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economic challenges of the 70s
domestic and world issues in the 1970s
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The United States (US) as a hegemonic powerhouse was challenged by the 1970s due to a number of changes occurring all over the world. The Western European market was emerging rapidly and its economic development showed a renewed Europe importing and exporting in greater volume than prior to World War II (WWII). On the military front, the Nixon administration acknowledged that a change in foreign policy was needed. The world had changed from bipolar to multipolar and included not only the US and the Soviet Union as previously, but also China, Western Europe, and Japan as big powers capable of affecting the world.
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger both believed that the US could ensure its national security and promote its interests by establishing stronger diplomatic relations with the big powers and through that control and influence their decision-making. The US wanted to be the center of this multipolar world, but this could only be achieved by downplaying the importance of ideology towards the Soviet Union and to open up towards China, “(…) which the United States had...
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...
All of the history of the United States, foreign policy has caused many disputes over the proper role in international affairs. The views, morals and beliefs of democracy in Americans, makes them feel the need to take leadership of the world and help those countries whom are in need. The foreign policies of President Eisenhower will eventually led to the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. President Eisenhower’s role with these policies were based on his military type strategies to safeguard a victory in the Global Cold War. President Eisenhower’s foreign policies led to an effective involvement in the Cold War and enviably the Vietnam War from an American perspective. President Eisenhower’s foreign policies when implemented would facilitate the goal of containing communism, and also
As the United States developed into a world economic power, it also became a military and political power. Certain things led Americans to become more involved in world affairs, such as territorial growth. There were also consequences to the nation’s new role, like conflict between citizens and people of power. United States government and leaders had to learn the “hard way”, the challenges and negativity that they would face, such as loss of money and lack of control between certain nations, and the positive effects such as expansion of territory and alliances.
During 1940-1970, the USSR and the USA were the world’s leading superpowers. After WW2, it was the US money that helped rebuild nearly all of Western Europe, putting nearly half a dozen countries into debt. They opened trade and helped Europe’s ravaged economy to get back onto its feet. They did so by creating the ‘Marshall Plan’ on June the 5th, 1947. The plans aim was to reconstruct Western Europe and at the same time to stop Communism spreading to them – the Americans were avid believers in the Domino Theory, and believed that communism would take over all of Europe if they did not intervene. They also created other policies such as the Truman doctrine on March the 12th, 1947 (which is a set of principles that state that the US as the worlds ‘leading country’ will help out other democratic governments worldwide) and NATO, 4th of April 1949.
On January 20, 1969, Richard Milhouse Nixon became the 37th president of the United States and faced great challenges at home and on the world front . Richard Nixon selected Henry Kissinger to be his assistant for National Security Affairs. Under their control for the next 6 years, they oversaw the formation of détente and the creation of Triangular Diplomacy. The Nixon-Kissinger strategy in approaching the Soviet Union was full of contradictions and risks. One of the most severe and most notable risks was the potential preemptive nuclear strike that the Soviets were threatening to take against China; an attempt by the Soviets to bully the Chinese into negotiating the Sino-Soviet border. Becoming involved in the Soviet affairs was very dangerous, because as Kissinger observed, the balance of power due to missile strength was shifting from the United States holding the upper hand to that of the Soviets being in control . Kissinger, upon realization of this fact, ...
During Nixon’s presidency, Communism was the number one threat, so for Nixon to open trade with Communist People’s Republic of China was an enormous success. In 1972 Nixon was the first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China (http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/nixon-foreignpolicy). After China was attacked by Japan in 1895, all the powerful European countries wanted to divide up China to keep China safe from Japan and also to have the ability to control the goods coming out of their part of China. America did not want that, so they established the Open Door Policy with China which gave every country equal trading rights with China to keep China safe from the other countries who want a chance to extort China (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/modern/jb_modern_nixchina_1.html). Nixon’s trip to China was to get China to trade with America, which at the time...
The politics of the ultratight resonated deeply with Richard Nixon. Nixon had cut his political teeth as a young Red-hunting member of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. His home district in Orange Country, California, was widely known as a Birch Society stronghold. The Los Angeles-area Birch Society claimed the membership of several political and economic elites, including members of the Chandler family, which owned and published the Los Angeles Times. According to the writer David Halberstam (1979, 118) the Times, which was once described as “the most rabid Labor-bating, Red-hating paper in the United States,” virtually created Richard Nixon.
