Nixon, Kissinger And The Rise Of Realpolitik

The view by some historians is that The Dwight Eisenhower foreign policy was popularly known as the “New Look”. This policy aimed to maintain the American financial economy while Eisenhower was planning the Cold war and continue the containment of communism regime. Also, the “New look” policy relied heavily on nuclear weapons to stop communism. Therefore the policy was been assessed as being suppressing, rigid, and too dependent on brinkmanship (trying to achieve an outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink) and massive retaliation (also known as a massive response, this is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack). Arguably, his foreign policy stressed peace greatly, but it also threatened war (brinkmanship and massive retaliation).

Realism is an international relations theory with a lineage that dates back to thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli and Thucydides (Forde). Because the conditions for international relations are inherently anarchic, with neither hierarchical power nor expectation of reciprocity to enforce cooperation between actors, realists insist that the sole responsibility of the state must simply be self-preservation. As foreign policy specialist George Kennan wrote, “other criteria, sadder, more limited, more practical must be allowed to prevail” in spite of morality.

According to Tony McConnell, Nixon was the first president to consider a basic income and was the originator of the Environmental Protection Agency (28). Just like any other president, Nixon made his own policies and impacts on America. Another noteworthy topic of Nixon’s legacy is his foreign policy. McConnell notes that “it could only have been… [Nixon] to make common cause with the Chinese against the Soviet Union” (29). Nixon established nuclear arms control with Russia during the Cold War and establish the diplomatic openings with

Foreign policy decision-makers are not omnipotent enlightened individuals who can calmly evaluate all available information, assign relative values, and reflectively consider options. Instead, foreign policy is determined by individuals, as a collective, attempting to comprehend a bewildering array of information sources while influenced by personal emotion, relationships, and a subjective understanding of history. Theory, henceforth, is simplification of reality predisposed to emphases certain facts while degrading others. In explaining the reasons for Australia’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, neoclassical realism and constructivism will be applied in deepening the rationale exploration. The systemic, national, and individual facets of this decision are examined supported discussing surrounding social rules, identity, perceptions, and the US-Australian alliance. Neoclassical realism combined structural realist theories with a deep unit-specific analysis to inform understandings of foreign policy where it is assumed states seek increases in relative power. Constructivism, however, is as social science allows for analysists to drill down into relationships and individuals to determine the its socially formatted nature.

In 1960’s America was becoming divided at home and struggling to understand the America’s intervention in foreign nations especially South Vietnam. When Nixon took office he wanted to quiet the protests, he wanted to get America out of Vietnam and focus on the falling economy at home. Thus Nixon purposed a period of relaxation with the Soviet Union. “ Nixon and Kissinger hoped that such a relationship, which they deemed détente would lessen the threat of nuclear war, encourage the Soviets to pressure North Vietnam into a peace settlement.” (Gillon p. 1114) “ President Nixon and Henry Kissinger wanted to abandon the costly pursuit of weapons superiority and instead focus on peaceful economic competition.” (Gillon p.1114)

Richard Nixon, though created a large credibility gap within the US, he accomplished a lot for the country. He served five years in the presidential office as a republican (1969-1974), and he was the only president to resign from office in history. Although through his presidency he had accomplished many things, such as creating revenue sharing, ending the draft, and creating anticrime laws, he still had a rough time rebuilding his reputation after many assumptions of corruption in his office. Though he never admittedly pledged guilty to his crimes of taking government funds for his own personal gain, there was proof that he was. After the Watergate scandal, the American people set their mind to believe what the proof led to, so Nixon’s

Nixon used his power of executive agreements manipulatively in a strategy that he called, linkage politics; this is a term for strategically organizing the United States relationships with communist powers (Small 1999, 63). Nixon knew that he must settle the Vietnam War with honor because it was a stake in Southeast Asia. Using his theory of linkage politics he saw that the end of the Vietnam War would affect negotiations with China and Russia (Small, 1999 65). He first tried to make an executive agreement with Russia, by explaining to them his idea of “strategic parity. This was an idea that because both nations had enough weapons to completely demolishes the other, neither should start war, and peace would continue. Like Eisenhower’s attempts, Nixon was unable to make an agreement with the USSR and talks continued to be slow (PBS Nixon 2002, 2).

