US & The World Flashcards
George Washington quote
George Washington, 1796: “steer clear of permanent alliances”
Thomas Jefferson quote (2)
Thomas Jefferson, 1801:
“honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” \
“empire of/ for liberty”
John Quincy Adams
‘She Goes Not Abroad in Search of Monsters to Destroy’
When was the Monroe Doctrine introduced?
1823
Who introduced the term ‘Manifest Destiny’?
In the July–August 1845 issue of the Democratic Review, O’Sullivan published an essay entitled “Annexation”, which called on the U.S. to admit the Republic of Texas into the Union.
Who introduced the Open Door policy?
John Hay
What is the Open Door policy?
These Open Door Notes aimed to secure international agreement to the U.S. policy of promoting equal opportunity for international trade and commerce in China, and respect for China’s administrative and territorial integrity. British and American policies toward China had long operated under similar principles, but once Hay put them into writing, the “Open Door” became the official U.S. policy towards the Far East in the first half of the 20th century.
What did Roosevelt believe in?
- Holding the biggest stick- Acting as the world’s policeman
What policy did Woodrow Wilson promote?
Liberal internationalism
What did Franklin Roosevelt promulgate?
National Security
What did George F Kennan promote?
Containment, following the Long Telegram
Post-Cold War theorists and policies
Bill Clinton, Tony Lake, Madeleine Albright, and globalization: engagement, enlargement, liberal interventionism, and R2P (1993-2000)
What does R2P mean?
Responsibility to Protect – UN 2005 – all member states to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity
Who were part of the National Security League - NSL?
Grew due to strong investment from Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Guggenhiem, and Carnegie - by 1918- 85000 members. Did not disband postwar, sought to continue motion of protecting “Americanism”
What was the Caroline test?
the necessity for preemptive self-defense must be “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation”
In this regard, what could be said of FDR’s foreign policy?
An extension of the Caroline standard
what are the different types of internationalism? (6)
- Liberal
- Interwar
- Cold War
- Cultural
- Economic
- Labour
Term is essentially used without close definition
What could be said about isolationism?
Isolationism is a charged term / unilateralism may be said to be a better term
What terms are often problematically implemented?
internationalism, interventionism, globalism, globalisation, Wilsonianism, imperialism, transnationalism, hegemonism
What is the benefit of the term unilateralism?
One major analytical advantage to the use of the term unilateralism (as with non- interventionism) is that the strand can again be traced beyond World War II: isolationism may have died with World War II, but unilateralism certainly did not
Apply unilateralism to Bush
Before 9/11…
- Bush signalled the American withdrawal from the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty,
- Failed to ratify the Kyoto treaty on the environment
- Failed to provide US recognition of the International Criminal Court.
Who was George Kennan?
Leading exponent of an approach to foreign policy ideology thet might be best tabled pejorative - inappropriate moralism and legalism was the defining approach of America to international affairs.
What did William Appleman Williams state?
The open door ideology was central to the understanding of ascendant American in world affairs - it set America at odds with revolutionary regimes - Mexico, Russia and China
What informed foreign policy? (Adas)
Racial pretensions: Though whites often disagreed on aspects of the “Negro question,” sometimes emotionally so, they nonetheless agreed almost universally on the fundamental issue of white supremacy and black inferiority.
Describe the racial ladder
The idea of a racial hierarchy proved particularly attractive because it offered a ready and useful conceptual handle on the world. It was reassuringly hardy and stable in a changing world. Latinos mid-way on the racial ladder, Asians were intolerable – subhuman.
What also was formative of foreign policy decisions?
Religious and racial pretensions:
- Secretary of State John Quincy Adams agreed. Latin Americans, 1821, “have not the first elements of good or free government. Arbitrary power, military and ecclesiastical, was stamped upon their education, upon their habits, and upon all their institutions.” The somnolent populations of that region, debilitated by their heritage and enervated by a tropical climate, neglected their rich natural resources, while the Catholic faith lulled them into intellectual passivity. “A priest-ridden people,” Jefferson had predicted in 1813, were beyond “maintaining a free civil government.”
How did European observers filter their view of China?
European observers who filtered imperial China though the soft haze of their Enlightenment preconceptions. From a distance China appeared an ancient civilization whose cultured people and achievements in the fine arts and benevolently despotic government gave much to admire. But alongside this positive view prevalent among the American elite, there developed another strain of thought that was critically condescending toward a people who did not embrace free trade, who suspiciously held foreigners under control, and who followed pagan rites and such immoral practices as infanticide and polygamy. A 1784 geography embracing this latter view described the Chinese as “the most dishonest, low, thieving people in the world.’
