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From Vietnam to Afghanistan, U.S. leaders have had great difficulty disentangling the United States from faraway military interventions. William McKinley's 1898 decision to annex the Philippines reveals why, through a phenomenon called the "meddler's trap." The meddler's trap denotes a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. The inflated valuation is driven by a cognitive bias called the endowment effect, according to which individuals tend to overvalue goods they feel they own. A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect. Following the U.S. victory in Manila during the War of 1898, McKinley doubted Filipino civilizational capacity to self-govern, believed that a U.S. departure from the Philippines would cause chaos and great power war, and believed that U.S. governance could forestall that outcome. Because he had already deployed troops to the Philippines, McKinley also felt ownership over them, and this endowment effect inflated his valuation of the archipelago. Together, these mutually reinforcing beliefs produced the meddler's trap and the United States' largest annexation outside its hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians now recognize the political significance the Protestant ecumenical movement of the early twentieth century. American ecumenists contributed to the architecture of international organization and were among the first to promote a global discourse of human rights, and ecumenical plans for world order were designed for the peaceful spread of national self-determination and to combat racial prejudice. Ecumenical missionaries were at the forefront in reconceiving race relations, globally as well as in the United States. But the overriding ecumenical concern was the creep of secularism, which, despite their modernism and liberalism, ecumenists saw as the root of all evil. In 1945, when forced to choose between their vision of world peace as secured through international organization and their desire for racial equality, ecumenists sacrificed the latter so as to protect religious liberty and advance the Protestant interest. Ironically, despite their longstanding criticisms, ecumenists had to accept the dictates of national sovereignty for the sake of religious universalism. The contours of the liberal international system that resulted from this compromise remain to this day. In addition to primary-source research, this article is based on a synthesis of a tsunami of recent secondary literature on liberal Protestant internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a reexamination of sport in relation to American Exceptionalism and the concept of the U.S. as a transoceanic empire as of 2015. American territories such as Puerto Rico are addressed, along with U.S. sports history and foreign relations. The views of British and American sports historians such as Ernest May, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Trevor B. McCrisken are examined, as well as U.S. history between the colonial era and the nineteenth century.

When the United States invaded Nicaragua in 1912 the popular reaction in El Salvador was so strong that it completely upended politics. The article argues that this anti-imperialist movement, completely ignored by the current historiography, forced Salvadorean governments to make decisions regarding foreign policy that would have been unthinkable had it not been for the pressure from below. Popular pressures contributed to limit the scope of the final version of the Chamorro–Bryan Treaty between the United States and Nicaragua. The treaty did not include Platt Amendment-like provisions. Moreover, the Wilson administration abandoned the idea of extending a protectorate to all the Central American countries and building a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congress has abdicated its role at the center of U.S. political life. As a result, the constitutional powers that should be exercised by Congress in both domestic and foreign policy have been progressively appropriated by the executive branch. At times, presidents have seized those powers through exigent circumstances or congressional desuetude and ineffectiveness. Just as frequently, however, Congress has been willing--if not eager--to cede those prerogatives to the president whether for the sake of expediency, emergency, efficiency, electoral maneuvering, or in a deliberate effort to deflect political consequences. This has made the country less democratic, more authoritarian, and decreasingly likely to solve complex problems that require a broad range of perspectives and thoughtful deliberation. The article explores how this abdication has occurred throughout U.S. history in a variety of areas, including U.S. foreign relations, the constitutional war powers, national emergencies, and delegations of power. This article is a revised and expanded version of the author's presidential address at 2019 annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, delivered August 1, 2019, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the imperialist actions by the U.S. in North America and around the world. Also cited are how U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska in late 19th century as the first step towards U.S. imperialism, how Alaska's physical separation from the other U.S. states inspired U.S.' transition to an overseas empire from a continental empire, Daniel Immerwahr's analysis of the territoriality of U.S. empire, as well as the impact of the Spanish-American War on U.S. imperialism.

An essay is presented which discusses accomplishments and legacy of historian David F. Schmitz particularly his significant contributions to U.S. foreign relations historiography. Topics explored include his education at Rutgers University in New Jersey and teaching career at Whitman College in Washington, the awards he earned such as the Burlington Northern Foundation Faculty Achievement Award, and his influence on his students and colleagues in the historical profession.