Prior to Richard Nixon’s inauguration in January of 1969 there were a plethora of issues on the table, but in foreign policy the most pressing issue was the American involvement in Vietnam. In an attempt to predict the main goals, current realities of the war and possible options for a “victory” in Vietnam a committee was commissioned, named RAND, to layout those predictions. At the head of this RAND committee was Dr. Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s national security advisor and later Secretary of State. Dr. Kissinger led this study to predetermine Nixon’s foreign policy plan towards Vietnam, and at t the heart of this committee were a series of studies that broke down Vietnam War policies of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. This corporation allowed for they’re to be a stronghold for Nixon with his anticipated struggles, and major problems in foreign policy. The number one problem was clearly American involvement in Vietnam 1969. This also allowed President Nixon to get a jumpstart creating solutions to these struggles when he would actually take office. Also discussed in the study were alternatives and outcomes to policies towards the war. Defining the word “victory” for the Unites States in Vietnam was one of the major struggles and stresses of Nixon in 1969 and something that would stay with him throughout his presidency. With this came to what was attainable for the United States to accomplish “victory”, which was the major objective of the RAND committee. What was found for attainable victories ranged from the Government of Vietnam (GVN) having independent control of the South, to mere territorial accommodations in the South for the GNV. Though all of this the RAND study was an attempt to have an idea how to see...
Henry A. Kissinger, perhaps one of the most powerful American diplomats of the twentieth century, remarked that in his time, “[George F. Kennan] came as close to authoring the diplomatic doctrine of his era as any diplomat in our history” (Kissinger, 1979: 135). It is interesting to note, however, Kissinger’s appraisal of the doctrine as being a success in his time—not all time, and perhaps not even in Kissinger’s time. Despite the relative absence of scholarly consensus surrounding the body of thought that has become Kennan’s strategic canon, few could plausibly deny that Kennan had a profound impact on the exercise of American foreign policy during the Cold War.
Following the war with Vietnam, America foreign policy saw a new shift. This shift is marked by the decline of containment to a policy of a ‘here and now’ approach. That is, the United States’ new policy was to deal with each situation on a case by case basis rather than treating every threat of communism as a threat to containment. This reclaimed part of the old policy of objectivity in international affairs. As the past shows, controversies and wars alike have the power to dramatically shift a countries foreign policy. One can only wonder what will cause the next change.
Now that the idea of a global war has been established, it is important to establish the role of the United States (USA). One of the most important documents in establishing this was the ‘Truman Doctrine’. President Harry S. Truman (1945-53) outlined what would become the basis of US foreign policy for the duration of the Cold War. This was the policy of containment – trying to keep communism from spreading to the rest of the world. His speech to Congress in March 19...
Constitution have drawn a great deal of attack not only on his methods but also
As we approach the next Presidential election the topic of American foreign policy is once again in the spotlight. In this paper, I will examine four major objectives of U.S. foreign policy that have persisted throughout the twentieth century and will discuss the effect of each on our nation’s recent history, with particular focus on key leaders who espoused each objective at various times. In addition, I will relate the effects of American foreign policy objectives, with special attention to their impact on the American middle class. Most importantly, this paper will discuss America’s involvement in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War to the anticipated fulfillment of these objectives—democracy, manifest destiny, humanitarianism, and economic expansion.
Since the initial warming of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970’s, policymakers have had difficulty balancing conflicting U.S. policy concerns in the People’s Republic of China. In the strange world of diplomacy between the two, nothing is predictable. From Nixon to Clinton, presidents have had to reconcile security and human rights concerns with the corporate desire for expanded economic relations between the two countries. Nixon established ties with Mao Zedong’s brutal regime in 1972. And today Clinton’s administration is trying to influence China’s course from within a close economic and diplomatic relationship.
Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been the world’s only unquestioned superpower. How the United States evaluates its position as global hegemon has important consequences for American foreign policy, particularly with regards to the potential for future policy constraints. Thus, this paper seeks to consider the question: How durable is American hegemony? The paper first defines the state of American hegemony and then considers the primary challengers: Europe, Russia, China, Japan and imperial overstretch. It will conclude that in the long-term, East Asian geopolitical instability poses the greatest threat to American hegemony, but that in the short-term, the hegemony will prove to be quite durable as long as the United States can counteract the phenomenon of imperial overstretch. In order to diffuse both internal and international threats to hegemony, American leaders should work to pursue national interests within a framework of consensus and legitimacy as much as possible.