U.S. Foreign Policy

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the military activities in the Philippines and Mexico signaled a change in the attitude of U.S. foreign policy from isolationism to imperialism. The author points out that the Second World War and the Cold War caused all of U.S. life to be filtered through the lens of foreign policy such as (1) the facilitation of grant programs such as the National Defense Student loans, (2) reliance on state and local governments for local infrastructure financing because federal monies were committed to Cold War foreign purposes and (3) the more rapid integration of the races at home due to the necessity of integration in the military to have enough troops to conduct overseas operations such as Korea, Vietnam and assorted smaller wars. The paper concludes that, today, there is no foreign policy agenda per se; Bush II is a tabula rasa, straddling two wings of the same party, like a feckless cowboy on two horses.

Table of Contents
U.S. National Foreign Policy Style, 1900 to the Present
U.S. Foreign Policy Domestic Context 1950
Changes over the Last Ten Years

From the Paper:

"It would seem this attitude of foreign policy was written in stone. However, one of its early ardent supporters, Theodore Roosevelt, was among those who began to see that U.S. imperialism was not working. In the end, it was Wilson who noted that the drive for colonies contributed mainly to savage warfare. He concluded, in another sea-change manner that would influence U.S. foreign policy at least until another Roosevelt (Franklin Delano) entered the White House, that it would be best to "dismantle the colonial structure itself. His plan included self-determination for former colonies, international arms reduction, an open trading system to discourage economic imperialism, and a commitment to collective security through international organizations, what is now sometimes referred to as multilateralism." That drive, culminating in such bodies as the League of Nations and reluctant entry into further wars, would be the dominant attitude until the start of World War II."

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