United States Power Politics

The end of the nineteenth century marked a significant change in the American foreign policy. Prior to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, America had paid little attention to foreign affairs. When compared to some of the more powerful European countries, such as France, Germany, and Great Britain, the United States had a

Upon the United States’ inception as an independent country, the concept of expansion began to slowly root itself as a desirable vision among government officials and common citizens alike. As early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, these initial thoughts and visions of expansion began to cultivate into an achievable reality. With boundless territory to conquer and a growing sense of nationalism, many citizens of the United States felt that it was their duty and obligation to expand from coast to coast. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States continued to expand westward across the continent while also shifting focus on expanding its international power and presence by conquering foreign countries

Although bureaucracy’s have a significant amount of power over the United States most important decisions and laws they cannot always execute or perform certain actions. Two particular forces who oversee and control bureaucratic agencies are congress and the president who is part of the executive branch. Both congress and the president are constantly competing for agency control (Lecture 7 10/24/16). They both have their own individual and unique sets of strategies they use such as using congressional control, appropriations process, privatization, executive order and management of agency budget in order to seize complete command. The main goal of these two means of control are to ultimately limit the discretion of bureaucrats and to also if possible shrink the size and number of bureaucracies.

Prior to World War I, the United States generally chose to follow Washington’s farewell address and stay out of “foreign entanglements”. The United States foreign policy from 1918 to 1953 shifted from isolationism or independent internationalism to a more involved internationalism and containment of communism due to various international events, economic conditions, and US public opinion.

In the book, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience, Robert H. Zieger discusses the events between 1914 through 1920 forever defined the United States in the Twentieth Century. When conflict broke out in Europe in 1914, the President, Woodrow Wilson, along with the American people wished to remain neutral. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century United States politics was still based on the “isolationism” ideals of the previous century. The United States did not wish to be involved in European politics or world matters. The U.S. goal was to expand trade and commerce throughout the world and protect the borders of North America.

The end of World War I left much of America confused on the country’s role in world affairs. Many people believed that the United States should primarily worry about its own issues and problems, and let the world handle their own problems. But President Woodrow Wilson was not one of those people. He believed that the United States should be directly involved in the issues affecting all of the countries of the world. He also wanted the United States to be the country to make a push for a League of Nations. “The people of the United States could act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that they possess. The normal climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.” Wilson believed that if the United States needed to be a part of a League of Nations in charge of keeping peace around the world, this would keep America

In the late 1890's, the United States experiences imperialistic feelings rise again. The country as a whole feared our resources running out, so there was an increase in foreign trade. The intellectual justification for the idea of the New Manifest Destiny was social Darwinism, or survival of the fittest. In Latin America, the United States sided with Venezuela against Britain over border disputes; we were willing to go to war with Britain on the matter and we were protecting our own interests there. In 1898, France and Britain annexed Hawaii to the United States, which was an

In the book, America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience, Robert H. Zieger discusses the events between 1914 through 1920 forever defined the United States in the Twentieth Century. When conflict broke out in Europe in 1914, the President, Woodrow Wilson, along with the American people wished to remain neutral. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century United States politics was still based on the "isolationism" ideals of the previous century. The United States did not wish to be involved in European politics or world matters. The U.S. goal was to expand trade and commerce throughout the world and protect the borders of North America.

Even though the United States emerged as a clear victor of World War I, many Americans after the war felt that their involvement in the conflict had been a mistake (Markus Schoof, “The American Experience During World War II,” slide 3). This belief, however, did not deter the country from engaging in many other international affairs in the future, most importantly the WWII and the Cold War. Right from the Manifest Destiny, which led to expand its empire at home and abroad, to the World War I, the country had come a long way from being somewhat a lonely-land to a global superpower of the 20th century. Its influence in the international arena grew unprecedently after its commitment to the World War II, and like they say, the rest is history. If the WWII was a resounding success to the American legacy, what followed, the Cold War, put many implications on the American diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and to the world. Although the rising Fascism in Europe and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drove the U.S. to enter the WWII, historians over the years have laid equal blames on both nations for starting the Cold War. These two events helped in shaping up many domestic and foreign policies for the U.S.

