In American foreign policy, security, prosperity, and the creation of a better world are the three most important goals that policy makers try to achieve. To achieve these goals, policy makers use the assistance of foreign policy instruments. The instruments include intelligence gathering, diplomacy, the use of military force, covert action, economic statecraft and cultural and moral influences (18). The instruments fall into two different categories, either hard power or soft power. Hard power is the use of force in the way of military threats and economic incentives or punishments. Likewise, soft power attempts to attain one’s goal without the use of force but instead uses one’s words to get the other country to come to an agreement regarding the goal (28). Each of these instruments is used in different situations and plays their own role in foreign policy. Each instrument of foreign policy is a necessary option, but it is usually unable to achieve the anticipated goal by itself and does need the help of the other instruments. Using multiple instruments at the same time to solve a problem helps policy makers to make more accurate and clear thought decisions on how to deal with a problem, and ultimately can save the United States the lives of their citizens and money and resources.
The instruments that are considered soft power are the gathering of national security intelligence, diplomacy, and moral and cultural suasion. One of the most important instruments of foreign policy is a state’s intelligence capabilities because making reasonable choices from intelligence gains leads to success in international affairs. National security intelligence is the gathering and analyzing of information about global events and conditions. Wi...
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...ng the soft powers as a first attempt and then having to use hard power to force a resolution if all else fails the creation of a better and peaceful world is always the end goal. The instruments alone cannot be as helpful to policy makers as they could be if used all together. The instruments all rely on one another to live up to its full potential. The best solution to solving problems in international affairs is to use national intelligence to gain accurate information about the problem and the actors participating, coming up with multiple different strategies to solve this problem, such as negotiations, peace treaties, embargoes, and leaving military force and threats as a last resort.
Works Cited
Johnson, Loch K. 1942-. American Foreign Policy and the Challenges of World Leadership.
Power, Principle, and the Constitution. New York: Oxford UP, 2015. Print.
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.
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.
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.
Murray and McCoy discussed the security of having a middle power foreign policy and why it is bad to have a co-peace-building foreign policy. During the Cold War, Canada had a protection strategy on how to protect itself while at the ...
In no field other than politics does the justification for action often come from a noteworthy event and the true cause stays hidden behind the headlines. The United States’ transformation from a new state to a global superpower has been a methodical journey molded by international conditions (the global terrain for statecraft), the role of institutions and their programmed actions, and ultimately, the interests of actors (the protection of participants in making policy’s items and i...
Throughout the course of American history, business-related interests have played a predominant role in influencing foreign policy. Foreign policy determines how America conducts its relations with other countries. It is designed to further certain goals such as security and trade. More importantly foreign policy seeks to ensure America’s security and defense and its ability to protect America’s national interests around the world. National interests that shape foreign policy covers a wide range of political, economic, military, ideological, and humanitarian fields. This is the stand the United States has taken in the last decades in regards to foreign policy. While the US government conducts its foreign policy, the public is kept purposefully unaware of the motives behind some major decisions it takes and most of the operations related to foreign policy. Even though the US foreign policy is set to protect its well being and to spread democracy, I think the US foreign policy is not only influenced by business but is controlled by those with these business-related interests as well. In this essay I will argue the magnitude of the influence of business on foreign policy in the United Sates government.
The debate between hard and soft power first emerged when Joseph Nye introduced the concept of soft power through his criticisms on declinist theories. Soft power was initially popularised in the early 1990s, however its roots date back to the 1980s when Nye criticised declinists and their analysis on the downturn of US relative power. (Zahran, Ramos, 2010, p. 13) Soft power in Nye’s beliefs is in opposition to hard power and describes it as: “The ability to make others want what you want.” (Zahran, Ramos, 2010, p. 13) Soft power relies on culture, ideologies, and institutions to attract supporters and power. In contrast, hard power uses a much more aggressive method and engages through incentives or threats that are usually correlated to
Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Hard and Soft Power in American Foreign Policy.” In Paradox of American Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 4-17. Print.
To understand the power struggle relating to foreign policymaking, it is crucial to understand what foreign policy entails. The Foreign Policy Agenda of the U.S. Department of State declares the goals of foreign policy as "to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community." While this definition is quite vague, the actual tools of foreign policy include Diplomacy, foreign aid, and military force.
In conclusion realist and liberalist theories provide contrasting views on goals and instruments of international affairs. Each theory offers reasons why state and people behave the way they do when confronted with questions such as power, anarchy, state interests and the cause of war. Realists have a pessimistic view about human nature and they see international relations as driven by a states self preservation and suggest that the primary objective of every state is to promote its national interest and that power is gained through war or the threat of military action. Liberalism on the other hand has an optimistic view about human nature and focuses on democracy and individual rights and that economic independence is achieved through cooperation among states and power is gained through lasting alliances and state interdependence.
Schmidt, B. C. (2007). Realism and facets of power in international relations. In F. Berenskoetter & M. J. D. Williams (Eds.), Power in world politics (pp. 43-63). London: Routledge.
The first paradigm of international relations is the theory of Realism. Realism is focused on ideas of self-interest and the balance of power. Realism is also divided into two categories, classical realism and neo-realism. Famous political theorist, Hans Morgenthau was a classical realist who believed that national interest was based on three elements, balance of power, military force, and self interest (Kleinberg 2010, 32). He uses four levels of analysis to evaluate the power of a state. The first is that power and influence are not always the same thing. Influence means the ability to affect the decision of those who have the power to control outcomes and power is the ability to determine outcomes. An example of influence and power would be the UN’s ability to influence the actions of states within the UN but the state itself has the power to determine how they act. Morgenthau goes on to his next level of analysis in which he explains the difference in force and power in the international realm. Force is physical violence, the use of military power but power is so much more than that. A powerful state can control the actions of another state with the threat of force but not actually need to physical force. He believed that the ability to have power over another state simply with the threat of force was likely to be the most important element in analysis the power of as state (Kleinberg 2010, 33-34).
Progressive era foreign policy was motivated by a variety of factors including racial and national superiority, business and economic interests, strategic concerns, and idealism. Excerpts from For the Record provide various examples supporting the concerns that led to America’s foreign policy.
...ous situations, possibly because these studies have attributed motive and action to the states rather than to the decision-makers within them. Thus, foreign relations and policies can truly be strengthened when people can view and truly appreciate international issue in many different perspectives, such as realist, idealist, liberalist, constructivism, feminist, world economic system analysis, etc. When people are able to see issues and solutions to problems in many different ways world peace might be reachable.
The discipline of international relations (IR) contains several theories that contain theoretical perspectives to the idea of power. Within the realist perspective there are two approaches that help paint the portrait of the realist theory, the classical approach to realism and the neo-realist approach. Classical realism and neorealism both have been subjected to criticism from IR scholars and theorists representing liberal and constructivist perspectives. The key tenets to realism contain three essential characteristics of international relations which are the state, anarchy and the balance of power. This essay will closely analyse all three characteristics with special regards to power being central to the realist perspective.