ULI358U-AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
Chapter 3: Development of US Foreign Policy: Strategies and Doctrines
The Founding Fathers and U.S. Foreign Policy Doctrines in the 1800s
In 1796, President Washington spoke extensively about the importance of unity of the new American nation, during his Farewell address to the American people. He suggested that the Americans should “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” For President Washington, temporary alliances were fine but in the long run, permanent alliances were not in the interests of the new nation.
Political texts during the early periods of the Republic carried a modest tone. In fact, as a founding father and the third President, Thomas Jefferson envisioned a democratic nation of small farmers, rather than powerful industrialists, who could serve as the agents of the US power globally. Political atmosphere was more inward looking, isolationist than globalist or interventionist. In 1800, President Jefferson explicitly mentioned the virtues of avoiding “entangling alliances.” Jefferson had served as the US Ambassador to France prior to his presidency. As France descended into Napoleonic Wars, he did not want
the US to participate in the European conflicts and turmoil. The fact that international alliances were seen as “entanglements” expresses the mindset of the political leadership at the time: The leaders of the new Republic were glad for having left the “Old Continent” behind. They were excited about the new Republic they were building in the New World. They did not want to get involved in the complications, controversies and animosities of the Old World anymore.
Monroe Doctrine, Rise of Expansionism, and the Manifest Destiny
While the US foreign policy doctrines initially seemed isolationist towards Europe, it was far from isolationism at home. Policies toward the west and the south were particularly expansionist. When the Spanish came to Latin America, they encountered major urban civilizations created by the Aztecs, Mayans and the Incas. The settlers in the north however did not face such large, organized and urban indigenous populations. The population density of the American Indians in the north was much lower, compared to the major urban cities established by the Aztecs, Mayans and the Incas across Latin America.
Subsequent to the arrival of the Europeans, the indigenous population declined rapidly. This was due to wars, lack of modern weaponry, displacement, and deliberate spread of infectious diseases. Majority of the indigenous populations were permanently destroyed across the north America. Their lands were taken, and their livelihoods were destroyed by excessive exploitation of the settlers. Certain species such as the buffalo were hunted almost to extinction. The U.S. government had signed treaties with the leaders of American Indians. However, these were highly asymmetrical agreements. The articles of these treaties were frequently altered or violated, as soon as the
territories under American Indian sovereignty were deemed too lucrative to leave in the hands of the American Indians.
Monroe Doctrine of 1823 could be classified as the first official foreign policy doctrine of the United States. It was articulated by President James Monroe during the 7th State of the Union address to the Senate and the House. In his long speech, the president carefully makes the case that the U.S. does pay attention to the conflicts in Europe, because they share the same origins, but does not pick sides. Secondly, President Monroe highlights the differences in political systems on either side of the Atlantic. He concludes by saying that it is a very different political system budding in the Americas, and that the European powers better not meddle in these newly independent regimes across the Americas.
Political writings at the time also began to legitimize the American expansionism. The editor of Democratic Review magazine summarized the mindset of this period. He disowned any connections to the European legacy. Instead, he highlighted the novelty and moral superiority of the system that was being created in the United States. Freedom and progress were highlighted as the highest values.
The effects of Manifest Destiny were probably most dramatically observed across Latin America. After its independence from Spain, Mexico was embroiled in civil wars and infighting among numerous generals who wanted to be the President. The weakness of central authority and divisions within the military created a power vacuum in Mexico. Territories in the north, particularly Texas, took advantage of this, and decided to secede and go their own way. In 1836, Texas separated from Mexico.
Towards the end of 1800s (in 1890s), the expansionism of the U.S. became even more visible. The new generation of political leaders were more eager to exercise power not just at home, but also abroad.
Expansionism, Interventionism, and the Roosevelt Corollary
President Theodore Roosevelt, who served for two terms from 1901 to 1909, was a strong advocate of US expansionism. President Roosevelt was instrumental in supporting the secessionist elites in Colombia, who eventually led to the formation of a small but independent Panama in 1903. The newly independent Panama immediately signed a treaty with the U.S. for building the Panama Canal, and granted the U.S. exclusive rights for five miles (8 km) on either side of the canal, (the Canal Zone) until 1979.
In his annual address to the Congress in 1904, President Roosevelt expressed a globally assertive and interventionist doctrine. Commonly referred as the Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the sections of his speech made it explicit that the U.S. was now ready to serve as the “international police power.” This
interventionist doctrine was eventually replaced by another Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s, who became the architect of the Good Neighbor Policy in the Americas.
