Ms. Papish’s AP United States Government
FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY
What is foreign policy?
 The goals of the US government in regards to
other nations.
 How do we achieve it?
 Diplomacy (State Dept), economic aid, technical
assistance.
 Statements of goals or ideas
 End world poverty
 Sometimes comprehensive efforts
 Foreign policy process begins with prez.
Influenced by cong and public debate.
What is Foreign Policy?
 National Security Policy: to protect the
independence and integrity of the US
 Defense against actual/potential threats.
 Based on determinants from the Departments of
Defense, State, National Security Council and
others.
 NSC advises the president, and State.
 Diplomacy: all of the external relationships
 Communications to summit mtgs.
 Settling of disputes/conflicts
Morality vs. Reality in FP
 We think that our actions should be guided by
our moral and political principals.
 Truman “The US should take the lead in running
the world in the way that it out to be run.”
 FP is rooted in moral idealism (see the world as
benign and willing to cooperate for the good of
all)
 Nations should see the wrong in violating human
rights
 Usually unsuccessful because it assumes Western
morals and politics.
Morality vs. Reality in FP
 Opposition to moral idealism is political realism
 World is dangerous, each nation tries to survive and
cater to it’s interests.
 FP should only focus on what's best for USA
 US prepared to defend itself
 US should be willing to protect its interests
 IE: we can sell weapons to dictators that are willing to
support US policies, businesses, repel terrorism.
 Both moral and political realism are used.
 Grant aid to trading partner but attaching conditions
Who Make FP?
 Struggle b/t President and Congress…
 Constitutional powers of Prez
 “Preserve, protect, and defend”
 Commander in chief
 All prez interpret this broadly.
 Since Washington, US has been in 125 undeclared wars
 Negotiates treaties (2/3 congress)
 Executive agreements (95% of all understandings
since WWII)
 Appoint ambassadors
 Recognize foreign governments
Who Make FP?
 Informal powers of Prez
 Access to information-> CIA, State Dept, Defense
Dept
 Influence amount of funds for some programs
 Can influence public opinion
 Patriotism, fear. Usually get Americans behind him.
 Can commit the nation morally to a course of
actions
 Difficult for Congress or anyone to back down on a
commitment.
Who Make FP?
 Other sources of FP
 Department of State- agency most concerned
with FP
 Supervises US relations with nations, UN and multinational groups
 Staffs embassies and consulates throughout world
 Declined in preeminence since WWII
 Seen as slow, plodding, bureaucratic
 Changing since 9-11
 AKA “The Department of Bad News”
Who Make FP?
 National Security Council- advise the president on
the integration of domestic, foreign, military
polices relating to national security
 Tries to keep policy continuity from one
administration to the next.
 Prez, VP, Sec of State and Defense, Chairperson of
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 Department of Defense- all the activities of
military under single civilian control
 Joint Chiefs of Staff created to form a unified
military strategy
Who Makes FP?
 The Intelligence Community- 40 or more
agencies involved
 Jan 24, 1978, Carter’s EO 12036 defined the major
members of the intelligence community
 CIA, NSA, DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), Dept
of Defense, Bureau of Intelligence and Research @
State, FBI, Army, Air Force Intelligence, Dept of
Treasury, DEA.
Limiting the Prez’s Power
 Congress keeps trying to limit it.
 1973 War Powers Resolution over Nixon’s veto
 Limited use of troops w/o congressional approval.
 Most presidents don’t actually “consult”
 Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, Obama.
 Congress has limited prez’s requests
 Angolan Rebels, government of El Salvador, B-1 bomber
 Congress has taken initiative…
 Economic sanctions against South Africa to end
apartheid. Reagan vetoed, but it was overridden.
Domestic Sources of FP
 Elite and mass opinion
 Business, education, communications, labor,
religion.
 Council on Foreign Relations work to increase
international cooperation.
 Elites encouraging debate
 Generally effective with the attentive public, 10-20%
that pay attention.
Domestic Sources of FP
 The Military-Industrial Complex- the
relationship between the defense
establishment and arms manufacturers
 Defense contracts.
 Retired military officers become executives
 After Cold War, began outsourcing.
Major FP Themes
 The Formative Years: Avoiding
Entanglements
 FP negative, FF mistrusted Europe.
 1700-1800s, avoided Europe
 Monroe Doctrine continued into the 19th century
 Expansionist in our hemisphere.




1803- LA Purchase
1839- Annex HI
1845- Annex TX
1847- Purchased AK
 Spanish-American War and WWI ended the
isolationism
Major FP Themes
 The Era of Internationalism
 Dec 7, 1941… Pearl Harbor permanently ended
isolationism.
 After WWII
 US was the only strong nation, economically.
 Only one with nukes
 Cold War- deteriorated relations with SU
 Split German, created the Soviet Bloc, US rearmed
W. Europe
 US under the Truman Doctrine created a
Containment Policy
Major FP Themes
 Superpower Relations. US vs. Soviets
 No actual fighting, only proxy wars
 Korea (1950-3) and Vietnam (1954-74)
 Cuban Missile Crisis
 Détente at the end of the 1960s
 Threat of nuclear war became real
 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I):
 Permanently limited development and deployment of
ABMs
Major FP Themes
 Reagan-Bush Years
 Reagan took a hard line, Star Wars in 1983.
 1985, US and Soviet reestablished cultural and
scientific exchanges.
 1987, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty
 Dismantled 4,000 .
 Bush continued negotiations
 1992 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START):
reduces the # of long range nuclear weapons.
