History of United States foreign policy

Further information: Foreign policy of the United States

Further information: Timeline of United States diplomatic history

History of U.S. foreign policy is a brief overview of major trends regarding the foreign policy of the United States from the American Revolution to the present. The major themes are becoming an "empire of liberty", promoting democracy, expanding across the continent, supporting liberal internationalism, and contesting World Wars and the Cold War.

1776–1789

The Jay Treaty of 1795 aligned the U.S. more with Britain and less with France, leading to political polarization at home

From the establishment of the United States after the American Revolution until the Spanish-American War, U.S. foreign policy reflected a regional, not global, focus, but with the long-term ideal of creating an "Empire of Liberty."

In December, 1777 Sultan of Morocco, Mohammed III, included America in a list of countries to which Morocco’s ports were open, essentially making Morocco the first country whose head of state publicly recognized the United States. Relations were later formalized with the Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship in 1786.

The military and financial alliance with France in 1778, which brought in Spain and the Netherlands to fight the British, turned the American Revolutionary War into a world war in which the British naval and military supremacy was neutralized. The diplomats–especially Franklin, Adams and Jefferson–secured recognition of American independence and large loans to the new national government. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 was highly favorable to the United States which now could expand from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River.

American foreign affairs from independence in 1776 to the new Constitution in 1789 were handled under the Articles of Confederation directly by Congress until the new government created a department of foreign affairs and the office of secretary for foreign affairs on January 10, 1781.

Early National Era: 1789-1800

The cabinet-level Department of Foreign Affairs was created in 1789 by the First Congress. It was soon renamed the Department of State and changed the title of secretary for foreign affairs to Secretary of State; Thomas Jefferson returned from France to take the position.

When the French Revolution led to war in 1793 between Britain (America's leading trading partner), and France (the old ally, with a treaty still in effect), Washington and his cabinet decided on a policy of neutrality. In 1795 Washington supported the Jay Treaty, designed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to avoid war with Britain and encourage commerce. The Jeffersonians vehemently opposed the treaty, but Washington's support proved decisive, and the U.S. and Britain were on friendly terms for a decade. However the foreign policy dispute polarized parties at home, leading to the First Party System.

In a "Farewell Message" that became a foundation of policy President George Washington in 1796 counseled against foreign entanglements:

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations & collisions of her friendships, or enmities. Our detached & distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course.

By 1797 the French were openly seizing American ships, leading to an undeclared war known as the Quasi-War of 1798-99. President John Adams tried diplomacy; it failed. In 1798, the French demanded American diplomats pay huge bribes in order to see the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand, which the Americans rejected. The Jeffersonian Republicans, suspicious of Adams, demanded the documentation, which Adams released using X, Y and Z as codes for the names of the French diplomats. The XYZ Affair ignited a wave of nationalist sentiment overwhelmed the U.S. Congress approved Adams' plan to organize the navy. Adams reluctantly signed the Alien and Sedition Acts as a wartime measure. Adams broke with the Hamiltonian wing of his Federalist Party and made peace with France in 1800.

Jeffersonian Era: 1800-1848

Thomas Jefferson envisioned America as the force behind a great "Empire of Liberty.", that would promote republicanism and counter the imperialism of the British Empire. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803, made by Jefferson in a $15 million deal with Napoleon Bonaparte, doubled the size of the growing nation by adding a huge swath of territory west of the Mississippi River, opening up millions of new farm sites for the yeomen farmers idealized by Jeffersonian Democracy.

President Jefferson in the Embargo Act of 1807 forbid trade with both France and Britain, but his policy, largely seen as partisan in favor of agrarian interests instead of commercial interests, was highly unpopular in New England and ineffective in stopping bad treatment from British warships.

War of 1812

The USS Constitution surprised analysts with an important victory over the HMS Guerriere in 1812.

The Jeffersonians deeply distrusted the British in the first place, but the British shut down most American trade with France, and impressed into the Royal Navy about 6000 sailors on American ships who claimed American citizenship. In the west, Indians supported by Britain (but not under their control) used ambushes and raids to kill settlers, thus delayed the expansion of frontier settlements into the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, especially).