What strategies does the United States pursue when it no longer perceives overt military intervention as politically viable or desirable but the problems or issues for which it was formerly undertaken remain? This analysis identifies three such periods in American foreign policy since the United States became a World Power and draws from the work of Peter Hall to develop a typology of strategies according to the magnitude of policy change. These range from adjustment in the settings of interventionism – persistence; the substitution of alternative instruments of foreign policy – ameliorism; and the principled rejection of interventionism in conjunction with a more systematic critique of prevailing foreign policy assumptions – transformationalism. Yet each approach is beset by certain structural limits and contradictions arising from the domestic politics and constitutional-institutional system of the United States that are important in understandiing and appreciating more fully the challenges – and opportunities – of the period 'after interventionism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States–China relationship is more likely than not to slide into economic and military competition, despite the perhaps best intentions of both states. This new bipolar competition is not inevitable. The key question is whether both governments have the self-restraint to limit domestic rent-seeking interests who will undoubtedly demand protection at home and exclusivity in their spheres of influence abroad. If not, the new superpowers will, like great powers in the past, ‘race’ for economic privileges that can quickly divide the world up into exclusive blocs. Like the security dilemma, great powers need not actually exclude one another from their economic zones; the fear of exclusion alone is enough to ignite the process of division. There was always some likelihood of a competitive economic spiral given China’s close business–government relations in a ‘state-capitalist’ economy. Now, for the first time in seven decades, there is a chance that the United States, in the grips of economic nationalism, might abandon its historic policy of free trade and ignite a new race for economic privilege as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the intent of the U.S. to deter adventurism of China in South China Sea and the revisionism of Russia in Eastern Europe.

Through its ambivalence towards its global security alliances, abrogation of free trade treaties and questioning of globalization, the Trump administration has argued that the United States-led liberal international order is too burdensome. How accurate is this portrayal? Drawing on theories of hegemonic leadership, the paper argues that the US national interest became globalized in the postwar international system and the US-led liberal order has given it enormous positional advantages. These include the capacity to shape the international preferences of other states, externalize domestic economic crises and construct the kind of international economy it wanted. Despite growing international competition, the US still has essentially the same global interests. However, neo-liberal globalization has weakened the domestic consent for American leadership among large sections of the American working class, who have rationally rejected continued US commitment to a system that has deepened economic inequality in the US. Trump has ridden the wave of this discontent, and although US elites may wish to return to the status quo after President Trump, these structural issues will remain. Trump may well do irreparable damage to the liberal order and thus, more broadly, to the West. While imperfect, the liberal order is still the 'best of a bad bunch' in terms of forms of systemic order on offer, and if the luxury of choice remains after Trump, a new domestic and international social contract is needed to revive US global leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Early American Republic continues to be largely neglected by diplomatic historians, it has been attracting vibrant new historiography taking the "global turn." This forum showcases studies by Nancy Shoemaker, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Rachel Tamar Van, and Courtney Fullilove. Each examines Americans venturing overseas at a time when their secondhand knowledge and firsthand experience of the world was woefully limited. The Early American Republic indicates that we must interrogate a fraught process of globalizing before we can presume any existence of global interconnection. By the 1830s the outcome of American ventures was a world with increasingly more Americans in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The images of the Iron Curtain and their resonances accompanied by the standard Cold War narrative persist in contemporary Western culture and collective memory. The cast of mind created in the 1946 Fulton speech centred on the Iron Curtain, has endured beyond the changed geopolitical landscape. Though Churchill’s was a message strewn amongst a series of other similar sentiments, its narrative authority, the clarity of the image, the resonance of the metaphor, wove through the Cold War years; it was referenced frequently as shorthand for a bipolar configuration of power. Eventually, the Berlin Wall became a manifestation of the Curtain and the image, constructed of words, of metaphor, eventually of concrete and wire, it became ametaimage, an allegory ‘of power and value’ that was presented as a neutral reading of the geopolitical landscape, the image of Europe and Cold War confrontation [W. J. T. Mitchell,Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation(Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 157]. Churchill was not alone in the creation of the message, certainly he explored options for diplomacy in the 1950s, but his was the captivating image, and image that made accommodation along lines of the ‘one world’ agenda advanced by Franklin Roosevelt, by pragmatists and realists, later, Nixon and Bush Sr., more difficult. Gorbachev identified the conventional Cold War thinking as the ‘Fulton model’. In his vision for the post-Cold War era he sought to avoid this Cold Warmentaliteand through his 1988 UN speech and other initiatives to produce a ‘Fulton in reverse’. Yet the wall endures in our culturalmentalite, and in our cultural and institutional conception of the era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the relationship between Native Americans and the history of U.S. foreign relations. Emphasis is given to topics such as diplomatic relations with Native Americans within the context of U.S. imperialism, continental expansion, and the efforts of the federal government to eradicate native polities, cultures, and identities. Other topics include the cultural assimilation of Native Americans, the impact of the federal reservation system, and the legal status of indigenous people.

