Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Alan Clark
Contact via alan.clark@mq.edu.au
W6A 423
Thursdays 4-5pm or by appointment
Lloyd Cox
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MIntRel or PGDipIntRel or PGCertIntRel or MIntCommMIntRel or MIntBusMIntRel or MIntRelMIntTrdeComLaw or MTransInterMIntRel or GradCertIntRel or GradDipIntRel
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
Between 2001 and 2009, the US's global war on terror, US unilateralism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the doctrine of pre-emption, all seemed to confirm a transformation of US foreign policy under the Presidency of George W. Bush. Many commentators now argue that the Obama Presidency signals a return of US foreign policy to its internationalist and multilateralist posture that dominated the second half of the twentieth century. In this unit, we attempt to disentangle the continuities from the discontinuities as a way of interpreting the significance of US foreign policy under both presidencies.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Due |
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Discussion board contributions | 10% | Every week from week 2 |
Minor Essay | 20% | Thursday10th September |
Major Essay | 40% | Friday 9th October, 5pm |
Open book test | 30% | Monday 9th November |
Due: Every week from week 2
Weighting: 10%
Students are expected to make at least one written contribution to the units discussion board each week. Typically, these should be from 100-300 words, though they can be longer. At the conclusion of the unit, students will be assigned a grade out of 10, based on the overall quality of their written contributions.
Due: Thursday10th September
Weighting: 20%
Students will write a short essay on an historical aspect of US foreign policy. The topics will be provided in week one of the course, as will a marking rubric of the criteria on which the assessment will be based
Due: Friday 9th October, 5pm
Weighting: 40%
Students will write a longer, 2,500 word essay on a substantive topic from the second half of the unit. Topics will be distributed in early September. The same marking rubric will be used as was used for the first essay.
Due: Monday 9th November
Weighting: 30%
The test will be put up on ilearn on Friday afternoon, and students will have the weekend to complete the test, which will consist of 3 short essays that reflect the different sections of the unit.
Introduction
Welcome to IRPG 833, The United States in the International System. It is often assumed that US foreign policy was transformed in the years after September 11, 2001. There is no shortage of evidence that seems to substantiate this assessment. The ‘global war on terror’ (GWOT), US unilateralism and a related hostility to multilateral institutions, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the doctrine of preventive war, all seem to confirm a radical rupture with the US’s foreign policy stance prior to 9/11. While this view has some truth, it is, in many respects, over-stated. Some of the most prominent features of President Bush’s foreign policy had deep ideological and political roots that are recurrent in U.S. history and U.S. involvement in world history. With the Presidential baton passing to Barack Obama in 2008, the question arose as to how U.S. foreign policy had changed, and how it had stayed the same. In this course, we attempt to disentangle these continuities from the discontinuities in U.S. international relations, as a way of interpreting the contemporary and historical role played by the U.S. in the international system.
We approach this task through a number of discrete but related sections of the unit, which broadly (though not exactly) follow the text we will be using and which students must have – Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Additional, supplementary readings will be provided on ilearn. Students are strongly encouraged to do these additional readings. (1) We begin by introducing students to the debate about the nature of contemporary U.S. power, whether or not it is imperial, and if so how it conforms to or diverges from previous imperial models; (2) We continue with an historical overview of U.S. international relations. A number of different theoretical approaches will be integrated with this historical survey, so that we might get a better handle on the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’ of U.S. international relations and foreign policy; (3) We follow this with a consideration of the choices and challenges facing American foreign policy makers in the 21st century, including several regionally focused case studies (4) Finally, we return to the questions raised in the very first lecture (about the nature of contemporary U.S. power and foreign policy), but hopefully this time with a more enriched and informed understanding of the issues involved than when we began. Organizing the course in this way aims to realize the following objectives:
Unit Requirements and expectations
Students must listen to each lecture on ilearn
Students must complete complete all required reading
Students must contribute to the discussion board each week
Students must submit all assignments on time, unless they have an extension
General Texts and Background Reading on the U.S. and International Relations
Alperovitz III, G. (1995) The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. New York: Vintage Books.
Art, R. & Cronin, P. (2003) The United States and Coercive Diplomacy. Washington: US Institute for Peace.
