Purpose of the Course
This course places a very heavy emphasis on the role of values in the making of American foreign policy. The processes by which decisions are made and the institutions which are involved in decision-making will, however, also be addressed. The justification for the emphasis on values rests in the unique circumstances in which foreign policy is now being conducted. The year 1989 marked a watershed year in human history and it is fair to say that the emerging diplomatic environment is not at all clear to many observers and analysts. The events of 11 September 2001 further complicated the diplomatic environment. In particular, the United States is finding it very difficult to articulate policies, let alone carry them out, in a world order which is inchoate and extraordinarily complex.
Indeed, in 2008 the rate of change in the foreign policy of the United States seems to have accelerated dramatically. Whether these changes were required because of changes in the external security environment or whether these changes were made because of new policy objectives is a matter of heated debate. The course will attempt only to frame these competing perspectives, not to resolve them.
The emphasis on values is a way to determine the very broad outlines of which might be U.S. preferences in the emerging world order and to assess the likely fit of those preferences to an international political system which is characterized by profound differences and hostilities. As a country with great power, the United States often determines, sometimes inadvertently, the outcome of some of those hostilities. Indeed, as a country with great power the United States often precipitates those hostilities. A close examination of those core values will allow us to predict better the policy choices and options of the United States in the future.
Procedural Matters
There will be weekly quizzes and a final required for the course. Each will count for 50% of the final grade. There will be ten quizzes and only the highest eight scores will be used to compute the quizzes grade.
The quizzes will be based on the lectures, the readings, and news articles posted on a blog. The URL for the blog is: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/vferraro
The final will be a take-home exam with a choice of questions. The final will be distributed on 4 December and due no later than 20 December at noon.
The book ordered for purchase is at the Odyssey Bookstore. The book is:
Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, 8th edition, revised (New York: Penguin Books, 1997)
All other readings are on the Internet and can be accessed at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol270/spring08.htm
The underlined readings are on the internet. Some of them are copyright-protected and are therefore password protected. Whenever you are asked for a password, simply type in afps97 and click on "submit" (simply hitting the enter button does not work)
The reading will then appear on your screen.
Course Outline and Readings
30 January Introduction
Joseph
J. Ellis, "A promise of unpredictability," Los Angeles Times, January
2, 2008
4 February Three Perspectives on American Foreign Policy
Realism
"The Melian Dialogue," in The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
Fyodor Dostoyesky, The Brothers Karamazov, Chapter 5, "The Grand Inquisitor"
Idealism
Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace, Sections I and II
Jeffersonian
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 4, 1801
6 February Native American Policy as Foreign Policy
Richard I.
Melvoin, New England Outpost: War and Society in Colonial Deerfield (New
York: W.W. Norton: 1989) Chapter Eight, "The Wheel Turns Again: Deerfield
and Queen Anne's War," pp. 209-48.
"Captive
Lands, Captive Hearts," produced by Susannah Lee, WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts,
for the 300th anniversary of the 1704 raid on Deerfield
Cherokee Nation
v. the State of Georgia, 1831
11 February The Idea of American Exceptionalism--The American Enlightenment
Samuel P. Huntington,
"American Ideals versus American Institutions," in American Foreign
Policy: Theoretical Essays, edited by G. John Ikenberry (Glenview, IL: Scott,
Foresman, 1989).
C. Vann Woodward,
"Free Security"
John Winthrop,
"City on a Hill"
The Declaration
of Independence
13 February Manifest Destiny: American Perceptions of Its Place
in the World
George Washington's
Farewell Address
John L. O'Sullivan
on Manifest Destiny, 1839
Polk's War Message,
1846
The Significance
of the Frontier in American History, 1893
US Territorial Acquisitions,
1783-1947
18 February The War with Spain: American Colonialism and the Open Door
British Foreign Secretary
George Canning's Overture for a Joint Declaration with the United States on
the Spanish Colonies in America, 1823
John Quincy Adams's
Account of the Cabinet Meeting of November 7, 1823
Thomas Jefferson
on the Monroe Doctrine, 1823
The Monroe
Doctrine
Theodore Roosevelt:
Obstacles to Immediate Expansion
William McKinley,
"War Message," 1898
Walter
L. Williams, "United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine
Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism," The
Journal of American History, Vol. 66, No. 4 (March 1980), pp. 810-831
The Platt Amendment,
1903
The Open Door
Note, Submitted by U.S. Secretary of State, John Hay, September 6, 1899
20 February World War I: Wilson, Self-Determination, and the League
Woodrow Wilson, "The
World Must Be Made Safe for Democracy," War Message to Congress, April
2, 1917
President Woodrow Wilson's
Fourteen Points, 8 January, 1918
Michael
W. Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science
Review, Vol. 80, no 4 (December 1986), pp. 1151-1169.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,
"The League of Nations," (audio playback available) The link will
take to the Library of Congress's Search page. Click on "sound recording"
and type in the words: "henry cabot lodge." The search engine will
pull up the speech--look for "League of Nations."