Challenges in World Politics
 Dissolution of the Soviet Union
 Fall of Berlin Wall in 1989
 Dec. 26, 1991, SU officially dissolved
 Nuclear Proliferation
 No longer scared of nukes
 US and Russia continue to negotiate dismantling
 32,000 warheads in stock
Challenges in World Politics
 The New Power: China
 Trying to engage in diplomatic and economic
relationships
 Clinton increased outreach b/c China allowed free
enterprise
 Granted most-favored-nation status
Challenges in World Politics
 Global Economy
 Intertwined with everyone.
 Stock crash in 1987.
 1997-1998 Asia had issues… affected America.
 US has a net trade deficit
 We are a debtor nation
 2000 EU became a major trading partner.
 They are now going broke
Challenges in World Politics
 Terrorism- What is terrorism?
 Weapon of choice in domestic/civil conflicts
 If planned against foreign targets… make an
international statement.
Buses parked near a terminal in central Baghdad were destroyed by two car bombs at 7:50 a.m.
August 17.
Al-Qaeda Attacks
1993 World Trade Center bombing: Underground damage after the bombing
April 11, 2007 Algiers bombings. Two
bombs exploded within a short time
of each other, one at the prime
ministers office and the other at a
police station
The USS Cole bombing was a suicide
attack against the U.S. Navy destroyer
USS Cole (DDG 67) on October 12, 2000
while it was harbored and refueling in
the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen
American sailors were killed, and 39
were injured. This event was the
deadliest attack against a U.S. Naval
vessel since 1987.
Number of Terrorist Incidents
Other Terrorist Attacks
Irish Republican Army
Bombings
Left Clockwise: The
Grand Hotel, the South
Key Hotel, and the
Aftermath of Bloody
Friday (22 Bombings in
one day).
The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer
Olympics in Munich, West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken
hostage and eventually murdered by Black September, a militant group allegedly associated
with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization
Image of terrorist Khalid Jawad
looking over the balcony of the
Israeli team quarters at Building 31
of the Munich Olympic village. This is
the most widely recognizable and
iconic photo of the event
Israeli hostages Kehat Shorr
(left) and Andre Spitzer (right)
talk to German officials during
the hostage crisis
Barajas Airport parking after the bomb
Repairs to the Balmaseda law courts after a
bombing in 2006
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA (English:
Basque Homeland and Freedom;
pronounced), is an armed Basque
nationalist and separatist organization.
The group was founded in 1959 and they
evolved from a group promoting
traditional Basque culture to a
paramilitary group with the goal of
gaining independence for the Greater
Basque Country from a Marxist-Leninist
perspective.
Theodore "Ted" John Kaczynski (born May
22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber
(University and Airline Bomber), is an
American mathematician and social critic,
who carried out a campaign of deadly mail
bombings. From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent
16 bombs to targets including universities and
airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. In
his Industrial Society and Its Future (also called
the "Unabomber Manifesto"), he argued that
his bombings were extreme but necessary to
attract attention to the erosion of human
freedom necessitated by modern technologies
requiring large-scale organization
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. 52
Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a
group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in support of the
Iranian Revolution
A group photograph of the former hostages
in the hospital. The 52 hostages are spending
a few days in the hospital after their release
from Iran prior to their departure for the
United States.
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the
Subway Sarin Incident, was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum
Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995.
In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on several lines of the Tokyo Metro,
killing thirteen people, severely injuring fifty and causing temporary vision problems for nearly
a thousand others. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and
Nagatachō, home to the Japanese government. It was and remains the most serious attack to
occur in Japan since the end of World War II
The Oklahoma City bombing was a bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 by Timothy McVeigh, an American militia
movement sympathizer[citation needed] who detonated an explosive-filled truck parked in front of
the building.
McVeigh about to exit the Perry, Oklahoma,
courthouse on April 21, 1995
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, also known as 7/7, were a series of coordinated suicide
attacks on London's public transport system during the morning rush hour. The bombings were
carried out by four Muslim men, three of British Pakistani and one of British Jamaican descent,
who were motivated by Britain's involvement in the Iraq War.
Number of fatalities
Aldgate
7
Edgware Road
6
Kings Cross
26
Tavistock Square
13
Suicide bombers
4
Total
56
Regional Conflicts
 Haiti
 1992, military regime ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
 Clinton installed sanctions and sent troops in 1994.
 Haiti still poor and corrupt.
 Earthquake killed 100,000s.
 Cuba
 1994, swarm of Cuban refugees.
 Clinton took away the open-door policy
 Helms-Burton Act- illegal to invest in gov controlled
business.
 Elian Gonzalez- US gov vs. Cubans in Miami.
Regional Conflicts
 The Middle East
 US supports Israel, try to end the Palestinian
conflict
 Very hard to do!!!
 All Arab states must recognize Israel
 Require Israelis to work with the PLO (terrorists)
 Constantly opening talks, and then stopping talks.
 Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait
 Bush had to protect ally and oil.
 Saudi Arabia asked for troops. Did not oust Saddam
Hussein
Clockwise from top left:
Protesters gathering in
Tahrir Square in Cairo,
Egypt; Demonstrators
marching through Habib
Bourguib Avenue in Tunis,
Tunisia; Political dissidents
in Sana'a, Yemen; Protesters
gathering in Pearl
Roundabout in Manama,
Bahrain; Hundreds of
Thousands in Douma,
Damascus, Syria;
Demonstrators in Bayda,
Libya.
Regional Conflicts
 Eastern Europe
 After the soviets, some became democracies,
some dictatorships.
 Yugoslavian Conflict
 35,000 rapes