Until the end of the nineteenth century, American foreign policy essentially followed the guidelines laid down by George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the American people: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is—in extending our commercial relations—to have with them as little political connection as possible.” By avoiding

Through the strong foundation of Isolationism and the policies enacted such as The Monroe Doctrine, the United States played a largely neutral role in foreign affairs. The Monroe Doctrine passed in 1823 was to forbid European nations from colonizing any territory in the Western Hemisphere. Although the United States didn’t have the authority or firepower to back this up, it resulted in almost four decades of compulsory US involvement in any foreign affair. After the Civil War, Isolationistic practices grew stronger as the government had to find a way to re-unite the torn nation. President Grover Cleveland promised to avoid committing the nation to form any alliances with other countries while also opposed to the acquisition of new land. The climate of post Civil War US prevented us from deep involvement in foreign affairs. Our navy was also weakened by the war. Our natural resources were scarce and our diplomatic relations with other countries had been neglected. With the attention of our government focused solely on our nation, we proceeded to develop our interior. One of the biggest reasons for growth in US land mass was the public idea of Manifest

The United States experienced a period of growth and maturation during the twentieth century. Now, this is not to say that this was the only period of growth, but it was a significant time during which the United States began to establish its military force at an international level. By establishing itself during the twentieth century as one of the world’s largest superpowers, America grew to be respected by most of the world’s nations. America also grew to become much more active in foreign affairs, even in ones that had no relation to the nation. The United States began to look for chances to expand their country, as well as opportunities to benefit financially from these territories. Imperialism is the word that best describes the foreign

Woodrow Wilson saw the end of the Great War as an opportunity to attempt to remake the World and foreign relations with progressive ideals. His ultimate goal was to establish permanent global peace and international cooperation among a concert of democratic nations. Wilsonianism would greatly impact modern era Presidents’ Foreign policy attempts to influence the world in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Specifically, after World War II during the Cold War the U.S. was instrumental in the promotion of the safety of all nations from, poverty, want, chaos and authoritarian rule (CP 142). Truman as President took international action to keep the world safe for democracy by carrying out his own interpretation Wilsonian foreign policy known as the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine sought to combat the spread of communism through financial and military counter-forces. Not all of Truman’s efforts for U.S. intervention were as fruitful for the U.S. internationally or economically as his advisors had predicted. Nor did the Truman Doctrine always create the intended and desired outcomes they had hoped to achieve in securing democratic nations as trading partners and allies against the expansion of communist regimes. The attempts of the United States to remake the World after WWI and WWII were only partially achieved. The United States pursued a successful policy of containment with in Western Europe; however the U.S. failed to accomplish these policies globally with to the

In their book American Foreign Policy since World War 2, Steven W. Hook, and John Spanier take a historical look at American foreign policy. Since its independence, all through to the start of the 20th century, the United States had a policy of detachment. This was rooted in the believe that Europe, the only other meaningful powerful in the world in the 18th and 19th century, had intrinsic issues related to feudism that kept the continent in a constant state of war (Hook & Spanier, 2015). The U.S on its part was far away from Europe and had a unique chance to chart a different course, one free from the troubles of Europe. As a democracy free from the class systems of Europe and hence maintain peace and stability (Hook & Spanier, 2015). To maintain this peace and stability, it was in the United States interests to maintain detachment from Europe. In fact, Monroe wrote that Europe and its flawed system was evil and America should strive as much as possible to stay away from it (Hook & Spanier, 2015). However, in the 20th century, this policy of detachment was put to the test when the United States was drawn into the first and second world wars by external factors. This led the United States to get more engaged in global affairs. The idea behind engagement was to promote the ideals of democracy which, the U.S believed were the pillars of peace, as well as to protect itself from aggressors like Japan in the Second World War. After the

“Until early in [the twentieth] century, the isolationist tendency prevailed in American foreign policy. Then, two factors projected America into world affairs: its rapidly expanding power, and the gradual collapse of the international system centered on Europe” . President Woodrow Wilson was the leader who would initiate the ideologies of American diplomacy in the twentieth century. Up until his Presidency, American foreign policy was simply to fulfill the course of manifest destiny, and to remain free of entanglements overseas. Although he could not convince his fellow politicians on Capitol Hill of the probable success of his ideas, he did persuade the fellow writers of the Treaty of