25 February World War II: United States and Collective Security
Ambrose and Brinkley, Chapters 1-3
The
Growth of Non-Liberal Regimes in the Interwar Period
The Atlantic
Charter, August 14, 1941
Sumner
Welles, Under Secretary of State, Memorial Day Address at the Arlington National
Amphitheater, May 30, 1942
Map
of the Pacific Theater
27 February The Cold War: 1945-1950
Ambrose and Brinkley, Chapters 4-7
John
Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold War (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997), pp. 1-25.
NSC 68: United
States Objectives and Programs for National Security, (April 14, 1950)
Hegemonic Stability
Theory
3 March The Beginnings of American Middle Eastern Policy
Multinational
Oil Corporations and U.S. Foreign Policy - REPORT together with individual views,
to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, by the Subcommittee
on Multinational Corporations; (Washington, January 2, 1975, US Government Printing
Office)
Michael
B. Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East. 1776 to the
Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), pp. 80-83; 88-90.
Attitude
of American Government Toward Palestine: Letter From President Roosevelt to
King Ibn Saud, April 5, 1945
United States
Proposal for Temporary United Nations Trusteeship for Palestine: Statement by
President Truman, March 25, 1948
Peter Grier,
"The US and Israel," Christian Science Monitor, 26 October
2001
5 March The Cold War: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Ambrose and Brinkley, Chapters 9 and
10
Executive
Committee Meeting, The Oval Office, 18 October 1962, 11:00 a.m.
Note: The parts of the transcripts in blue can be heard if you are using
st least Netscape 3.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0. Click on those parts to hear
the individuals as they were taped.
10-12 March The Cold War: Vietnam
Ambrose and Brinkley, Chapters 11 and
12
Franklin Roosevelt
Memorandum to Cordell Hull, January 24, 1944 from Major Problems in American
Foreign Policy, Volume II: Since 1914, 4th edition, edited by Thomas G. Paterson
and Dennis Merrill (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1995), p. 189.
United States Minutes
of the Second Meeting Between President Truman and Prime Minister Pleven, Cabinet
Room of the White House, January 30, 1951, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
24-26 March The End of the Cold War
Ambrose and Brinkley, Chapters
14-16
Fred Kaplan, "Paul Nitze:
The man who brought us the Cold War," Slate, October 21, 2004
John Lewis
Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005), "Epilogue:
The View Back," pp. 259-66.
31 March The New World Order? Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention
Jon Western, "The
Sources of Humanitarian Intervention," International Security, Vol
25, no. 4 (Spring 2002)
Samantha Power, "Bystanders
to Genocide," The Atlantic Monthly, September 2001
2-9 April Security and the War on Terror
Melvin E. Lee, "The Fallacy
of Grievance-based Terrorism," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008
Michel
Chossudovsky, "Al Qaeda and the 'War on Terrorism'," Global Research,
January 20, 2008
George
W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, 20
September 2001
John
Mueller, "Reacting to Terrorism: Probablities, Consequences, and the Persistence
of Fear," Ohio State University, February 6, 2007
14-16 April The War in Iraq
President George
W. Bush, Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, New York, New York,
September 12, 2002
Historical
Costs of U.S. Wars, by Christopher Hellman and Travis Sharp, Center for Arms
Control and Non-Proliferation,Updated February 1, 2008
John J. Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt, "An unnecessary war," Foreign Policy, Jan/Feb
2003
Eric S. Margolis,
"Iraq Invasion: The Road to Folly," The American Conservative,
7 October 2002
Jim Holt, "It’s
the Oil," London Review of Books, 18 October 2007
21-23 April The Future of American Foreign Policy: Is America an Imperial Power?
Bruce Cumings,
"Is America an Imperial Power?" Current History, November
2003
Max Boot,
"Neither New nor Nefarious: The Liberal Empire Strikes Back," Current
History, Vol. 102, no. 667 (November 2003)
John Gray, "The Mirage
of Empire," New York Review of Books, Vol 53, No. 1, January 2006
28 April- 6 May Flex Time--since we always run late on the syllabus.