Chapter 17-Foreign Policy: Protecting the American Way

The cornerstone of foreign policy is the national interestwhat is best for the nation inters
of protecting its physical security and way of life
The Roots of US Foreign and Defense Policy
Before WWII, except within its own hemisphere, the US was a mostly isolationist country
The US had become a fully internationalist countrya nation deeply involved in world
affairs
President Harry S Truman and other American leaders regarded communist Russia as an
implacable foe, a view that led to adoption of the doctrine of containment the notion that
Soviet aggression cold be stopped only be the determinate use of American power

The Cold War Era and Its Lessons

Developments in the late 1940s embroiled the US in a cold war with the Soviet Union

The two countries were not directly engaged in actual combat but were locked in deepseated
hostilities that lasted fortyfive years

The structure of international power was bipolarthe US versus the Soviet Union

The turning point in US foreign policy was the Vietnam War

Washington policymakers were driven by the domino theorythe claim that if Vietnam
feel to the communists, so too would Laos, Cambodia, and the rest of Southeast Asia

Although US forces were technically superior in combat to the communist fighters, Vietnam
was a guerrilla war

US public opinion, most visibly among the young, gradually turned against the war

US policymakers tore consider the countrys international role

President Richard Nixon proclaimed that the US could not longer act as the free worlds
Loner anger and sought to reduce tensions with communist countries

Although US policymakers did not realize it, the Soviet Union was collapsing under the
weight of its heavy defense expenditure, its isolation from Western technology, and its
ineffective centralized economy

The bipolar structure that had defined world politics since the end of WWII was finished

The new structure was unipolarthe US was not the worlds unrivaled military superpower

The Post-Cold War Era and Its Lessons

The end of the cold war promoted the first President Bush in 1990 to call for anew world
order

George H. W. Bush advocated multilateralismthe idea that major nations should act
together in response to problems and crises
The Air Wars of the 1990s

Multilateralism defined Americas response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990

President Bush secured UN resolutions ordering Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and
authorizing the use of force if it failed to do so

The Gulf operation was a military triumph, promoting President Bush to declare that the US
had kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all

The Gulf War was less successfully in another way

Believing that an overthrow of Husseins regime would destabilize Iraq, President Bush
ordered a halt to the hostilities after Iraqi forces retreated

Hussein repeatedly interfered with the inspectors attempt to verify the status of his weapon
programs

Multilateralism carried over into the Clinton administration

Multilateralism was not a wholly successful strategy for resolving international conflicts
The War on Terrorism

The first US military action in the war on terrorism was an attack on Afghanistan, which
commenced barely a month after the September 11attacks
The Iraq War

In 2002, President Bush labeled Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the axis of evil

He announced a new national security doctrine: the preemptive war doctrine

The United States would not wait until it was attacked by hostile nations, instead it would
take preemptive action

In the summer of 2002, Bush targeted the regime of Iraqs Saddam Hussein, claiming that it
was stockpiling weapons of mass destructionchemical and biological weapons, and
possibly nuclear weaponsfor use against US interest

Despite the UNs refusal to authorize a military attack and in the face of strenuous opposition
from France, Germany, and Russia, President Bushing March 2003 ordered US forces to
invade Iraq

British troops were also involved, but the attack was essential an act of unilateralismthe
situation in which one nation takes actions against another state of states

In 2007, President Bush authorized a surge to give the struggling Iraqi government an
opportunity to govern more effectively

The surge contributed to a significant reduction of the violence, leading

Bush to announce a phased withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq
The Afghanistan Escalation ad Pakistan

When the US shifted its main theater of military operations to Iraq in2003, the situation in
Afghanistan began to deteriorate

Obama urged the Afghanistan was Americas war of necessity

He ordered additional troops to by deployed to Afghanistan

Urged NATO also to increase their troops levels

The escalation had a threefold purpose: to disrupt the Taliban resurgence, to speed the
training of Afghan army and policy, and to provide a level of security that would strengthen
Afghans confidence in their government

Obama rejected the openended commitment in Afghanistan, setting 2011as the year in
which troop withdrawals would begin and establishing2014 as the year in which the last units
would leave

The afghan conflict is complicated by Americas uneasy relationship with Pakistan

Although Pakistan government has assisted American forces in same areas, it has resisted
getting drawn more deeply into the conflict, fearing that any such commitment would spark
domestic protests even terrorist acts

Many analysts regard Pakistan as a larger security concern than is Afghanistan

The Arab Spring and the Iranian Nuclear Threat

Arab Spring is the demand of Arab populations for a larger say in their governing

The US had been on friendly terms with most of the Arab regimes and was caught off guard
by the scale of the uprising

The US pressured its Arab allies to undertake political reforms

As the Arab Spring was unfolding, Iran was moving ever closer to developing a nuclear
weapons capacity, which would have a destabilizing effect in the Middle East

The US took the lead in imposing UNbaked economic sanctions on Iran

The US also froze Iranian financial assets in US banks and their overseas branches, and
along with its European allies imposed an embargo on Iranian oil

The US pressured Israel to refrain from a preemptive attack on Irans nuclear facilities,
concerned that any such attack would disrupt and supply of Middle East oil and could
provoke a regional war

The Military Dimension of National Security Policy

Military Power, uses, and capabilities

Nuclear War

Deterrence Policy
is based on the concept of mutually assure destruction
Conventional War

Capable of fighting two mediumsized wars simultaneous if necessary

Alvolunteer military force

Unconventional War

Not a large advantage

Transnational Terrorism


Transnational terrorism is terrorism that transcends national borderland includes attacks on
nonmilitary targets

The Politics of National Defense

The American public usually backs up the judgment of its political leaders on