A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy

by Joyce P. Kaufman Whittier College

Overview

Now in a fully updated edition that goes through the Trump administration and the election and formative period of the Biden administration, this compact and accessible introduction offers a historical perspective on the evolution of U.S. foreign policy from the founding of the country to the present. Joyce P. Kaufman provides students and general readers with a clear and concise understanding of key foreign-policy decisions and why they were made. She identifies the major themes that have guided foreign policy and the reasons that the United States pursued certain policies in the context of specific periods in the nation’s history. Kaufman focuses on the major actors involved in the making of foreign policy and the changing relationships among them. She also explains the major theoretical perspectives within international relations and contextualizes key foreign policy decisions as they fit these frameworks. This edition puts a particular focus on the creation of Cold War foreign policy, and why the end of the Cold War has continued to be such a challenge to the United States. Kaufman concludes with a look at the challenges the United States will continue to face, including existential threats such as climate change and disease, and how Americans can be prepared to address them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538151372
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	553,269
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Joyce P. Kaufman is professor emerita of political science at Whittier College. Her books include Introduction to International Relations: Theory and Practice.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Fifth Edition

Part I: The Framework

1 Setting the Stage for Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy

Introduction to U.S. Foreign Policy

What Is Foreign Policy?

National Interest

Foreign Policy Orientations

Unilateralism and Isolationism

Engagement/Internationalism

Theory and Context

Identifying Themes

Who Makes Foreign Policy, and Why Are Particular Decisions Made?

The Actors

Role of Economics

Role of Domestic Politics and Factors

Who Is Affected by U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions?

Impact of U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions on Other Countries

Domestic Constituencies

The “Powerless”: The Feminist Perspective

Setting the Stage

Primary Sources

Part II: The Formative Years

2 Unilateralism to Engagement: The Founding to the End of World War I, 1777–1920

The Beginning

Creating a Foreign Policy Framework

Beware of Entangling Alliances

Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, and Westward Expansion

The War of 1812

The Monroe Doctrine

Continued Expansion

Mexican-American War

The American Genocide

Expansion into the Pacific

The Civil War

The Spanish-American War

Implications of the Spanish-American War

The Scramble for Concessions

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

March to World War I

Wilsonian Idealism and U.S. Foreign Policy

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

U.S. Involvement in Russia

Domestic Issues: The Executive and Legislative Branches

The Shifting National Interest

Chronology from the Founding to the End of World War I

Selected Primary Sources

3 From Isolationism to Superpower: The Interwar Years through World War II, 1920–1945

Interwar America

U.S. Foreign Policy, 1920–1930

Escalation to World War II: 1930–1941

Neutrality Acts

From Neutrality to Nonbelligerency

War

Executive Order 9066

Preparing for Peace

The Impact of World War II

Technology and World War II

The Decision to Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The United Nations: Defining the Postwar World

Creation of the United Nations

From Isolationism to Engagement

The Domestic Context for the Postwar Period

Chronology, 1920–1945

Selected Primary Sources

Part III: The Cold War

4 The Making of a Superpower: The Evolution of U.S. Cold War Policy, 1945–1968

Background of the Cold War

The Early Years of the Cold War

George Kennan and Early Cold War Policy

1947: Outlining U.S. Cold War Policy

The Truman Doctrine

The National Security Act of 1947

The Marshall Plan

The Escalation of the Cold War: Berlin to Korea

The Creation of NATO

The End of the Decade

NSC 68

War in Korea

The Cold War at Home

The Domino Theory

Eisenhower

Doctrine of Massive Retaliation

The U-2 Incident

The Kennedy Years

Berlin

Cuba

Vietnam

Johnson: Vietnam, and the Great Society

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution

The Great Society

The End of the Decade: Changes in U.S. Policy

The 1960s into the 1970s

Chronology, 1946–1968

Selected Primary Sources

5 The Cold War Continued: Nixon through Reagan, 1969–1989

Nixon

Nixon and Vietnam

War Powers

The Soviet Union, Détente, and Arms Control

Nixon and Europe

China and Normalization

Gerald Ford

Carter

The Carter Administration: Successes and Failures

Reagan

From Cold War to Democratic Revolutions

Continuing the Arms Control Process

Iran-Contra

The Cold War and Beyond

Chronology, 1969–1988

Selected Primary Sources

Part IV: The Post–Cold War Period

6 The Period of American Hegemony: Bush-Clinton-Bush (1989–2009)

George H. W. Bush and the “New World Order”

