US Foreign Policy in Context: National Ideology from the Founders to the Bush Doctrine

by Quinn; Adam

• ISBN13: 9780415549653
• ISBN10: 0415549655
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781135268817
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-01-22
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This work blends strategic analysis of contemporary US foreign policy with long-term historical discussion, producing an important argument relevant to the debates surrounding both the merits of contemporary US foreign policy and the long-term trends at work in American political culture. Rather than a detailed historical study of the Bush administration itself, the book seeks to locate Bush within the historical context of the US foreign policy tradition. It makes the case for nationally specific ideological factors as a driver of foreign policy and for importance of interaction between the domestic and the international in the emergence of national strategy. The contemporary element focuses on critiquing the George W. Bush administration#xE2;#xAC;"s National Security Strategy, perceived by many as a radical and unwelcome ideological departure from past policy, and its broader foreign policy, concentrating especially on its embrace of liberal universalism and rejection of realism. This critique is supported by the cumulative argument, based upon the historical cases, seeking to explain American leaders#xE2;#xAC;" persistent resistance to the prescriptions of realism. Quinn argues for some causal connection between historically evolved ideological constructions and the character of the nation#xE2;#xAC;"s more recent international strategy. Providing a valuable addition to the field, this book will be of great interest to scholars in American politics, US foreign policy and US history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
International relations, history and national ideology	p. 10
Introduction	p. 10
Positioning within IR and American history	p. 10
Defining 'ideology'	p. 22
Continuity and change in national ideology	p. 24
The relationship of national ideas and national circumstances, and the relevance of history	p. 25
The usefulness of public statements as evidence	p. 27
Conclusion	p. 29
The Founders' Era consensus: 'A Hercules in the cradle'	p. 31
Introduction	p. 31
National and international context	p. 33
The Union as a means of excluding the balance-of-power system	p. 36
Trapped between titans: a divided America's vulnerability to European power politics	p. 41
The Farewell Address and the emergence of the non-alignment consensus	p. 49
Consensus emerges: Jefferson's embrace of Washington's doctrine	p. 52
'Our hemisphere … of freedom': the Monroe Doctrine as a logical extension of the Founders' Era consensus	p. 55
Conclusion	p. 59
Theodore Roosevelt: 'The nation that has dared to be great'	p. 61
Introduction	p. 61
National and international context	p. 63
The 'strenuous life' and the pursuit of national greatness	p. 64
Military strength, restraint and the 'soldierly virtues'	p. 67
Realism in Roosevelt	p. 69
Moralism in Roosevelt	p. 71
The 'Roosevelt Corollary' and American quasi-imperialism	p. 74
The First World War, progress and the moral case for arms	p. 78
Conclusion	p. 83
Woodrow Wilson: 'Conquest of the spirits of men'	p. 86
Introduction	p. 86
National and international context	p. 87
Moralism and idealism in Wilsonian foreign policy	p. 88
The expanded Monroe Doctrine as prototype of global Wilsonianism	p. 90
Wilson's justification of war entry and European entanglement	p. 94
Conditional US engagement and the abolition of the balance of power	p. 96
Interests, peoples and international cooperation	p. 100
Universal liberal democracy as a necessary condition of Wilsonian order	p. 102
'Leader and umpire both': American primacy and destiny	p. 105
Wilson's divergence from Roosevelt: 'moral force' and the role of arms	p. 108
Mortality, personal and political	p. 109
Conclusion	p. 111
The Truman administration: 'In the struggle for men's minds, the conflict is world-wide'	p. 114
Introduction	p. 114
National and international context	p. 115
From 'one world' to 'two ways of life': Truman's inheritance and the deterioration of US-Soviet relations	p. 116
Truman's conception of the Cold War	p. 119
George Kennan and the sources of Soviet conduct	p. 126
Polarization and militarization: the Clifford-Elsey Report and NSC-68	p. 130
Conclusion	p. 137
The George W. Bush administration: 'A balance of power that favours freedom'	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
National and international context	p. 140
'A balance of power that favours freedom': the National Security Strategy	p. 141
'Universal, human hopes': the universal legitimacy of liberal values	p. 143
Democratic peace: 'This advance of freedom will bring greater security'	p. 146
'Common interests and … common values'	p. 150
Peoples and governments	p. 153
The dynamic of historical inevitability	p. 154
'Military forces that are beyond challenge': hegemonic US hard power	p. 156
Critiques of Bush	p. 157
The road not taken: ideological choice and the Bush administration	p. 159
Conclusion	p. 164
Conclusion: the Bush strategy and national ideology	p. 166
The historical evolution of American internationalism	p. 167
The influence of national ideological history on the Bush worldview	p. 173
Notes	p. 176
Bibliography	p. 202
Index	p. 213
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