Bacevich, A. J. (2002) American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Bacevich, A. J. (2005) The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bacevich, A. J. (2008) The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Barber, B. (2003) Fear’s Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy. New York: Norton.
Beisner, R. L. (ed.) (2003) American Foreign Relations Since 1600: a Guide to the Literature. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Bennis, P. (2003) Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War on Terrorism. New York: Olive Branch Press.
Boggs, C. (ed.) (2003) Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire. New York, London: Routledge.
Bronner, S. E. (2005) Blood in the Sand: Imperial Fantasies, Right-Wing Ambitions, and the Erosion of American Democracy. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press.
Burns, R. D. (1983) Guide to American Foreign Relations Since 1700. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Buzan, B. (2004) The United States and the Great Powers. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Carter, R. G. (ed.) (2002) Contemporary Cases in US Foreign Policy: From Terrorism to Trade. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Inc.
Chomsky, N. (1999) Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel and the Palestinians. London: Pluto.
Chomsky, N. (2003) Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance. Crows Nest NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Chomsky, N. (2006) Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Crows Nest NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Cohen, W. I. (ed.) (1993) The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations (4 Volumes). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, W. I. (2005) America’s Failing Empire: U.S. Foreign Relations since the Cold War. Malden, Ma & Oxford: Blackwells Publishing.
Combs, J. A. (1986) The History of American Foreign Policy, Volume II. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Crabb, C. V. (1982) The Doctrines of American Foreign Policy: Their Meaning, Role, and Future. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press.
Daalder, I. H. & Lindsay, J. M. (2005) America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (2nd edn.). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley & Sons Inc.
Ferguson, N. (2004) Colossus: the Price of America’s Empire. New York: Penguin.
Forsythe, D. P., McMahon, P. C. & Wedeman, A. (eds.) (2006) American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Fukuyama, F. (2006) After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads. London: Profile Books.
Gaddis, J. (1992) The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gaddis, J. (1997) We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gaddis, J. (2005) The Cold War. New York: Penguin Group.
Gardner, L. G. (2008) The Long Road to Baghdad: The History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present. New York: The New Press.
Garthoff, R. L. (1994) Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
Garthoff, R. L. (1994) The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
Halper, S. & Clarke, J. (2005) America Alone. The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Held, D. & Koenig-Archibugi, M. (eds.) (2004) American Power in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hippel, K. von (2000) Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hodson, G. (2009) The Myth of American Exceptionalism (New Haven: Yale).
Hogan, M. J. (ed.) (1999) The Ambiguous Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the “American Century”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hogan, M. J. & Paterson, T. G. (eds.) (2004) Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (2nd edn.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hudson, M. (2004) ‘The United States in the Middle East’, in Fawcett, L. (ed.) International Relations of the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 283-305.
Hunt, M. H (2007) The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Huntington, S. P. (2003) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (2nd edn). New York: Simon Schuster.
Jentleson, B. (20014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.). New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company
Joffe, J. (2014) The Myth of America’s Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Johnson, C. (2000) Blowback: the Costs and Consequences of American Empire. New York: Henry Holt.
Johnson, C. (2004) The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic. London, New York: Verso.
Johnson, I. (2004) ‘US-UN Relations after Iraq: the End of the World (Order) as we Know it’, European Journal of International Law, 15 (4) Pp. 813-838.
Kaplan, E. (2004) With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right. New York, London: The Free Press.
Kaplan, R. (2000) The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War. New York: Random House.
Kennedy, P. (1988) The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. London: Fontana Press.
Klare, M. (2001) Resource Wars. New York: Henry Holt.
Klare, M. (2004) Blood and Oil: How America’s Thirst for Petrol is Killing the US. London: Penguin.
LaFeber, W. (1994) The American Age: US Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to the Present. New York, London: W. W. Norton.
LaFeber, W. (2002) America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000 (9th edn.). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Lawton, T. C., Rosenau, J. N. & Verdun, A. C. (eds.) Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Lind, M. (2006) The American Way of Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luce, H. R. (1999) ‘The American Century’, Diplomatic History, 23 (2) Pp. 159-171.
Mann, M. (2003) Incoherent Empire. London: Verso.
McDougall, W. A. (1997) Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Mead, W. (2002) Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and how it changed the World. London, New York: Routledge.