Incorporating previously-untapped Dominican, Costa Rican, and Cuban sources, this article reveals how the international Cold War and US policy towards Guatemala overlapped with long-standing regional conflicts in the greater Caribbean basin. During the post-war democratic openings, exiles with patron presidents or dictators composed two loosely-formed networks seeking to destabilise opposing governments. The resulting inter-American conflicts contributed to critical events in the region, most notably US officials’ Cold War-influenced policy to overthrow the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in the early 1950s. These conflicts persisted and continued overlapping with the international Cold War while often challenging US officials’ Cold War goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Debunking the common laissez-faire myth surrounding turn-of-the-century American foreign relations allows for a reconceptualization of American imperialism from 1890 to 1913. The Republican Party, the party of protectionism, found itself riven by internal disagreements over the future of the protectionist system and U.S. imperial expansion. From within Republican protectionist ranks arose a progressive wing that increasingly looked beyond the home market for the country’s growing American agricultural and manufacturing surpluses. They did so against staunch anti-imperial opposition not only from American free-trade independents, but also from the Republican Party’s isolationist home-market protectionists, who yet feared or disdained foreign markets and colonial acquisitions. These progressive Republican proponents of empire combined coercive trade reciprocity with protectionism—an expansive closed door—and worked hard to extend American imperial power through informal means of high tariff walls, closed U.S.-controlled markets, and retaliatory reciprocity if possible, by formal annexation and military interventionism when necessary. The American Empire thus arose owing to the imperialism of economic nationalism, not the imperialism of free trade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article, based on the 2014 Stuart L. Bernath Lecture, traces the emergence of “national security” as a foreign policy doctrine that came to define the safety of the United States in extremely broad terms, both geographically and ideologically. Doing so reveals that “national security” has its own history. The concept was invented by fusing long-standing, traditional concerns about U.S. territorial sovereignty with a newer, thoroughly revolutionary desire to protect and promote America’s core values on a global scale. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy looms large in the history of American foreign relations, but it was his use of fear to invent the modern doctrine of national security that is possibly its most consequential aspect. After a couple of false starts, a fusion of geographical and ideological security took place during the world crisis of the late 1930s and the world war that followed. The results have defined U.S. foreign policy ever since. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United States has maintained international hierarchies over the Western Hemisphere for more than a century and over Western Europe for nearly seven decades. More recently, it has extended similar hierarchies over states in the Middle East. How does the United States exercise authority over other countries? In a world of juridically sovereign states, how is U.S. rule rendered legitimate? Hierarchy has interstate and intrastate distributional consequences for domestic ruling coalitions and regime types. When the gains from hierarchy are large or when subordinate societies share policy preferences similar to those of the United States, as in Europe, international hierarchy is possible and compatible with democracy. When the gains from hierarchy are small and the median citizen has policy preferences distant from those of the United States, as in Central America, international hierarchy requires autocracy, and the benefits of foreign rule will be concentrated within the governing elite. In the Middle East, the gains from hierarchy also appear small, and policy preferences are distant from those of the United States. As a result, the United States has backed sympathetic authoritarian rulers. Although a global counterinsurgency strategy might be viable over the long term, the costs of establishing effective hierarchies in the region imply that the United States is better off retrenching "East of Suez." