Chapter Summary
I. American Foreign Policy: Instruments, Actors, and Policymakers (618-626)
A. Instruments of Foreign Policy
Foreign policy is like domestic policy; it involves making choices, but the
choices involved are about relations with the rest of the world. The
instruments of foreign policy are military, economic, and diplomatic. The United
States has often employed force to influence actions in other countries.
Economic instruments are becoming weapons almost as potent as those of war
are. Diplomacy is the quietest instrument.
B. Actors on the World Stage
Once foreign relations were almost exclusively transactions between nations.
International organizations play an increasingly important role. The best-known
organization is the United Nations (UN). The Security Council is the seat of real
power in the UN. The UN has been especially active in peacekeeping in recent
years. Regional organizations have proliferated in the post-World War II era.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed to combine military forces and
to treat a war against one as a war against all. The European Union is an
economic alliance of the major Western European nations. Multinational
corporations (MNCs) are often more powerful and wealthier than the
governments under which they operate. Nongovernmental organizations and
individuals are also important actors on the global stage.
C. The Policymakers
The president is the main force behind foreign policy. The president negotiates
treaties and acts as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The president
combines constitutional prerogatives with greater access to information than
other policymakers and can act with speed and secrecy if necessary. The
State Department is the foreign policy arm of the U.S. government. As the
department’s chief, the secretary of state has traditionally been the key
advisor to the president on foreign policy matters. Many recent presidents
have found the State Department too bureaucratic and intransigent. Thus they
have bypassed institutional arrangements for foreign policy decision-making
and have instead established more personal systems for receiving policy
advice.
The Department of Defense is a key foreign policy actor. The secretary of
defense manages a budget larger than that of most nations and is the
president’s main civilian advisor on defense matters. The commanding officers
of each of the services, plus a chair, constitute the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
whose advice is not necessarily hawkish on all matters. The National Security
Council (NSC) coordinates foreign and military policies. The president’s national
security assistant manages the NSC staff. Conflicts within the foreign policy
establishment remain common. The NSC staff has sometimes competed with,
rather than integrated, policy advice, as was seen in the Iran-Contra scandal.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created after World War II to
coordinate American information and data-gathering intelligence activities
abroad and to collect, analyze, and evaluate its own intelligence. The CIA
plays a vital role in providing information and analyses necessary for effective
development and implementation of national security policy. The CIA has a long
history of involvement in other nations’ international affairs. Reconciling covert
activities with the principles of democracy is a challenge. There is now less
pressure for covert activities and a climate more conducive to conventional
intelligence gathering. Congress requires the CIA to inform relevant
congressional committees promptly of current and anticipated covert
operations.
Congress has sole authority to declare war, raise and organize the armed
forces, and appropriate funds for national security. The Senate ratifies treaties
and confirms appointments. Congress has an important constitutional role in
foreign and defense policy.
II. American Foreign Policy: An Overview (626-632)
A. Introduction
Throughout most of its history, the United States has followed a foreign policy
of isolationism, directing the country to stay out of other nations’ conflicts. For
example, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the League of Nations treaty.
B. The Cold War
At the end of World War II, the United States was the dominant world power
and forged strong alliances with Western Europe. American policymakers feared
that their Soviet allies were intent on spreading communism around the world.
The containment doctrine called for the United States to isolate the Soviet
Union and contain its advances and resist its encroachments. The fall of China
to communism in 1949 seemed to confirm American fears that communism was
spreading. The 1950s were the height of the cold war when the United States
and the Soviet Union were on the brink of war. Brinkmanship was a policy in
which the United States was prepared to use nuclear weapons in order to
deter the Soviet Union and China from taking aggressive actions. Fear of
communism affected domestic policy as well. McCarthyism assumed that
international communism was conspiratorial, insidious, bent on world
domination, and infiltrating American government and cultural institutions.
The cold war ensured that military needs and massive national security
expenditures would remain fixtures in the American economy. Defense
expenditures grew to be the largest component of the federal budget. The
interests shared by the armed services and defense contractors produced a
military-industrial complex or pentagon capitalism linking the military’s drive to
expand with the profit motives of private industry. The 1950s experienced an
arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States. By the 1960s, a
point of mutual assured destruction (MAD) was reached in which each side
could annihilate the other, even after absorbing a surprise attack.
