foreign policy final

Foreign policy is how nations interact with one another. It can be government driven, international, or purposeful.

What is foreign policy?

National interest is what a state’s goals and priorities are. They can be security, power, economical, prosperity, peace, and principals.

What is national interest?

Liberalism is the belief that countries can achieve global peace through cooperation. Liberalism is where things like the League of Nations and the UN gets its inspiration.

What is idealism/liberalism

Realism is where states act mostly out of self-interest rather than for things like peace. Countries are motivated by their survival and power primarily and we see this mostly in military power.

What is realism?

Isolationism is where countries choose not to engage with conflicts and focuses on domestic issues.

What is isolationism?

Unilateral is when countries take actions into their own hands and takes steps without working with anyone else

what is unilateral?

multilateralism is where multiple countries work together to solve common issues and set common rules

what is multilateralism?

engagement is being involved in foreign policy. this looks like talking and working with other countries rather than ignoring or going straight to conflict.

what is engagement?

In the beginning, USFP was based off isolationism. Most of our FP before the Constitution was built off international trade since we had a lot of valuable raw materials that were sent back to Europe to make goods. Our primary interest is maintaining wealth.

What was the united states’ early foreign policy?

not to get into entangling alliances

What did washington warn the us in his farewell address?

Our leverage at the time was through Economics. We placed an embargo act on the British and closed our ports. In response we mobilized our troops.

what was our foreign policy like after 1807?

During this time we are interested in expanding U.S. territory due to religious and economic motivations. We are able to do so through a variety of wars. We declared war on Mexico to expand our territory due to wanting New Mexico and California. We ended up winning and got Arizona and Nevada. Then in 1898 we went to war with Spain in Cuba over the U.S.S. Maine exploding. From this war we got the Philipines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

What does U.S. foreign policy look like during the Expansionist period?

The Monroe Doctrine was our effort to curtail European involvement in the Western Hemisphere. Monroe viewed Europe as dangerous to our peace and safety. This doctrine turned into a justification to expand the United States.

What was the Monroe doctrine?

It adds to the Monroe Doctrine and says the U.S. has the right to step in and defend Latin America from European Countries.

What does the Roosevelt Corollary do?

He is the first president who pulls an idealist stance on USFP. His goal is to make the world a safer democracy, increase collective security, and economic stability. He tries to do so via his 14 points and the League of Nations.

What is unique about Wilson?

The Authorization for Use of Military Force was passed in the wake of 9/11 where Congress gave the president the legal authority to use military force. It was primarily passed just so the president could take action against those who perpetrated 9/11.

what is the AUMF?

When 9/11 had just happened, the goal was counter-terrorism and to prevent another 9/11 from happening again. Once the Taliban fell and Bin Laden wasn’t found immediately, the mission became one of democracy-building and nation-building in the middle east.

How did the mission shift post 9/11?

Bush’s neoconservative advisors fused two traditions to create a policy for the Middle East. The first was realism where they used preemtive military action against emerging threats through the rationale of peace through strength. The second was idealism where democracy was promoted as the long-term fix for the instability. This wasn’t just seen in Afghanistan but also used as the rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

What was the Bush Doctrine?

Bush focused on preemption and democracy promotion. Obama did pragmatic multilateralism which was consensus driven but restricted heavily by ‘08. Trump was characterized with America First Unilateralism which was seen with the Doha agreement with the Taliban. Biden was seen with renewed multilateralism with a withdrawl and focus on Russia and China

How did the policies change between the presidents during the war on terror?

We saw increased executive power and reduced oversight. A pivot to great power. A fluctuation with women’s rights internationally where they were gained and then immediately reversed. a large public skepticism of intervention

What was the lasting legacy of the AUMF?

in article ii, the constitution states that the president is commander in chief

what does the constitution say about presidential influence?

legislative acquiescence is that a legislature’s failure to change a long-standing administrative or judicial interpretation of a statute means that the legislature approves of it. this was seen after the use of the atomic bomb or early years of vietnam.

what is legislative acquiescence

constitution, legislative acquiescence, personality, custom and tradition, power to persuade, ear of our allies and advisaries, power as agenda setter

What are some forms of presidential influence?

the dual audience approach is where the president targets the international and domestic audiences at the same time. For example, with Iraq, the president made T.V. appearances and to allies he went to the UNSC.

what is the dual audience approach?

congress, election pressures, party issues, other nations, party pressures, time, and information processing

what are the limits of presidental influence?

the bureaucracy frames issues and selects information in ways that affect foreign policy decision making

what is the role of the bureaucracy?

It doesn't change from president to president; it provides an overall guidebook for foreign policy. For example, during the Cold War its policy focused on containing communism, while now it is preserving primacy.

what is the grand strategy of the bureaucracy?

that we do what we do because of habit and we have the power to do so, self-satisfaction. Re-election motivates most of the policy decisions. A lot of presidents do not have any foreign policy experience.

What is a critique of bureacracy

75% of the public is typically tuned out making our uninformed public, 15% is the informed public, 7% is the effective public who are often scholors or elites, and then rest are the core decision makers.

what is the division of americans when it comes to making decisions?

preisidents can choose to classify information by keeping it secret, plant it by leaking it to reporters of their choosing, or publicize the information via a large pr operation. The goal is to inform the public about what the executive wants known and less about what it would oppose

What is the different ways a president can go about information?

yes, the cnn effect allows images of suffering to create pressure to “do something”

can coverage of suffering change what the us does?

it makes it harder for the public to catch up to the information the leaders have. social media has allowed for fragmented news with no shared news source, siloed news where opposing views rarely break through, and a partisan effect where we back our leader and reject the other side.

What is the effect of social media on infroamtion?

The War Powers Act was significant because it increased Congress's capacity and exposed its limits. With this capacity, Congress created the Congressional Budget Office, expanded foreign affairs committees, gave Continuing Resolutions (CRs) and the Government Accountability Office larger roles, and cut off covert aid to Angola. However, limits emerged when committee fragmentation blocked a coherent strategy; members avoided hard calls, and Ins v. Chadha cast doubt on the concurrent resolution kill switch. The impact on legislation was that AUMFs could be passed rather than full declarations of war.

what is the significance of the War powers resolution and its impact on legislation?

that congress should be consulted in every possible instance before sending forces into hostilties, report back to congress within 48h, there can be 60 days without authorization and 30 days to withdraw, there is no presidential signature, force only under a delcaration, and if a court strikes one part, the rest stays in play.

what is the war powers resolution?

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a 1964 joint resolution of the U.S. Congress that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war

what was the gulf of tonkin resolution?

much of congress’ influence on war is invisible. congress never passes binding limits on the use of force, congress checks prez without legislation, although that depends on who is in power; congress shapes the deate, signals abroad and shows how durable us commitment is, and raises the costs

is congress irrelevant to war?

risky initiatives stall, learning from failure stalls, committment loses credibility, and rivals exploit the divide

What are shultz’s four perils when politics no longer stops at the waters edge?