After Failure: American Foreign Policy at the End of the Post–Cold War Era

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Ettinger
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Leadership ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Policy History ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
The World ◽  
Cold War Era

Abstract The close of the Obama presidency prompted considerable thinking about the state of American foreign policy. With the election of Donald Trump, it appeared as if the United States and the world were on the brink of a new relationship. Decades-old language of American international leadership was replaced with a doctrine of America First. In other words, the post–Cold War era had come to an end. This review essay addresses five texts published at this inflection point in American foreign policy history, when the core assumptions are being challenged by domestic and global forces. It accounts for the parlous state of American foreign policy in the post–Cold War era, the causes of foreign policy failure, where the world might be heading, and what it means for American foreign policy scholarship.

The American Problem

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 219-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Calleo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Economy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The World ◽  
American Economy

While the world enjoys a post-WWII Pax Americana, American foreign policy faces a curious dilemma: how to adjust to its own success in the ever-changing political climate. According to Calleo, the United States “has been driven to manipulate its finances in a fashion that increasingly harms the American economy and threatens the liberal world economy.” Placing little confidence in the endurance of NATO in the post-cold-war era, the author urges the United States to “become the ally of its allies rather than their managing protector,” as it has been historically, leaving Europe to take responsibility for its own security. Calleo argues that American and European interests can only grow more divergent with time; hence “the best antidote to European free-riding is American devolution.”

1. Theories of US foreign policy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines some of the competing theories that have been advanced to explain U.S. foreign policy. In trying to explain the foreign policy of the United States, a number of competing theories have been developed by International Relations scholars. Some theories focus on the role of the international system in shaping American foreign policy while others argue that various domestic factors are the driving force. The chapter first considers some of the obstacles to constructing a theory of foreign policy before discussing some of the competing theories of American foreign policy, including defensive realism, offensive realism, liberalism, Marxism, neoclassical realism, and constructivism. The chapter proceeds by reviewing the theoretical debate over the origins of the Cold War and the debate over the most appropriate grand strategy that the United States should follow in the post-Cold War era.

Why Wilson Matters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Smith Jr.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Intervention ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

The liberal internationalist tradition is credited with America's greatest triumphs as a world power—and also its biggest failures. Beginning in the 1940s, imbued with the spirit of Woodrow Wilson's efforts at the League of Nations to ‘make the world safe for democracy,’ the United States steered a course in world affairs that would eventually win the Cold War. Yet in the 1990s, Wilsonianism turned imperialist, contributing directly to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the continued failures of American foreign policy. This book explains how the liberal internationalist community can regain a sense of identity and purpose following the betrayal of Wilson's vision by the brash ‘neo-Wilsonianism’ being pursued today. The book traces how Wilson's thinking about America's role in the world evolved in the years leading up to and during his presidency, and how the Wilsonian tradition went on to influence American foreign policy in the decades that followed. It traces the tradition's evolution from its ‘classic’ era with Wilson, to its ‘hegemonic’ stage during the Cold War, to its ‘imperialist’ phase today. The book calls for an end to reckless forms of U.S. foreign intervention, and a return to the prudence and ‘eternal vigilance’ of Wilson's own time. It renews hope that the United States might again become effectively liberal by returning to the sense of realism that Wilson espoused, one where the promotion of democracy around the world is balanced by the understanding that such efforts are not likely to come quickly and without costs.

scholarly journals American foreign policy at the crossroads: Between idealism and realism, informal and formal empire, unilateralism and multilateralism

2004 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milovan Vukovic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biological Weapons ◽  
American Empire ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Status

This article compares and contrasts current U.S. "war on terrorism" and proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons (NBC?s) with the general U.S. foreign policy during the Cold-War and post-Cold War eras. The focus is primarily on a growing dilemma - "informal" or "formal" American empire - that rises from unprecedented asymmetry in military power between the United States and its closest followers. Also, this article analyzes the role of non-material elements of power (so-called soft power) and reviews recent views regarding the "unilateralism-multilateralism dichotomy" in American foreign policy. The author demonstrates that the "war on terrorism" and proliferation of NBC?s weapons show that U.S. status as the only super-power is not simply a matter of resource availability and relative power. Military muscle is an essential requirement, but it does not itself secure that position. This is especially true for the status of an empire either "informal" or "formal.".

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