In 1812 diplomacy had broken down and the U.S. declared war on Britain. The War of 1812 was marked by very bad planning and military fiascoes on both sides. It ended with the Treaty of Ghent in 1815. Militarily it was a stalemate as both sides failed in their invasion attempts, but the Royal Navy blockaded the coastline and shut down American trade (except for smuggling supplies into British Canada). However the British achieved their main goal of defeating Napoleon, while the American armies defeated the Indian alliance that the British had supported, ending the British war goal of establishing a pro-British Indian boundary nation in the Midwest. The British stopped impressing American sailors and trade with France (now an ally of Britain) resumed, so the causes of the war had been cleared away. After 1815 tensions de-escalated along the U.S.-Canada border, with peaceful trade and generally good relations. Boundary disputes were settled amicably. Both the U.S. and Canada saw a surge in nationalism and national pride after 1815, with the U.S. moving toward greater democracy and the British postponing democracy in Canada.

Latin America

In response to the new independence of Spanish colonies in Latin America in the early 19th century, the United States established the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. This policy declared opposition to European interference in the Americas and left a lasting imprint on the psyche of later American leaders. Around the same time, U.S. expansion, fueled by a doctrine of Manifest Destiny, led to the Indian Wars. This also led to the annexation of the Republic of Texas, which had a pre-existing border dispute with Mexico. U.S. Army patrols in the disputed area triggered the Mexican-American War. As a result of this war the U.S. acquired territories that would become New Mexico, Arizona and California. There were small diplomatic conflicts with Britain over the Oregon Territory and with Spain over Florida, which ended in the division of Oregon and the sale of Florida.

When Texas fought and won a war of independence against Mexico in 1836, Mexico refused to accept the result and planned to reconquer the last territory. Texas joined the U.S. in 1845, and war soon followed. The Mexican armies did poorly, and at the peace treaty the U.S. purchased area from California to Texas.

Slavery

The issue of slavery in the western territories (where Congress was in control) then exploded and the U.S. turned inward. By the mid 1850s the Whig Party collapsed and the new Republican Party, committed to an eventual extinction of slavery, took power in the North. The South could not tolerate restrictions on the expansion of slavery at home or abroad (such as proposals to buy Cuba for more slave territory), so with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, seven cotton states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. No compromise was possible, and war broke out in April 1861, with four border states joining the Confederacy. In response, the United States fought a war with the Confederacy for reunification. Under Lincoln it mobilized its superior industrial, financial and population resources, blockaded the South, prevented Europe from intervening, and fought hundreds of bloody battles. By 1862 the abolition of slavery was a war goal, but the South hung on, fighting a total war until it was destroyed in 1865. The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) marked highly controversial, sometimes violent, efforts to integrate the South, and the freed slaves, into the national system with full equality. France had meanwhile taken control of Mexico, and was forced out by American threats. Relations with Britain (and Canada) were tense until the arbitration of the Alabama Claims in 1872 provided a satisfactory reconciliation. Congress did pay for Alaska in 1867, but otherwise rejected proposals to expand the nation.

1893–1914

In early 1893 the business community in Hawaii overthrew the Queen and sought annexation by President Harrison, who forwarded the proposal to the Senate for approval. But the next President Cleveland withdrew the proposed annexation; nevertheless, revolutionaries in Hawaii formed an independent Republic of Hawaii. It voluntarily joined the U.S. in 1898 with full U.S. citizenship for its residents.

Fierce fighting between U.S. and Spanish warships off the coast of Cuba led to the sinking and grounding of several Spanish battleships; afterwards, there was a battle among Navy captains to claim credit for the victory. The USS Iowa was hit but did not sink after the Battle of Santiago.

In the late 19th century, the U.S. began investment in new naval technology including steam-powered battleships with powerful armaments and steel decking. When its battleship the USS Maine exploded for undetermined reasons in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, publishers operating under a style of yellow journalism whipped up war fever and blamed Spain for the loss of the U.S. battleship. The four-month long Spanish-American War from April through July 1898 was a "brief, intense conflict that effectively ended Spain's worldwide empire," and brought the U.S. new territories in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. It marked America's transition from a regional to a global power. The U.S. Navy emerged as a major naval power thanks to modernization programs begun in the 1880s and adopted the sea power theories of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. The Army remained small but was reorganized in the Roosevelt Administration along modern lines and no longer focused on scattered forts in the West. The Philippine-American War was a short operation to suppress insurgents and ensure U.S. control of the islands; by 1907, however, interest in the Philippines as an entry to Asia faded in favor of the Panama Canal, and American foreign policy centered on the Caribbean. The 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which proclaimed a right for the United States to intervene to stabilize weak states in the Americas, further weakened European influence in Latin America and further established U.S. regional hegemony.

The outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 ended a half century of peaceful borders and brought escalating tensions, as revolutionaries threatened American business interests and hundreds of thousands of refugees fled north. President Woodrow Wilson tried using military intervention to stabilize Mexico but that failed. After Mexico in 1917 rejected Germany's invitation in the Zimmerman telegram to join in war against the U.S., relations stabilized and there were no more interventions in Mexico. Military interventions did occur in other small countries like Nicaragua, but were ended by the Good Neighbor Policy announced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, which allowed for American recognition of and friendship with dictatorships.

World War I (1914–1920)

American foreign policy was largely determined by President Woodrow Wilson, who had shown little interest in foreign affairs before entering the White House in 1913. His chief advisor was not the Secretary of State but "Colonel" Edward House, who was sent on many top-level missions. With the outbreak of war in 1914, the United States declared neutrality and worked to broker a peace. It insisted on its neutral rights, which included allowing private corporations and banks to sell or loan money to either side. With the British blockade, there were almost no sales or loans to Germany, only to the Allies. President Wilson vehemently denounced German violations of American neutrality that involved loss of life, most famously in the torpedo attack on the Lusitania in 1915 that killed 128 American civilians but which may have been carrying war munitions. Germany repeatedly promised to stop attacks by its U-boats, but reversed course in early 1917 when it saw the opportunity to strangle Britain by unrestricted submarine warfare. Following the sinking of American merchant ships, Wilson asked and obtained a declaration of war in April 1917. During the war the U.S. was not officially tied to the Allies by treaty, but military cooperation meant that the American contribution became significant in mid-1918. After the failure of the German spring offensive, as fresh American troops arrived in France at 10,000 a day, the Germans were in a hopeless position, and surrendered. Coupled with Wilson's Fourteen Points in January 1918, the U.S. now had the initiative on the military, diplomatic and public relations fronts.

British prime minister Lloyd George, Italy's Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, France's Georges Clemenceau, and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The settlement failed to secure a lasting peace since it punished Germany with brutal financial penalties.

At the peace conference at Versailles, Wilson tried with mixed success to enact his Fourteen Points. He was forced to accept British, French and Italian demands for financial revenge: Germany would be made to pay reparations that amounted to the total cost of the war for the Allies and admit guilt in humiliating fashion. It was a humiliating punishment for Germany which subsequent commentators thought was too harsh and unfair. Wilson succeeded in obtaining his main goal, a League of Nations that would hopefully resolve all future conflicts before they caused another major war. Wilson, however, refused to consult with Republicans, who took control of Congress after the 1918 elections and which demanded revisions protecting the right of Congress to declare war. With a two thirds vote needed, the Senate did not ratify either the original Treaty or its Republican version, so the U.S. never joined Wilson's League of Nations; the U.S. made separate peace treaties with the different European nations. Nevertheless, Wilson's idealism and call for self determination of all nations had an effect on nationalism across the globe, while at home his idealistic vision, called "Wilsonianism" of spreading democracy and peace under American auspices had a profound influence on much of American foreign policy ever since. In essence, Wilson's vision came to fruition after the next war.

World War II (1941–1945)

Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii ended U.S. isolation for good.

After World War II, the U.S. helped found the United Nations by donating prime real estate in New York City as well as providing billions for its budget. The organization works to secure peace and promote diplomacy.

The same pattern which emerged with the first world war continued with the second: warring European powers, blockades, official U.S. neutrality but which substantially favored Britain and its allies, and the U.S. getting caught up in the war. Unlike the loans in World War I, the United States made large-scale grants of military and economic aid to the Allies through an act called Lend-Lease. Industries greatly expanded to produce war materials. The United States officially entered World War II against Germany, Japan and Italy in December 1941, following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack destroyed a fleet of battleships anchored in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii but did not destroy aircraft carriers which the U.S. Navy used effectively in its campaign in the Pacific. During the war, the U.S. conducted military operations on both the Atlantic and Pacific fronts. After the war and devastation of its European and Asian rivals, the United States found itself in a uniquely powerful position due to the lack of damage to its domestic industries. Furthermore, it found itself in direct competition with a growing power, the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the European campaign, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan, which supplied its European allies with $13 billion USD in reconstruction aid. After 1945, the isolationist pattern characterizing the inter-war period had ended for good.

The United States was a major force in establishing the United Nations, hosting a meeting of fifty nations in San Francisco and becoming one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The idea of the U.N. was to promote world peace through understanding among nations. In many ways, it was similar to America's first government under the Articles of Confederation since it depended on member governments for funds, and could not exert authority over individual people inside the member countries. As a result, it had difficulty forcing nations to contribute. In 2009, its $5 billion budget was funded by cooperation among member nations using a complex formula based on GDP; the U.S. contributed 20% in 2009. However, the United Nations' vision of peace soon became jeopardized as the international structure was rebalanced with the development and testing of nuclear weapons by major powers.