The Persian Gulf War

The End of the Soviet Union

The Balkans and Ethnic Conflict

The Clinton Years

Somalia

Haiti

The Balkans

NATO Enlargement

Economics: Trade and Globalization

The Environment: The Kyoto Protocol

Terrorism

Rethinking U.S. Foreign Policy under Clinton

George W. Bush: From Election to 9/11

Contested Election and Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy

September 11 and the Responses

War with Afghanistan

The Bush Doctrine and the War with Iraq

The War with Iraq and Its Aftermath

Freedom and Democracy for All

President Bush and Wilsonian Idealism

The Iraq War: A Postscript

Chronology 1989–2009

Selected Primary Sources

7 Obama and Trump: 2009 to 2021

President Obama and his Foreign Policy Direction

The Obama Administration in Retrospect

Challenges Facing the Obama Administration

Obama and Iraq and Afghanistan

Relations with the Middle East

Ties to the Islamic World

Iran and the Nuclear Arms Deal

The United States and Israel

The “Arab Spring” and Civil War in Syria

U.S. Relations with Other Parts of the World under Obama

Relations with Russia

U.S. Relations with Europe

“Pivot to the Pacific”

U.S. Relations with Africa

Other Challenges to the United States under Obama

Obama’s Legacy

The Election of Donald Trump

An “America First” Foreign Policy

The Early Outlines for a Trump Foreign Policy

The Political Emergence of Donald J. Trump

Coronavirus Pandemic

U.S. Relations with Russia

U.S. Relations with the Western Allies

U.S. Relations with China under Trump

North Korea

The Middle East

Other Noteworthy Foreign Policy Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy Post-Trump

Chronology 2009–present

Selected Primary Sources

8 Biden and Beyond: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy

The Election of 2020 and the Transition

The Challenges and Threats

U.S. Relations with other Nations

Relations with China

The United States and the Iran Nuclear Agreement

The United States, Russia, and Arms Control

Relations with Europe

Other Threats

Threats from Disease: Pandemics

Climate Change

The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy: Returning to First Principles

The Cold War as a Framework for U.S. Foreign Policy

The Changing Notion of Power

U.S. Power and National Interest

The Changing Notion of Threat

The Actors and the Domestic Balance of Power

Challenges to U.S. Foreign Policy in the Future

Selected Primary Sources

Notes

Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

More than simply a summary of key events, Kaufman’s book offers a readable, comprehensive, and analytically sound interpretation of the events and themes that have characterized the history and politics of American foreign policy since this country’s founding. Among other revisions, the new edition provides a sobering description of the human costs of continental expansion by adding a section on the government’s forced relocation of Native Americans in the Southeast to territories west of the Mississippi River. Updated to include Biden’s first one hundred days in office, the book includes an unsparing account of the Trump presidency—from Russian involvement in the 2016 election to Trump’s upending of policies and policy-making processes that had governed American foreign policy since the end of World War II. The new edition includes chronologies of key events and links to important primary documents, both of which will prove useful to undergraduates—as will the rest of this excellent volume.

Bernard J. Firestone

This invaluable bookprovides a concise but comprehensive march through the history of U.S. foreign policy. Kaufman has a keen eye and the ability to pull out relevant and informative examples to illustrate the evolution of U.S. policies and priorities. Moreover, she offers readers the vocabulary and theoretical tools to understand the forces that have shaped U.S. policy over time.

The new edition deftly covers the unorthodox presidency of Donald Trump—which raised many questions about the United States’ role in the world—and lays out the challenges facing the Biden administration. Kaufman also continues to explore the evolving nature of the U.S. national interest and the threats facing the United States, including COVID-19. The book’s questions and case studies are thought-provoking and will almost certainly translate into lively debates in the classroom and over the dinner table.

