Chapter 18: National Security Policymaking Vocab

Foreign policy

Policy that involves decisions about relations with the rest of the world. The president is the chief initiator of U.S. foreign policy.

United Nations (UN)

Created in 1945 and currently including 193 member nations, with a central peacekeeping mission and programs in areas including economic development and health, education, and welfare. The seat of real power in the UN is the Security Council. 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A regional organization that was created in 1949 by nations including the United States, Canada, and most Western European nations for mutual defense and has subsequently been expanded. 

European Union (UN)

A transnational government composed of most European nations that coordinates monetary, trade, immigration, and labor policies, making its members one economic unit.

Secretary of state

The head of the Department of State and traditionally the key advisor to the president on foreign policy.

Secretary of defense

The head of the Department of Defense and the president’s key advisor on military policy and, as such, a key foreign policy actor.

Joint Chiefs of Staff

A group that consists of the commanding officers of each of the armed services, a chairperson, and a vice chairperson, and advises the president on military policy.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

An agency created after World War I to coordinate American intelligence activities abroad and to collect, analyze, and evaluate intelligence.

Isolationism

The foreign policy course the United States followed throughout most of its history whereby it tried to stay out of other nations’ conflicts, particularly European wars. 

Containment doctrine

A foreign policy strategy advocated by George Kennan that called for the United States to isolate the Soviet Union, “contain” its advances, and resist its encroachments by peaceful means if possible but by force if necessary. 

Cold War

The hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union, which often brought them to the brink of war and which spanned the period from the end of World War I until the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist regimes in 1989 and the years following.

Arms race

A tense relationship beginning in the 1950s between the Soviet Union and the United States whereby one side’s weaponry became the other side’s goad to procure more weaponry, and so on.

Détente

A policy, beginning in the early 1970s, that sought a relaxation of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, coupled with firm guarantees of mutual security.

Interdependency

Mutual reliance, as in the economic realm, in which actions in nations reverberate and affect the economic wellbeing of people in other nations.

Tariff

A tax added to imported goods to raise their price, thereby protecting

businesses and workers from foreign competition.

Balance of trade

The ratio of what is paid for imports to what is earned from exports. When more is paid than earned, there is a balance-of-trade deficit.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

An economic organization consisting primarily of Middle Eastern nations that seeks to control the amount of oil its members produce and sell to other nations and hence the price of oil.