Cold War (1947–1991)

Further information: Reagan Doctrine

President Kennedy meeting with Soviet foreign minister Gromyko in 1962. Kennedy knew about Soviet missiles in Cuba but had not revealed this information yet. The Cuban Missile crisis brought the world close to the brink of World War III but luckily cooler heads prevailed.

From the late 1940s until 1991, world affairs were dominated by the Cold War, in which the U.S. and its allies faced the Soviet Union and its allies. There was no large-scale fighting but instead numerous regional wars as well as the ever-present threat of a catastrophic nuclear war. The U.S. actively sought allies, which it subsidized with military and economic "foreign aid", as well as diplomatic support. Most nations aligned with either the Western or Eastern camp, but after 1960 the Soviets broke with China, as the Communist movement worldwide became divided. Some countries, such as India and Yugoslavia, tried to be neutral. Rejecting the rollback of Communism by force because it risked nuclear war, Washington developed a new strategy called containment to oppose the spread of communism. The containment policy was developed by U.S. diplomat George Kennan in 1947. Kennan characterized the Soviet Union as an aggressive, anti-Western power that necessitated containment, a characterization which would shape US foreign policy for decades to come. The idea of containment was to match Soviet aggression with force wherever it occurred while not using nuclear weapons. The policy of containment created a bipolar, zero-sum world where the ideological conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated geopolitics. Due to the antagonism on both sides and each countries' search for security, a tense worldwide contest developed between the two states as the two nations' governments vied for global supremacy militarily, culturally, and influentially.

The Cold War was characterized by a lack of global wars but a persistence of regional proxy wars, often fought between client states and proxies of the United States and Soviet Union. The US also intervened in the affairs of other countries through a number of secret operations. The U.S. government has conducted a number of covert operations in an effort to topple foreign governments, including both democratically-elected governments and authoritarian regimes. See Covert United States foreign regime change actions

During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy objectives, seeking to limit Soviet influence, involved the United States and its allies in the Korean War, the overthrow of the Iranian government, the Vietnam War, the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, and later, the policy of aiding anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan (Operation Cyclone). Diplomatic initiatives included the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the opening of People's Republic of China and Détente. There were some successes for the U.S. during this period as well as some failures. In the 1980s under a program of extensive military spending led by President Reagan, as well as by diplomatic overtures between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a thaw resulted, which eventually led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union under an intelligent Soviet policy of glasnost.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President George W. Bush

By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. had military and economic interests in every region of the globe. In March 1992, the New York Times received leaked parts of a "Defense Policy Guidance" document prepared by two principal authors at the U.S. Defense Department, Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby. The policy document laid bare the post–Cold War framework through which U.S. foreign policy would henceforth be guided.

1992–present

With the breakup of the Soviet Union into separate nations, and with the re-emergence of the nation of Russia, the world of pro-U.S. and pro-Soviet alliances broke down. Different challenges presented themselves, such as climate change as well as the threat of nuclear terrorism. Regional powerbrokers and dictators such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq challenged the peace with a surprise attack on the small nation of Kuwait in 1991. President Bush (I) organized a coalition of allied and Middle Eastern powers which successfully pushed back the invading forces, but stopped short of invading Iraq and capturing Hussein; as a result, the dictator was free to cause mischief for another twelve years. After the Gulf War, many scholars, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, claimed the lack of a new strategic vision for U.S. foreign policy resulted in many missed opportunities for its foreign policy. During the 1990s, the United States mostly scaled back its foreign policy budget as well as its cold war defense budget which amounted to 6.5% of GDP while focusing on domestic economic prosperity under President Clinton, who succeeded in achieving a budget surplus for 1999 and 2000. The United States also served as a peace-keeper in the warring ethnic disputes in the former Yugoslavia by cooperating as a U.N. peacekeeper.

A decade of economic prosperity ended with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. The surprise attack by terrorists belonging to a militant Al-Qaeda organization prompted a national mourning and paradigm shift in U.S. foreign policy. The focus on domestic prosperity during the 1990s gave way to a trend of unilateral action under President Bush to combat what was seen to be the growing trend of fundamentalist terrorism in the Middle East. The United States declared a War on Terrorism. This policy dominated U.S. foreign policy over the last decade as the nation embarked on two military campaigns in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although both campaigns attracted international support, particularly the fighting in Afghanistan, the scale and duration of the war has lessened the motivation of American allies. Furthermore, when no WMDs were found after a military conquest of Iraq, there was worldwide skepticism that the war had been fought to prevent terrorism, and the continuing war in Iraq has had serious negative public relations consequences for the image of the United States.