During much of the 1960s and early 1970s the Vietnam War dominated the cold
war. The war divided the American people and affected domestic politics. The
war made American citizens aware of the ability of the government to lie to
them.
C. The Era of Détente
Détente, supported by Richard Nixon, represented a slow transformation from
conflict thinking to cooperative thinking in foreign policy. It sought a relaxation
of tensions between the superpowers, coupled with firm guarantees of mutual
security. One major initiative of détente was the Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks (SALT), which tried to limit the growth of the nuclear capabilities of the
United States and Soviet Union. The United States applied détente to China as
illustrated by Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China.
D. The Reagan Rearmament
Ronald Reagan did not favor détente and referred to the Soviet Union as the
“Evil Empire.” Reagan argued that we faced a “window of vulnerability”
because the Soviet Union was galloping ahead of the United States in military
spending. Reagan proposed the largest peacetime defense spending increase in
American history. In 1983 Reagan began a plan for the Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI), a global umbrella in space that would destroy all invading
missiles. Expectations about the size and capabilities of the SDI were reduced
after an onslaught of criticisms.
E. The Final Thaw in the Cold War
In 1989, President Bush announced a new era in American foreign policy, which
he termed “beyond containment.” The cold war ended spontaneously. Forces
of change sparked by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev led to a staggering wave
of upheaval that shattered communist regimes and the postwar barriers
between Eastern and Western Europe. In 1989, change was occurring in China
as well, however, the regime suppressed the uprising. The cold war was
characterized by a stable and predictable set of relations among the great
powers. Now international relations have entered an era of improvisation as
nations struggle to come up with creative responses to changes in the global
balance of power.
III. The Politics of Defense Policy (632-637)
A. Defense Spending
Defense spending now makes up about one-sixth of the federal budget. Some
scholars argue that America faces a trade-off between defense spending and
social spending. Defense and domestic policy expenditures appear to be
independent of each other. Conservatives fight deep cuts in defense spending,
pointing out that many nations retain potent military capability and insisting
that America needs to maintain its readiness at a high level. Conservatives
argue that when the Soviet Union saw that it could not outspend the United
States, it finally decided not to continue to allocate so much of its scarce
resources to defense and to loosen its grip on Eastern Europe. Liberals
maintain that the Pentagon wastes money and that the United States buys
too many guns and too little butter. They argue that the erosion of the
Communist Party’s authority was well under way when Gorbachev rose to
power. They contend that Gorbachev and his fellow reformers were responding
primarily to internal, not external pressures. The lessening of East-West
tensions has provided momentum for significant reductions in defense
spending, often called the peace dividend. Liberals want to allocate the funds
to expanded domestic programs. Changing defense spending, however, is not
easy as military hardware developed in the 1980s has proven to be increasingly
expensive to purchase and maintain.
B. Personnel
The structure of America’s defense has been based on a large standing military
force. There are nearly 1.4 million men and women on active duty.
C. Weapons
The United States has relied on a triad of nuclear weapons: ground-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and
strategic bombers. In 1988 the United States and the Soviet Union signed a
treaty eliminating intermediate-range nuclear forces. In 1991, President Bush
signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), mandating the
elimination of strategic nuclear weaponry. In 1993, Presidents Bush and Yeltsin
signed an agreement (START II) to cut the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Nuclear weapons are only part of America’s arsenal. Jet fighters, aircraft
carriers, and even tanks are extraordinarily complex and equally costly.
IV. The New Global Agenda (637-648)
A. The Decreasing Role of Military Power
Military might is no longer the primary instrument of foreign policy. The United
States is long on firepower at the very time firepower is decreasing in its
applicability as an instrument of foreign policy. Economic sanctions are
non-military penalties imposed on a foreign government in an attempt to modify
its behavior. They are often a first resort in times of crisis and are less risky
than sending troops. Successful sanctions most often have broad international
support, which is rare. Critics argue that sanctions are counterproductive
because they can provoke a nationalist backlash.
B. Nuclear Proliferation
The spread of technology has enabled the creation of nuclear weapons and
the missiles to deliver them. American policymakers have attempted to halt the
spread of nuclear weapons through international treaties. North Korea, Iran,
Iraq, and Libya may particularly be a threat to their neighbors and the United
States.