When one can truly understand and uncover the meaning behind these articles and how they fit into one or more of the ‘boxes’ we call paradigms and perspectives. In order to dissect and analyze the case of the Cold War, especially its origins, one must not only skim through the text and uncover main ideas, but also must also relate the readings to these paradigms and establish one’s own ideals and opinions regarding the study of international relations. Personally, I believe the articles associated with the origins of the Cold War along with Professor Katzenstein’s lecture on the topic provide strong arguments for the use of a ‘middle fish’ perspective and a ‘big fish’ paradigm: domestic politics and realism, respectively. Through George Kennan’s personal accounts, experience and analysis at both the time of the Cold War’s inception and forty-plus years later after the fall of the Soviet Union, a point is made regarding the nature of Soviet expansion as an offensive maneuver, which he believed must be contained by a defensive strategy. This point of conflicting strategies by the U.S. and (especially) the Soviet Union provides the reader with a realist argument and perspective. Also, in his second piece, which details remarks made to the Council on Foreign Relations in 1994, Kennan explains that instead of whole-heartedly adopting

Corruption in politics has never been more notably observable by the American people than that of the Watergate Crisis. Though Nixon’s involvement of the actual break-in has never been proven, his cover-up of the event and his misuse of Presidential power were clearly established. Over the course of several years, America would bear witness to scandalous events, the first resignation of a President, conviction and imprisonment of twenty-five officials within the Nixon administration, and undoubtedly the most severe constitutional crisis in recent history.

After the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers and subsequently a period of tension and hostility arose, known as the Cold War. During this time, a new possibility of complete nuclear destruction that would claim the lives of many emerged, therefore “the easing or relaxing of tensions” on both sides was needed, this period would be known as detente. Both countries had been guaranteed mutually assured destruction as they had both managed to stay ahead in the development of nuclear arsenals. By the late 1960s the Soviets had surpassed the United States in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) by 1,300 to 1,054. Although the U.S was still

In “One World, Rival Theories,” Jack Snyder argues classic international relations theories cannot singlehandedly explain U.S. foreign policy decisions. Rather, modern academics and politicians understand foreign policy through an “adjust[ment] of existing theories to meet new realities.” George W. Bush is often labeled realist based on his aggressive response to 9/11 terrorist attacks through hard power while Barack Obama champions a liberal worldview and utilizes soft power through multilateral institutions to employ joint air strikes and economic sanctions. While Snyder’s dialogue conveys that Bush’s foreign policy decisions in Iraq combine realist and liberal viewpoints, I maintain the Bush Administration did not successfully combine IR

After December 26 1991, when the Soviet Union fell, the bipolarity of the international system was effaced. In the post- Cold War era, the United States faced the problem, without a defined enemy, to adopt a new foreign policy. To begin to analyze the political foreign policy of the United States, one must first understand the international system. According to Political Realism, a theory of international thought, the state is the key unit within the acts within the system. These states act according to their key norms, which are allowed by the system. However, these sates are also affected the domestic and external factors which control how they act. The domestic factors include political culture, their economic system, the leadership

Henry Kissinger work for as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford. He was a key figure in uttering U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, and remains one of the leading authorities on international relations and diplomacy.

When discussing whether or not a nation-state should enter a war and when to do so, three beliefs on foreign policy and war exist. The three different diplomatic stances are that of pacifism, just war theory, and political realism. Political realism, or realpolitik as it is often referred to, is the belief war should only occur when it is in the national interest of the particular nation-state. Henry Kissinger, a political realist, in his book Diplomacy argues that realism is the only logical answer. Just war theorists, along with pacifists, on the other hand oppose these arguments and therefore critique of this form of diplomatic action. To construct a valid understanding of the realist perspective the arguments Kissinger puts forth in

Neo-Realism and Neo-Liberalism, two of the most influential contemporary approaches to international relations, although similar in some respects, differ multitudinously. Thus, this essay will argue it is inaccurate to claim that Neo-Realism and Neo-Liberalism have far more similarities than differences. By contrast, it will contend that there are in fact more of the latter than there are of the former, on issues such as the nature and consequences of anarchy, the achievement of international cooperation, and the role of international institutions. Moreover, it will be structured in such a way so as to corroborate this line of argument. In practice, that is to say, this essay will first of all define what is meant by Neo-Realism and Neo-Liberalism.