The big change during these years was a transition from a bipolar world to a multipolar world. While the United States remains a strong power economically and militarily, rising nations such as China, India, Brazil, and Russia as well as a united Europe have challenged its dominance. Foreign policy analysts such as Nina Harchigian suggest that the six emerging big powers share common concerns: free trade, economic growth, prevention of terrorism, efforts to stymie nuclear proliferation. And if they can avoid war, the coming decades can be peaceful and productive provided there are no misunderstandings or dangerous rivalries.

In his first formal television interview as president, Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world through an Arabic-language satellite TV network and expressed a commitment to repair relations that have deteriorated under the previous administration. Still under the Obama administration, American foreign policy has continued to irritate the Muslim world including one of its main allies, Pakistan.

But serious problems remain for the U.S. The Mideast continues to fester with religious hatred and Arab resentment of Israel. The U.S. position is that the danger of nuclear proliferation is more evident with nations such as Iran and North Korea openly flouting the international community by insisting on building nuclear weapons. Important issues such as climate change, which require many governments to work together in sometimes tough solutions, present tough diplomatic challenges. The specter of nuclear terrorism lingers although there have been no major incidents since 9/11.

An insight into recent thinking inside the State Department was provided in November 2010 and the following months through the Wikileaks United States diplomatic cables release.

Bibliography

• Ambrose, Stephen E. Rise to Globalism, (1988), since 1945
• Bailey, Thomas A. Diplomatic History of the American People (1940), standard older textbook
• Beisner, Robert L. ed, American Foreign Relations since 1600: A Guide to the Literature (2003), 2 vol. 16,300 annotated entries evaluate every major book and scholarly article.
• Bemis, Samuel Flagg. A Diplomatic History of the United States (1952) old standard textbook
• Brune, Lester H. Chronological History of U.S. Foreign Relations (2003), 1400 pages
• Burns, Richard Dean, ed. Guide to American Foreign Relations since 1700 (1983) highly detailed annotated bibliography
• Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 (2nd ed. 1995) standard scholarly survey excerpt and text search
• DeConde, Alexander, Richard Dean Burns, Fredrik Logevall, and Louise B. Ketz, eds. Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy 3 vol (2001), 2200 pages; 120 long articles by specialists.
• DeConde, Alexander. A History of American Foreign Policy (1963) online edition
• Dobson, Alan P., and Steve Marsh. U.S. Foreign Policy since 1945. 160pp (2001) online edition
• Findling, John E. ed. Dictionary of American Diplomatic History 2nd ed. 1989. 700pp; 1200 short articles.
• Flanders, Stephen A, and Carl N. Flanders. Dictionary of American Foreign Affairs (1993) 835 pp, short articles
• Herring, George C. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (Oxford History of the United States) (2008), 1056pp; the latest survey. excerpt and text search
• Hogan, Michael J. ed. Paths to Power: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations to 1941 (2000) essays on main topics
• Hogan, Michael J. and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (1991) essays on historiography
• Jentleson, B.W. and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Encyclopaedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, (4 vols., 1997)
• Lafeber, Walter. The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to Present (2nd ed 1994) New Left textbook; 884pp online edition
• Paterson, Thomas G. et al. American Foreign Relations (4th ed. 1995), recent textbook

Cold War

Main article: List of primary and secondary sources on the Cold War

• Bacevich, Andrew J., ed. The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II (2007) excerpt and text search
• Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (1982) online edition; also excerpt and text search
• Hogan, Michael J. America in the World: The Historiography of US Foreign Relations since 1941 (1996), scholarly articles reprinted from the journal Diplomatic History excerpt and text search
• Leffler, Melvyn P. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (2007)
• Lewis, Adrian R. The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom (2006) excerpt and text search
• Paterson, Thomas G. Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan (1988), by leading liberal historian

Asia

• Cohen Warren I. America's Response to China: An Interpretative History of Sino-American Relations. (5th ed. 2009)
• Van Sant, John; Mauch, Peter; and Sugita, Yoneyuki, Historical Dictionary of United States-Japanese Relations. (2007) online review

Since 1990

• Brands, Hal. From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-cold War World (2008), 440pp
• Gardner, Lloyd C. The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present (2008) 310 pp.
• Scott, James A. After the End: Making U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War World. (1998) 434pp online edition

See also

• Timeline of United States history
• History of United States diplomatic relations by country
• List of treaties
• List of United States treaties
• American diplomatic missions
• Foreign policy of the United States
• Criticism of U.S. foreign policy