U.S. Foreign Policy Doctrines in the Twentieth Century
President Woodrow Wilson and the Rise of American Idealism
While President Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) envisioned a more assertive U.S. role in the world by serving as the global police, President Wilson (Democrat) had expressed U.S. assertiveness with very different methods. Wilson also advocated for greater U.S. engagement in the world. However, his preferred foreign policy tool was diplomacy. Wilson considered the secret treaties between the European great power as despicable enterprises. He thought colonialism was a morally bankrupt policy choice. He looked down upon his European peers for partitioning the territories of other peoples in Africa and the rest of the world with cupidity. Wilson is considered an idealist president, for having his moral values direct his foreign policy agenda. He valued peace, prosperity and democracy in the world. He wanted to promote international law and institutions to facilitate these goals. Among his top priorities was establishing a League of Nations. This would serve as a permanent forum to conduct open diplomacy among all independent nations. Wilson’s diplomatic propositions turned out to be unappealing both at home and abroad. Wilson’s proposed international system condemned military aggression and colonialism, and called for disarmament of all nations. But without the U.S. membership in the League of Nations, the organization lacked the willpower to enforce these terms.
The Cold War, Truman Doctrine, and Containment Era
The U.S. and the Soviet Union fought together against the fascist regimes of Europe during World War II. However, this collaboration did not last long and the post-WWII international system became polarized between two superpowers. The U.S. foreign policy decision makers increasingly began to consider the Soviet economic and political models as fundamentally adversarial to the American model.
Kennan and Truman came to be known as the architects of the Containment doctrine. According to this perspective, the socialist model was similar to a virus that needed to be contained and kept in check. The U.S. was especially concerned about new countries wanting to join the socialist ranks. The Containment doctrine shaped the US foreign policy for decades. It played an important role in overt and covert US interventions across Latin America and the Middle East, causing the fall of democratically elected leaders such as Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and Chilean President Salvador Allende.
Containment doctrine also fueled decisions to go to war in Korea and Vietnam. The bi-polar distribution of power made every nation, big or small, critical to maintain the systemic equilibrium. Consequently, anytime countries in the U.S. alliance camp, such as Turkey or Chile, elected left leaning governments, it was perceived as an existential threat for the U.S. that could potentially tilt the balance in favor of the Soviets. The equilibrium in this bi-polar international system prevented a direct military confrontation or a Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) between the two superpowers, which is a quality strongly favored by the neo-realist school in International Relations.
President Reagan, Reaganomics, and Anti-Communism
Compared to the previous presidents of the Containment era, President Reagan expressed a more vocal anti-Soviet, and anti-communist stance. As a successful public speaker, he frequently expressed harsher criticisms of the Soviet model. The 1980s was also the decade of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Reagan Doctrine allowed the U.S. to provide military assistance to irregular armed forces that were allegedly combating communism. The President hosted the Afghan militia at the White House and praised them as “freedom fighters” against the Soviet invasion.
The Reagan Presidency also coincided with massive economic crisis in the developing world. Hyperinflation, foreign currency shortages and capital flight were common across the Global South. The Reagan administration and the international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushed the countries struggling with economic crisis to make structural changes. These countries had to abandon their prior economic development models (import substation industrialization - ISI) and switch to the free market model.
Another Republican, President George H. W. Bush, was elected as the 41st President of the United States after Reagan. His foreign policy legacy came to be known as prudent realism. The first President Bush witnessed the historic implosion of the Soviet Union, saw Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and led a UN authorized war in the Persian Gulf to push Iraq out of Kuwait. However, he was rather hesitant to liberally exercise the U.S. military power all across the world, despite the vacuum created by the demise of the only other global superpower. As such, his legacy was much favored by the neo-realist school in International Relations.
Unipolar World and Foreign Policy Doctrines After the Cold War
President Clinton and the Democratic Enlargement Doctrine
President Clinton and his national security advisor Anthony Lake were the architects of the foreign policy doctrine that came to be known as “democratic
enlargement.” Clinton and his advisor Dr. Lake were eager to find a compelling new doctrine to replace the old- fashioned containment doctrine. They highlighted democracy and free markets as core American values. The democratic enlargement doctrine wanted to put American power in use, in order to expand its core values. This period witnessed the implementation of NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 1994. Clinton era U.S. foreign policy could also be classified as a typical example of liberal interventionism.