Melanson, R. A. (2005) American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War: The Search for Consensus from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. New York, London: M. E. Sharpe.
O’Brien, P. K. & Clesse, A. (eds.) (2002) Two Hegemonies: Britain 1846-1914 and the United States 1941-2001. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Painter, D. S. (1999) The Cold War: An International History. London: Routledge.
Paterson, T. G., Clifford, J. G. & Hagan, K. J. (2000) American Foreign Policy: A History since 1885 (5th edn.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Peck, J. (2010) Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Petras, J. & Veltmeyer, H. (2005) Empire with Imperialism: The Globalizing Dynamics of Neo-liberal Capitalism. London: Zed Books.
Prados, J. (2006) Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee).
Ryan, D. (2000) US Foreign Policy in World History. London, New York: Routledge.
Schlesinger, Jr., A. M. (2005) War and the American Presidency. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company.
Schulzinger, R. D. (ed.) (2003) A Companion to American Foreign Relations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Smith, T. (2000) Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Walt, S. M. (2005) Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Westad, O. A. (2005) The Global Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zelizer, J. E. (2010) Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security – From World War II to the War on Terror (New York Basic Books).
Useful Journals
Useful Websites
Lectures and Tutorials begin on Thursdays, 30 July
Lecture and Seminar Program Summary
Week |
Lecture Dates |
Lecture Topics |
Seminar Topics |
1 |
Jul 30th |
Introduction: The Nature and Forms of US Power |
The debate on Empire and Major Themes: Manifest Destiny, Exceptionalism, Unilaterlism |
2 |
Aug 6 |
The Making of U.S Foreign Policy |
Washington’s Foreign Policy Bureaucracy |
3 |
Aug 13 |
Rise to world Power, 1776-1945 |
Monroe Doctrine, Spanish-American War, Wilsonianism WW2 |
4 |
Aug 20 |
Cold War 1: 1945-1968 |
Truman Doctrine, Nuclear Diplomacy, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam |
5 |
Aug 27 |
Cold War 2: 1969-1989 |
Détente, Arab Oil Embargo; Iran Crisis, Reagan’s 2nd Cold War |
6 |
Sept 3 |
US Foreign Policy in a Post-Cold War World: 1989-2010 |
Bush’s ‘New World Order’, Clinton’s Assertive Multilateralism, Impact of 9/11 |
7 |
Sept 10 |
Case Study 1: The US and Asia |
China as Economic, Political and Military rival to the US; Taiwan, Japan, Korea |
8 |
Oct 1 |
Case Study 2: The US and the Middle East |
Oil, Israel/Palestine, Iraq and the Global war on Terror |
9 |
Oct 8 |
US foreign Policy and Humanitarian Intervention |
Genocide, the UN, Peace Keeping and Preventive Diplomacy |
10 |
Oct 15 |
The Globalization Agenda |
Globalization Debate, International Finance, Global Financial Crisis |
11 |
Oct 22 |
The US and Democracy Promotion |
Democracy Enlargement, Soft Power and the Obama shift? |
12 |
Oct 29 |
Conclusion |
The United States, Global Hegemony and Imperialism |
13 |
Nov 5 |
In Class Test (for internal students) |
No Tutorial |
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
Week One: Introduction: The Nature and Forms of US Power
In the aftermath of 9/11, U.S. foreign policy took a decidedly more muscular turn. The destruction of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was followed little more than a year later by the invasion of Iraq and much saber rattling with respect to Iran, Syria and North Korea. President Bush’s state of the union address in 2002 identified an ‘axis of evil’, and proclaimed that those who did not join his global war on terror were automatically in the camp of the enemy. Subsequently, the U.N. was vilified, international law was flouted, and the U.S. reserved for itself the right of unilateral, pre-emptive attack on those whom it defined as enemies. With Obama’s election victory in 2008, and with the resulting change in the tone of US foreign policy making, many detected a qualitative shift in US foreign policy. Both of these developments have given rise to much debate about the nature and forms of contemporary U.S. power, the degree of continuity that it shares with previous expressions of U.S. power in the ‘American Century,’ and whether or not the U.S. today constitutes an Empire. We begin to discuss these issues in this introductory lecture and seminar, paying particular attention to the notions of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny and the distinctions between isolationism/internationalism and unilateralism/multilateralism.
Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Chapter One.
Western, J. (2006) ‘American Security, the Use of Force, and the Limits of the Bush Doctrine’ in Forsythe, D. P., McMahon, P. C. & Wedeman, A. (eds.) American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Pp. 105-122.
Hogan, M. (1999) ‘Partisan Politics and Foreign Policy in the American Century’ in Hogan, M. J. (ed.) The Ambiguous Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the “American Century”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 356-377.
Week Two: The Making of U.S. Foreign Policy
When referring to ‘U.S. policy’, ‘U.S. interests’ or ‘U.S. action’, we conceal differences and conflict within the subject – the ‘U.S.’ – frequently assuming a unity of form and purpose that seldom exists. This is no less true in U.S. foreign policy than in other areas of U.S. politics, which are fragmented by a constitutional order that embeds a separation of powers (between Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary, and between state and federal governments). Hence, competing sources of authority and power often pursue different foreign policy ends and means, and vie with one another for control of the foreign policy agenda. We here explore the competition between the key players in U.S. foreign policy – the State Department, the National Security Council, The Department of Defense and, of course, the President and Congress – and the domestic constituencies that they serve.
REQUIRED READING
Clifford, J. G. (2004) ‘Bureaucratic Politics’ in Hogan. M. J. & Paterson, T. G. (eds.) Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (2nd edn.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 91-102.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
PART TWO: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Week Three: Rise to world Power, 1776-1945
The United States was forged in revolutionary war with its hitherto colonial master, Britain. The resolution of the war in the rebels’ favour, and the subsequent development of the U.S. Constitution, very much shaped the new Republic’s position in and orientation to the world. President Washington’s strictures against getting involved in foreign entanglements, and Thomas Jefferson’s celebration of the ‘Empire of Liberty,’ were two key ideas that infused early U.S. foreign policy thinking. But through the Nineteenth and early decades of the Twentieth Centuries, these ideas began to change and take on a different meaning and significance. In this lecture, we explore some of the key episodes in this transformation, which saw the United States emerge from a marginal power at the end of the eighteenth century, to a world power at the end of the nineteenth century, to the world power in 1945. Amongst other things we consider the Monroe Doctrine, the Continental expansion of the U.S., the impact of Civil War, the Spanish-American War, Wilsonianism and the role of the U.S. in the years leading up to and during the Second World War.
REQUIRED READING
LaFeber, W. (1994) The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Pp. 193-231.
Iriye, A. (1993) The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Volume III: The Globalizing of AMERICA, 1913-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 58-72.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Many commentators view the dropping of a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima in August 1945 as the first act in the Cold War, in so far as it demonstrated to the Soviets the U.S.’s determination to use any means necessary to secure foreign policy and military objectives. It was not until 1947, however, that the global fault line of the Cold War was definitively established. This was the year that President Truman’s ‘doctrine of containment’ (of communism in general and the USSR in particular) was first articulated, and a number of regimes were established in Eastern-Central Europe that were dominated by, and bore a pattern of family resemblance with, the Soviet Union. We here consider the main themes in U.S. foreign policy thinking during the Cold War, the U.S.’s vision of a post-war capitalist order organized under its own tutelage, and the episode that brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe – the Cuban missile crisis. We finish by briefly considering the causes of the U.S.’s growing involvement in Vietnam.
Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Chapter Five
RECOMMENDED READING
Zelizer, J. E. (2010) Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security – From World War II to the War on Terror (New York Basic Books). Chapter Four
Cohen, W. I. (1993) ‘Origins of the Cold War’ in Cohen, W. I. (ed.) The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Volume IV: America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945-1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 21-57.
Painter, D. S. (1999) ‘Competition and Coexistence, 1950-62’ in Painter, D. S. The Cold War: An International History. London: Routledge. Pp. 31-55.
LaFeber, W. (1994) ‘JFK and LBJ: from the New Frontier through the Great Society to Vietnam (1961 – 1969)’ in La Feber, W. The American Age: US Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad 1750 to the Present. (2nd edn.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Pp. 580-632.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
President Nixon came to power in 1969 promising to end the Vietnam War. While some troops would be drawn down in the coming years, the war in many ways actually intensified. At the same time, Nixon and his National Security Advisor (later to be Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger pursued a strategy of ‘Détente’ with the U.S.’s Soviet and Chinese rivals. This strategy would eventually unravel after the Watergate imbroglio, and then be definitively displaced by the intensification of Cold War rivalry under President Reagan in the 1980s. In the meantime, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution transformed the context within which U.S. foreign policy-makers worked. We explore these developments, and end by considering the causes and historical significance of the end of the Cold War.