C. Terrorism
Perhaps the most troublesome issue in national security is the spread of
terrorism—the use of violence to demoralize and frighten a country’s population
or government. Terrorists have the advantage of stealth and surprise.
Improved security and intelligence can help.
D. The International Economy
Today’s international economy is characterized by interdependency when
actions reverberate and affect other people’s economic lifelines. The
International Monetary Fund is a cooperative international organization of 182
countries intended to stabilize the exchange of currencies and the world
economy. Since the end of World War II, trade among nations has grown
rapidly. The globalization of finances has been even more dramatic than the
growth of trade. In a simpler time, the main instrument of international
economic policy was the tariff, a tax added to the cost of imported goods,
intended to raise the price of imported goods and thereby protect American
businesses and workers from foreign competition. Nontariff barriers such as
quotas, subsidies, or quality specifications for imported products are common
means of limiting imports. In 1992 President Bush signed the North American
Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico to eventually eliminate most
tariffs among North American countries. The General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade is the mechanism by which most of the world’s nations negotiate
widespread trade agreements. A persistent issue for the president is opening
up foreign markets for goods and services. The United States lacks the
influence to demand these markets be opened. If we refuse to trade with
another nation, it will deny our exports access to its markets, and U.S.
consumers will lose access to its products.
The balance of trade is the ratio of what a country pays for imports to what it
earns from exports. When a country imports more than it exports, it has a
balance of trade deficit, as has been the case in recent years. The excess of
imports over exports decreases the dollar’s buying power. Exports account for
more than 10 percent of the GDP and 5 percent of all civilian employment. A
poor balance of trade exacerbates unemployment as jobs flow abroad.
Sometimes American firms have shut down their domestic operations and
relocated in countries with cheaper labor. Cheaper dollars also makes the cost
of American labor more competitive so more foreign-owned companies are
building factories in the United States. The stability of the U.S. economy as
well as the low value of the dollar has made the United States attractive to
foreign investors.
E. International Inequality and Foreign Aid
World politics today includes a growing conflict between rich and poor nations.
The income gap between the rich nations and poor nations is widening rather
than narrowing. Less developed countries have responded to their poverty by
borrowing money, which has increased their foreign debt. There is also a large
gap between the rich and poor within less developed countries. Presidents of
each party have pressed for aid to nations in the developing world. Aside from
simple humanitarian concern for those who are suffering, America has wanted
to stabilize nations that were friendly or that possessed supplies of vital raw
materials. Aid has been given in the form of grants as well as credits and loan
guarantees to purchase American goods, loans at favorable interest rates, and
forgiveness of previous loans. A substantial percentage of foreign aid is in the
form of military assistance and is targeted to a few countries the United
States considers to be of vital strategic significance. Foreign aid has never
been very popular with Americans. Congress typically cuts the president’s
foreign aid requests. Many people believe that the provision of economic aid by
other nations serves only to further enrich the few without helping the many
within a poor nation. Since the thaw in the cold war, the nations of Central
and Eastern Europe, including Russia, have sought aid from the West.
F. The Global Connection, Energy, and the Environment
Energy and the environment symbolize the increased dependency nations have
on each other. Groups like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
can and have held the United States hostage because of their dependence of
foreign oil. The United States imports half of the oil it uses. Almost every
nation faces severe environmental dilemmas that know no political ideology or
political boundary. Global issues of environment and energy have crept slowly
onto the nation’s policy agenda. However, issues closer to home are often
considered more important and the United States has failed to sign
international treaties on the environment because of the cost and threat of
losing jobs.
V. Understanding Foreign and Defense Policymaking (648-650)
A. Foreign and Defense Policymaking and Democracy
Some believe that democracy has little to do with the international relations of
the United States. Americans are usually more interested in domestic policy
than in foreign policy. Public officials seem to have more discretion in making
foreign policy. There is little evidence, however, that policies at odds with the
wishes of the American people can be sustained; civilian control of the military
is unquestionable. The system of separation of powers plays a crucial role in
foreign as well as domestic policy. American international economic policy is
pluralistic. Agencies and members of Congress each pursue their own policy
goals.
B. Foreign and Defense Policymaking and the Scope of Government
America’s global connections as a superpower have many implications for how
active the national government is in the realm of foreign policy and national
defense. The United States will remain a superpower and continue to have
interests to defend around the world. As long as this is the case, the scope of
American government in foreign and defense policy will be substantial.
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