Particularly under the leadership of Madeline Albright, who was the first woman Secretary of State, the U.S. military engaged in humanitarian missions in the Balkans. NATO intervention in the Bosnian genocide was probably the most impactful decision of her term in office. Despite the serious objections from the two UN Security Council members, Russia and China, the U.S. led a military campaign against Serbia under the institutional umbrella of NATO. The Serbian mission also served as a platform to legitimize strong U.S. military standing in the post-Cold War era. Overall, the Clinton doctrine expanded the U.S. military and economic reach across the world, brought China into the WTO, provided support for budding democratic movements, particularly in Eastern Europe, and increased the number of NATO allies.
President George W. Bush, September 11, 2001, Rise of Unilateralism, and Preventive Wars
President George W. Bush came to power on a predominantly economic platform and emphasized his commitment for a comprehensive immigration reform. He conducted his first official visit to Mexico, which was near and dear to his heart when he was the serving as the governor of Texas. Unfortunately, history had other plans for the Bush administration. The notorious terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 completely changed the focus of the US foreign policy. Many of the top decision makers in President Bush’s team were veterans from his father’s term, the 41st President of the United States. The majority of the attackers in 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Yet, the Bush administration started a war in Iraq in 2003, by claiming Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) as the cause of war. The US was willing to take precautionary actions in the form of a military invasion, in order to prevent an aggression from ever taking place against the US or against its allies. The Bush doctrine essentially violated the international norms by introducing the concept of preventive war. The dominant interventionist faction within the Bush administration expected that the U.S. could use military force to create a world according to its own image, starting from the Middle East. Simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq depleted the budget surplus generated from the Clinton years. It over-extended the U.S. militarily, causing repeated deployment of the soldiers and diminished the troop morale. These non-essential wars and interventions
potentially prevented later military engagements in more crucial cases, such as Ukraine and Syria.
Obama Doctrine, Competition between Liberal Interventionism, and Offshore Balancing
Despite having numerous liberal interventionists in his cabinet and foreign policy team, President Obama was remarkably reluctant to use U.S. military power. Particularly in the case of Syrian civil war, he was pushed from many directions to authorize a military intervention. He stated that he would only if weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were used by the Syrian regime. Sure enough, the world was shaken by the images of civilians killed or wounded by chemical weapons in Syria. Obama ended up resolving this escalated tension over biological weapons through diplomacy. Russia stepped in and the Assad regime in Syria allegedly handed over their chemical and biological weapons capabilities to the Russian authorities. Obama’s approach to the Syrian crisis and his efforts to decrease the military footprint of the United States make him more an advocate of offshore balancing than liberal interventionism.
When faced with multiple incidents of Russian aggression, including the annexation of Crimea, President Obama refrained from direct military confrontation. Instead, he imposed sanctions on Russia (i.e. Magnistky Act) and deported dozens of Russian diplomats from the U.S. In the case of Libyan civil war, instead of going it alone, he included NATO in the operation to topple the Kaddafi regime. While most members of his foreign policy team wanted to intervene in Syria for strategic or humanitarian reasons, Obama preferred regional powers such as Russia, Turkey or Iran taking the lead. Based on his track record, it would not be wrong to assume that Obama was a realist offshore balancer, surrounded by a team of liberal interventionists.
During his period, the US military and CIA expanded their drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, despite growing criticism from human rights organizations. Special Forces captured and executed Osama bin Laden at his home in an upscale neighborhood of Abbottabad, Pakistan, less than 2 kilometers away from the Military Academy of Pakistan. On the other hand, President Obama also took some radical diplomatic steps that mended the long time broken bilateral relations. Extending an olive branch to Cuba was one such act of proactive diplomacy. Similarly, nuclear negotiations with Iran were also a significant deviation from the prior track- record of hostile bilateral relations. In fact, President Obama was more critical of Saudi Arabia than Iran. He wanted Saudi Arabia to normalize their relations with Iran and establish a power sharing environment in the Middle East, instead of fueling regionally destabilizing proxy wars.