Melissa C. Will

More than simply a summary of key events, Kaufman's book offers a readable, comprehensive, and analytically sound interpretation of the events and themes that have characterized the history and politics of American foreign policy since this country's founding. Among other revisions, the new edition provides a sobering description of the human costs of continental expansion by adding a section on the government's forced relocation of Native Americans in the Southeast to territories west of the Mississippi River. Updated to include Biden's first one hundred days in office, the book includes an unsparing account of the Trump presidency--from Russian involvement in the 2016 election to Trump's upending of policies and policy-making processes that had governed American foreign policy since the end of World War II. The new edition includes chronologies of key events and links to important primary documents, both of which will prove useful to undergraduates--as will the rest of this excellent volume.

This invaluable bookprovides a concise but comprehensive march through the history of U.S. foreign policy. Kaufman has a keen eye and the ability to pull out relevant and informative examples to illustrate the evolution of U.S. policies and priorities. Moreover, she offers readers the vocabulary and theoretical tools to understand the forces that have shaped U.S. policy over time.

The new edition deftly covers the unorthodox presidency of Donald Trump--which raised many questions about the United States' role in the world--and lays out the challenges facing the Biden administration. Kaufman also continues to explore the evolving nature of the U.S. national interest and the threats facing the United States, including COVID-19. The book's questions and case studies are thought-provoking and will almost certainly translate into lively debates in the classroom and over the dinner table.

From the Publisher

This book is comprehensive, accessible, and thought-provoking. It gives the student enough information about the players and institutions who make U.S. foreign policy, and it carefully covers the significant events that help to shape the foreign policy narrative in the United States. It is the work of a first-rate scholar who clearly cares about teaching. A rare contribution to our critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy that is so badly needed today.

Steven Lamy

Joyce Kaufman’s new edition of A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy is excellent. It updates previous editions not only with discussion of the Obama administration’s policies but also with added historical perspectives. For the classroom, the text challenges students through interesting case studies to discuss and debate contentious foreign policy decisions. At the same time, its concise nature allows faculty to complement the text with additional materials.

Gale Mattox

A welcome addition to texts on U.S. foreign policy. The book provides a very comprehensive and yet succinct overview of theories, the history of U.S. foreign policy from the founding of the country, and a contemporary analysis of foreign policy and considerations for the future. The inclusion of a feminist analysis, which is often neglected in most texts, is also appreciated. The writing is very accessible to students, linking their own lives to how and why foreign policy matters to them.

Kristen P. Williams

A very good, concise summary suitable for undergraduate students in U.S. International Relations.

Andrew F. Clark

Teachers of American foreign policy often struggle to find the right balance between diplomatic history and contemporary policy debates. In a short and highly readable text, Joyce Kaufman gets the balance just right and provides an anchor for building effective classroom discussions about where we have come from and where we might be headed.

Robert Strong

A welcome addition to texts on U.S. foreign policy. The book provides a very comprehensive and yet succinct overview of theories, the history of U.S. foreign policy from the founding of the country, and a contemporary analysis of foreign policy and considerations for the future. The inclusion of a feminist analysis, which is often neglected in most texts, is also appreciated. The writing is very accessible to students, linking their own lives to how and why foreign policy matters to them.

Kristen Williams

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION
Joyce Kaufman's A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy is a wonderfully readable guide. It will be a welcome addition to the classroom.

James Goldgeier

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION
Sometimes shorter is better. This compact and carefully written text skillfully analyzes the steady growth of American international reach and the irregular patterns of its involvement abroad.

Barry Hughes

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION
Written in a lively, student-friendly manner on a subject—the evolution of U.S. foreign policy—with which students are woefully unfamiliar, this slender volume fills a vital role for those instructors who want to acquaint their students with the sweep of the American foreign policy experience without overwhelming the course. The style is lively and engaging. I found the discussion of the early Cold War particularly valuable. A recommended supplement.

Donald M. Snow

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION
Kaufman offers a work for political science students that focuses on overarching themes (e.g., national interest), decision processes (e.g., interplay within the executive), and decision makers (e.g., the president, Congress). Recommended.

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