty (ANZUS), which shared the same objectives as NATO but in a different region. Interestingly, both NATO and ANZUS still exist today and the alliance is still bound over global security concerns.
The United States’ objective through their containment approach was to build alliances for security purposes. I do believe this is the main factor in its creation, however over time it has become clear that these alliances have evolved to become more economic focus. For example, the United States still engages in a bilateral commitment to Japan and continues to benefit from trade that benefits the American economy a great deal.
The Monroe Doctrine reflected the concerns and ambitions of a fledgling nation that was brave enough to declare its sovereignty on the world stage. The Doctrine, in stating that European powers ought not to intervene in America’s affairs, established the US as a world power, although one that had inadequate, hemispheric aspirations. However, these aspirations would extend, and in future years the Doctrine would substantiate its usefulness for interventionists, as well as protectionists. Being conceivably the most distinguishable and the most revered as regards principles of diplomacy, the doctrine’s influence on the popular imagination was so great that it described the limits of standard decisions on policy, in turn influencing the choice of preferences that US Presidents had for most of the last two centuries.
Steven Hook and John Spanier's 2012 book titled “American foreign policy since WWII" serves as one of the most important texts that can be used in understanding the underlying complexities on American foreign policies. Like the first readings that are analyzed in class (American Diplomacy by George Kennan and Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis), this text also brings history into a more understandable context. Aside from being informative and concise in its historical approach, Hook and Spanier also critiques the several flaws and perspectives that occurred in the American foreign policy history since World War II.
The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...
In conclusion, this extensive review of American foreign policy is just very broad. This topic is his shortened summary of a broad topic in a narrative arrangement, if they contributed anything to the historical understanding of this book. Ambrose and Brinkley made the topic very fascinating and easier to comprehend than a plain textbook. By writing Rise to Globalism and narrating stories without including unnecessary truths and statistics. Thanks to this book, I gained a more thorough understanding of the struggles in the Middle East after Vietnam and a new perception on where American presently stands in the world.
The type of policy known as containment was the foreign policy that the United States of America used between the times of 1947 (two years after World War Two) until 1989 (he fall of the Berlin Wall). The definition of containment in this case is strategies whether it was diplomatically, militarily or economically to contain the forming and progression of communism and to give America an influential advantage abroad. The policy of containment all started out with what was known as the Yalta conference, which consisted of Franklin D Roosevelt, the president of the United States at the time, Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United kingdom, and Joseph Stain, leader of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It was during this conference that the three men came to an agreement that these three countries would separate the world into three different parts and have their influence on those three parts. This was known as the sphere of influence and it was divided like this; The United States would have control of influence the western hemisphere meaning all of the Americ...
It is the intention of this essay to explain the United States foreign policy behind specific doctrines. In order to realize current objectives, this paper will proceed as follows: Part 1 will define the Monroe Doctrine, Sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 will concurrently explicate the Roosevelt Corollary, Good Neighbor Policy, and the Nixon Doctrine, discuss how each policy resulted in U.S. involvement in Latin American countries, describe how it was justified by the U.S. government, respectively, and finally, will bring this paper to a summation and conclusion.
The major rise of American foreign influence, and thus the need for cohesive foreign policy, materialized just prior to WWII, and prompted the powerful Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, to advocate interdepartmental coordination between the State, War, and Navy entities. The subsequent global (and total) victories by the Allies in WWII heavily influenced the main crafters of foreign policy by demonstrating that military power and international obligations held muc...
Supporting the view that Truman was responsible for the Cold War, Arnold Offner argues that Truman’s parochialism and nationalism caused him to make contrary foreign policy decisions without regard to other nations, which caused the intense standoff be...
In February 1946, George F. Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, proposed a policy of containment. Containment is the blocking of another nation’s attempts to spread its influence. During the late 1940s and early 1950s the United States used this policy against the Soviets. The United States wanted to take measures to prevent any extension of communist rule to other countries. The conflicting U.S. and Soviet aims in Eastern Europe led to the Cold War. The Berlin airlift, formation of NATO, and the Truman Doctrine all relate to this policy of containment.
From after World War II and up until 1991 the foreign policy of the United States was based on Cold War ideology and the policy of containment; to prevent nations from leaning towards Soviet Union-based communism, as first laid out by George Kennan and later used as one of the key principles in the Truman Doctrine (LeCain). As this essay will argue, because of this policy the United States made a commitment to fight communism everywhere in the world and got them involved in conflicts more because of self interest, self protection and determination to beat communism than the cause itself.
With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field. Some of his other works include: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, and The Cold War: A New History. Dr. Gaddis received his PhD from the University of Texas in 1968; he currently is on a leave of absence, but he is a professor at Yale . At the University, his focus is Cold War history. Gaddis is one of the few men who have actually done a complete biography of George Kennan, and Gaddis even won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
Iryie, Akira. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: The Globalizing of America, 1913-1945. Volume 3. New York: Cambridge University Press 1993
Kent, J. and Young, J.W. (2013), International Relations Since 1945: A global History. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The alliance that had formed between two super powers, U.S and USSR during World War II was not strong enough to overcome the past decades of suspicion and unease between the two nations. Unwilling to compromise because of paranoia about their postwar national security created high tension atmosphere in U.S- Soviet Union’s relationship. This unstable partnership finally cracked due to the defeat of Nazi German: An unnatural alliance that was bound to fall apart after the defeat of the common enemy can be considered the origin of the Cold War.The Cold War had an enormous impact on the United States politically, socially, and economically including Red hunts, unconditionally fear of Communism and McCarthyism in the period 1940s-1950s, also shaped U.S.’s political agendas. This war ended as the reform programs introduced by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, which unexpectedly led to the collapse of Soviet Union. The...
Doyle, Michael W. and G. John Ikenberry, eds. (1997) New Thinking in International Relations Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Pres.