In the 2016 Clinton versus Trump presidential race, Clinton won nearly three million more votes than Trump. However, the federal system and the Electoral College
structure resulted in a Trump victory. President Trump was vocal about his highly unorthodox foreign policy choices during his election campaign. He frequently accused the NATO members as being “free riders”, implying that they were counting on the U.S. military and economic support for their own national security. President Trump openly asked all NATO members to increase their military spending. Secondly, he became surprisingly close and accommodating towards traditional adversaries of the U.S. such as Russia. He designated Middle East as a “problem region” and attempted to decrease U.S. military footprint there, by abruptly pulling the U.S. troops out of Iraq. Third, he expressed his distaste for international treaties and organizations by withdrawing the U.S. signature from key international agreements.
On economic and trade matters, President Trump again broke the established foreign policy consensus in the U.S. He attempted to increase tariff barriers against some of the key trading partners of the U.S., including Mexico, China, Canada and the EU. He renegotiated NAFTA and proposed an updated version of free trade agreement between US-Mexico and Canada, called USMCA. In this upgraded NAFTA, the Canadians were required to bring down their dairy tariffs, and the Mexicans were required to increase their environmental and labor standards, so that the US companies do not just build factures right to the south of the border for cheaper production. The relations with China soured, due to increasing US tariffs against Chinese exports, and China reciprocating by imposing tariffs on agricultural commodities from key Trump- supporting states, such as soybeans and pork products from the Mid-West.
A Chronology of the Key Events and the Definitions of the Key Concepts
This section of the chapter gives a chronology of the key events in US foreign policy and provides a short definition for each key concept that may help better understand the US policies around the world.
Chronology of the Key US Foreign Policy Events
1783 US declares independence from Great Britain
1787 On September 17, 38 delegates from 13 original colonies signed the US Constitution. (September 17 is celebrated as the Constitution Day each year.)
1803 French sells Louisiana Territory to the US for $15 million. (nearly 1/3 of modern day US)
1819 Florida is purchased from the Spanish for $5 million.
1823 Monroe Doctrine is declared: Western Hemisphere is the US sphere of influence.
1845 The US annexes Texas
1846-48 Mexican-American War: Mexico lost nearly ½ of its territory to the US, including Texas and California.
1867 Alaska is purchased from Russia.
1898 The US annexes Hawaii.
1898 Spanish-American War breaks out in Havana, The US defeats Spain, Cuba declares its independence from Spain but under US tutelage.
1903 The US signs a treaty with newly independent Panama to build a canal.
1904 Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine: US interventionism as an “international police”
1914 World War I started in Europe.
1918 President Wilson declares his Fourteen Points, emphasizes diplomacy and cooperation, and proposes the establishment of League of Nations.
1919 The US Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles, and refuses to become party to the League of Nations
1935-36 The US Congress passes Neutrality Act: non- intervention in Europe
1939 World War II starts in Europe.
1941 Japanese attacks Pearl Harbor, and the US enters World War II.
1944 Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire: World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) created.
1945 World War II ends, Germany-JapanItaly are defeated, Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe
1947 President Truman’s address to the Congress, starting of the Containment doctrine
1948-51 Marshall Plan: $13 billion granted to rebuild Europe
1949 NATO created, initially members: U.S. + 11 countries
1950-53 Korean War
1959 Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro topples the pro-US Batista regime
1961 Bay of Pigs invasion: The US supported Cuban exiles try to take over Castro regime, but fail
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet attempt to place nuclear warheads in Cuba
1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, expansion of US involvement in Vietnam War
1969 Nixon Presidency, Henry Kissinger as the National Security Advisor
1973 Paris Peace Accords, the end of Vietnam War
1977-81 Presidency of Jimmy Carter, historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel
1979-89 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
1981 The start of two term Reagan presidency, arms race with the Soviets, military build up, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech 1989 The fall of the Berlin Wall
1991 George H.W. Bush Presidency, Soviet Union disintegrates; Iraq invades Kuwait, the 1st Gulf War, Iraq is defeated.
1992-99 Breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnian genocide, NATO intervention, Clinton Presidency
2001 September 11 terrorist attacks, US invasion of Afghanistan
2003 US intervention in Iraq, 2nd Gulf War
2009-17 Obama Presidency, closer relations with Cuba, sanctions against Russia, Syrian civil war
2014 Russian invasion of Crimea after Sochi Winter Olympics
2017 Trump Presidency, The US withdraws from the Paris Climate Accords and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), renegotiates NAFTA, new treaty between US, Mexico and Canada (USMCA)
2019 Congressional investigations of President Trump, debates of impeachment