REQUIRED READING
Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Chapter Six.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
LaFeber, W. (2002) ‘A New Containment: The Rise and Fall of Détente’ (1966-1976)’ in LaFeber, W. America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-2000 (9th edn.). Boston: McGraw Hill. Pp. 266-297.
Garthoff, R. L. (1994) ‘The Reagan Administration’s Challenge, 1981-82’ in Garthoff, R. L. The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institute. Pp. 7-53
Garthoff, R. L. (1994) ‘Competition in the Third World’ in Garthoff, R. L. The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institute. Pp. 678-748.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Week Six: US Foreign Policy in a Post-Cold War World: 1989-2014
In the triumphant aftermath of Communism’s collapse, the first Gulf War was the occasion for the older Bush to proclaim a ‘New World Order.’ This proclamation was quickly shown to be hollow, as a variety of new security challenges confronted U.S. foreign policy officials disoriented by the end of the Cold War. In particular, ethno-nationalist conflicts exploded in Yugoslavia, Africa, and in some of the states of the former Soviet Union. This week we identify they key Post-Cold-War challenges for U.S. foreign policy makers, and consider how President Clinton’s foreign policy team sought to deal with them. Amongst other things, we explore the significance of the end of the Cold War for international relations, the impact of accelerated globalization on U.S. foreign policy, ‘assertive multilateralism’ and other core elements of the so-called Clinton doctrine. We also consider the U.S.’s increasing willingness to use military means to address foreign policy issues.
REQUIRED READING
Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Chapter Seven.
RECOMMENDED READING
Gardner, L. G. (2008) The Long Road to Baghdad: The History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present. New York: The New Press. Pp. 62-90.
Bacevich, A. (2002) American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Pp. 55-78.
Melanson, R. A. (2005) ‘The Clinton Administration’ in Melanson, R. A. American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War: The Search for Consensus from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. New York, London: M. E. Sharpe. Pp. 239-287.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
PART THREE: Choices and Challenges for US Foreign Policy Makers Today
Week Seven: Case Study 1: The U.S. and the Asia Pacific
The Asia-Pacific region is rapidly emerging as the most dynamic region of the global capitalist economy, and therefore is a central concern for U.S. foreign policy. This is especially the case for U.S. relations with China. From the Nineteenth Century, China, and the fabled Chinese market, has exercised the minds of U.S. diplomats, businessmen, missionaries and foreign affairs experts. With the liberalization of the Chinese economy in the 1980s, and with the subsequent explosive growth of Chinese manufacturing and resource consumption, it has become even more important in the calculations of U.S. officials. But in addition to the tremendous opportunities that it promises for trade, it is also viewed as the only possible challenger to the U.S.’s ‘permanent pre-eminence’ on the global stage. In this first case study, we explore the economic, political and purported military threat that China’s growth portends, and try to identify what this means for U.S. foreign policy and for international relations more generally.
REQUIRED READING
Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Chapter Ten.
RECOMMENDED READING
Gurtov, M. (2006) ‘The Bush Doctrine in Asia’ in Forsythe, D. P., McMahon, P. C. & Wedeman, A. (eds.) American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Pp. 287-312.
Garrison, J. A. (2005) ‘From Strategic Competitor to Uneasy Ally: G. W. Bush and the Fragile U.S.-China Relationship’ in Garrison, J. A. Making China Policy: From Nixon to G. W. Bush. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Pp. 165-186.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Week Eight: Case Study 2: The U.S. and the Middle East
For many decades, the Middle East has been a central foreign policy focus for U.S. leaders. This has become even more so since the end of the Cold War. The principal reason for this is clear: at the center of global energy production, the region has profound geo-strategic significance, which every U.S. leader since Truman has recognized. The first and second Gulf Wars, the U.S.’s unwavering support for Israel, and its more general orientation to the region, all must be understood in light of this centrality of Middle East energy production to the global economy. After providing a general introduction to the history of U.S. involvement in the region, we focus more specifically on U.S support for Israel, and the causes of the invasion of Iraq.