What impact had race thinking had upon ethnocentric notions?
Race thinking, widely retailed in properly impressive pseudoscientific terms, had given added plausibility to an older ethnocentric notion of Anglo solidarity and superiority
What is Jeffersonian internationalism?
A belief centred on self-determination
What could be said of Roosevelt’s stance towards the Chinese problem?
Race thinking, widely retailed in properly impressive pseudoscientific terms, had given added plausibility to an older ethnocentric notion of Anglo solidarity and superiority
What triggered a change in the opinion of Americans toward immigration?
As more and more Americans came to believe they needed protection form the threat of immigrant invaders, more also became convinced that they needed a new way of governing immigration.
What impact had trade interests on discriminatory action in the US?
Fearful of the treatment of the Chinese of Americans in China, officials resisted restriction of Chinese nationals in the US. Equally, in 1906, Japan came to a gentleman’s agreement with Roosevelt, agreeing to prohibit further emigration for the protection of Japanese in San Francisco
What did the Hart-Celler Immigration Reform Act, 1965 do?
Eliminated the national-origins quotas - constituted a radical departure from the past - “opened the floodgates” to a new “immigration invasion”
What is the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations?
An organisation centred on diplomatic history
What are the developments in the field of diplomatic history?
- More international approach- Emphasis on culture and identity- Renewed engagement with ideology
What happened in the 1980s?
- Cultural turn invigorated interest in foreign policy from different angles, which had previously been the domain of solely diplomatic historians.
What happened from the 1990s onwards?
- Trend towards internationalising research - Trend towards decentralising America - Westad champions through enviable multiliguistic analysis
What has Jeremy Suri noted about American orientalism?
One group of scholars argues that American orientalism continued European imperialist paternalism before and after World War II, while another school questions the very framework of the Cold War because it mutes the agency of Third World peoples.
Thompson, John A. - A Sense of Power: The Roots of America’s Global Role (1)
- WWI brought about two changes in American foreign policy – rejection of abstention, and massive and effective projection of national power overseas. These developments proved short lived – army was demobilised and the swollen budge was slimmed down and active participation in Europe was not sustained. Wilsonian internationalism vision was not fully realised, however could be argued that economically America continued its outreach around the world. Exports to the Allies increased fourfold.
Johnstone, Andrew - Isolationism and Internationalism in American Foreign Relations
- Isolationism is part of the DNA of USSR foreign relations
- Internationalism has been abused as a term, to the extent it lacks meaning
- Considerably diminished in the short term by involvement in World War II and the Cold War, the non-interventionist strand in US foreign policy never completely disappeared and can be seen in the questioning of US involvement in Cold War conflicts, most notably Vietnam.’
- End of CW supercharged internationalist sentiment, this was however stymied by 9/11.
- Internationalism is tied to Wilsonian Liberalism.
- Non-interventionism would be a better descriptor for the period - “But non-interventionism is not merely useful in analysing the inter-war years. The concerns of Americans who sought to avoid wars not in American interests can be traced throughout history. From the nation’s very beginnings, it was clear that one of the reasons for an anti-interventionist outlook was, in the words of Manfred Jonas, ‘to safeguard the independence of a new and weak nation by avoiding, whenever possible, involvement in the military and political affairs of the major powers’.”
- This non-interventionist stance with respect to major European powers held good for much of the nineteenth century. The United States showed interest in but largely remained aloof from transatlantic affairs.
Hunt, Michael H. - Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy
1- American response to the situation in Europe also racialised. Great sympathy for British cousins, indifference to the Holocaust. 2- FDR admired Wilson, however equally admired power and political manoeuvre. Was not as dogmatic, could be inconsistent. Did not intially come to power with any foreign policy intent. 3- Truman intently racial in policy –Japs were merciless, French were frogeaters, Slavics were bohunks, British were honourable.
Atwood
Triumphalism sees intervention in Asia and Africa as the roadway to democracy/ roadblock to communism
Little
– US-Israeli Relationship cemented by June 1967 victory over Abdel Nasser’s Egypt. US feared SU infleunce in Middle East. Kissinger attempt to shut out Russians in Arab-Israeli peace process reduced the euphoria of détente. Good intentions/ Bad outcomes vis-à-vis ME.