REQUIRED READING
Bruce Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (5th edn.) (New York: Norton and Norton). Chapter Eleven
READING
Hudson, M. C. (2005) ‘The United States in the Middle East’ in Fawcett, L. (ed.) International Relations of the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 283-306.
Mearsheimer, J. J. & Walt, S. M. (2006) ‘The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Working Paper No. RWP06-011. http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011
Dershowitz, A. (2006) ‘Debunking the Newest – and Oldest – Jewish Conspiracy: A Reply to the Mearsheimer-Walt “Working Paper.”’
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/research/working_papers/dershowitzreply.pdf
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Week Nine: US foreign Policy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention
In the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States was faced with a number of foreign policy challenges that arose as a consequence of ethnic cleansing and genocide in regions where US interests were not directly at stake. In Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Darfur, civil wars of unimaginable brutality erupted that demanded international attention. As the World’s sole remaining superpower, the US was frequently called upon to intervene into nominally sovereign states in the name of protecting human rights and advancing human freedom. Such “humanitarian intervention” was often applied inconsistently and was seemingly governed by shifting principles and imperatives. In this lecture we examine the grounds on which humanitarian intervention has been justified by the United States, and discuss the US’s relationship with the United Nations.
REQUIRED READING
James Peck (2010) Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights (New York: Metropolitan Books). Chapter Five.
RECOMMENDED READING
Kurth, J. (2001) ‘First War of the Global Era: Kosovo and U.S. Grand Strategy’ in Bacevich, A. & Cohen, E. A. (eds.) War Over Kosovo. New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 63-96.
Power, S. (2003) “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” (London: Flamingo). Chapter Ten.
Prados, J. (2006) Safe For Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee). Chapters 24 and 25.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Week Ten: The Globalization Agenda
From the late 1980s, “globalization” emerged as a buzzword that purported to describe and explain many key economic, political and ideological developments in the world. In addition to being a descriptive and explanatory term, however, it has also found favour as a normative term. Some analysts suggest that it is more of a political project than a disembodied economic process, and that this project has its roots in US capitalist development. We explore this possibility, in addition to discussing the spread and global dominance of U.S. multinational corporations. We examine the domestic economic determinants of U.S. foreign policy, and the role of economic motives in shaping the U.S.’s strategic thinking and action on the global stage. In the seminar, we will discuss the global financial crisis and the implications that it has for U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama.
REQUIRED READING
Bruce W. Jentleson (2014) American Foreign Policy5th edn. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company) Chapter Eight
RECOMMENDED READINGS
McMahon, P. C. & Wedeman, A. (2006) ‘Sustaining American Power in a Globalized World’ in Forsythe, D. P., McMahon, P. C. & Wedeman, A. (eds.) American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World (New York: Routledge).
Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2004) Globalization or Empire? (New York: Routledge) Chapter One.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Week Twelve: Democracy and US Foreign Policy
As we briefly sketched in the very first lecture of the course, U.S. actions under President Bush generated a major debate about the nature and consequences of U.S. power. To simplify greatly, this can be described as a debate between those who view the U.S. as exercising a largely benign but necessary hegemony for the good of the planet, its peoples and democracy, and those who view the U.S. as a new empire bent on global domination. We once again return to this debate, but deploy the knowledge accumulated over the past eleven sessions to evaluate the relative merits of the contending views. In particular, we will examine the significance of Barack Obama’s ascent to power for U.S. foreign policy and international relations.
RECOMMENDED READING
Petras, J. & Veltmeyer, H. (2005) ‘Imperialism as War: The Neo-cons Take Action’ in Petras, J. & Veltmeyer, H. Empire with Imperialism: The Globalizing Dynamics of Neo-liberal Capitalism. London: Zed Books. Pp. 186-204.
Ferguson, N. (2004) ‘A World Without Power’, Foreign Policy, July/August, 2004, Issue 143, Pp. 32-39.
Bacevich, A. (2008) The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. New York; Metropolitan Books. Pp. 170-182.
SEMINAR READINGS
WEEK THIRTEEN – IN CLASS TEST, usual time usual place!
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