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of Victorian free-trade ideology upon American foreign relations. Victorian free-trade ideology—also known as Cobdenism—gained ground among a small but powerful group of predominantly New England intellectuals. These American Cobdenites became members of the Cobden Club of England, a club that sought to spread free trade throughout the world and was thus seen as a threat to American protectionism. Many of these American Cobdenite members also exerted previously unrecognized influence at both the governmental and nongovernmental level upon Republican and Democratic politics. Cobdenism is nearly absent from American foreign relations historiography. Yet Anglophobic economic nationalists at the time viewed such influence as a transatlantic free-trade conspiracy. By investigating this controversy, I argue that Cobdenism greatly affected Gilded-Age foreign and domestic policies, particularly regarding American attempts at instituting freer trade, maintaining the gold standard, informal imperialism, and developing more amicable Anglo-American relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the US state–capital nexus at the heart of an American imperialism currently reaching its limits. In a first part we argue that the US state has consistently sought to promote and facilitate the global expansion of US capital, indicating a tight coupling between the two. Indeed, this so-called Open Door imperialism has been shaped and cemented by the strong ties between the foreign policy-making state apparatus and America's corporate elite. With the aid of social network analysis and biographical mapping we show how many key foreign policymakers of the past three administrations have been recruited from the ranks of US transnational capital. This nexus helps to explain how under Obama, US ‘grand strategy’, analysed in the second part, remains wedded to the goal of maintaining the global Open Door empire in spite of the deepening contradictions in the context of the current crisis of the US-led neoliberal order. Este artículo analiza el nexo entre el estado y el capital estadounidense en el corazón del imperialismo americano, actualmente alcanzando sus límites. En una primera parte sostenemos que el estado estadounidense ha intentado consistentemente de promover y facilitar la expansión global del capital estadounidense, que indica una conexión estrecha entre los dos. De hecho, este así llamado imperialismo a Puertas abiertas ha sido forjado y cimentado por fuertes lazos entre el aparato extranjero de creación de leyes y la élite corporativa americana. Con la ayuda del análisis de las redes sociales y la representación biográfica, mostramos como muchos de los estrategas políticos extranjeros claves de las tres administraciones anteriores han sido seleccionados de los rangos del capital trasnacional estadounidense. Este nexo ayuda a explicar cómo bajo Obama, la ‘gran estrategia’ de E.E.U.U., analizada en la segunda parte, permanece casada con la meta de mantener el imperio global de Puerta abierta, a pesar de las contradicciones cada vez mayores en el contexto de la actual crisis del orden neoliberal encabezado por los Estados Unidos. 本文分析了美国国家（the US state）与资本的联结，它处于当前达于极限的美国帝国主义的核心。在第一部分，我们认为美国国家一直不断地寻求促进美国资本的全球扩张，表明了二者之间的紧密结合。确实，这一所谓的门户开放资本主义是由制订外交政策的国家机构和美国的公司精英之间的强劲纽带所塑造和加强的。通过借助社会网络分析和生平描述，我们表明了过去三届行政当局中有多少关键的外交政策制订者是从美跨国资本阶层中招募的。这一连结有助于解释第二部分所分析的美国“大战略”在奥巴马时期是如何继续坚持维护全球门户开放帝国目标的，尽管在美国主导的新自由主义秩序发生当前危机的背景下各种矛盾在加深。 이 글은 한계에 달한 미국 제국주의의 중심에서 미국의 국가-자본 관계를 분석한다. 첫 번째로 우리는 국가와 자본의 단단한 결합을 지적하면서 미국 국가가 지속적으로 미국의 지구적 팽창을 장려하고 촉진시켰다고 주장한다. 정말로 소위 문화개방 제국주의가 외교정책을 펴는 국가 기구와 미국의 기업 엘리트 간의 강한 유대에 의해서 만들어 지고 또 강화되었다. 우리는 사회연결망 분석과 전기적 서술의 도움으로 과거 3개 정부의 많은 핵심적인 외교정책가들이 미국의 초국적 기업에서 충원되었다는 것으로 보여준다. 이러한 관계는 2부에서 분석된 오바마 정부에서 미국의 ‘거대 전략’이 미국주도 신자유주의 질서의 위기 속에서 심화되는 모순에도 불구하고 지구적 문화개방 제국을 유지하려는 목표에 어떻게 연결되어 있는 지를 설명하는 데 도움을 준다. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses how extraterritorial jurisdiction was used by the U.S. as a significant tool for international relations in the late nineteenth century. It notes that scholars regarded the period in where the country moved away from broad exterritorial assertions of power. However, the author argues that such view was misleading, citing the relations of the U.S. with Mexico and the southern border. Two case studies related to the functions of extraterritorial assertions are presented.

The Monroe Doctrine had been a pillar of US foreign policy in the nineteenth century, but its importance in the twentieth century is disputed. On the one hand, it laid the grounds for American expansion in the Western Hemisphere and, on the other, it provided a framework of reciprocal non-interference in transatlantic relations. Therefore, a reconsideration of its impact is relevant to the discussion of the tension between internationalism and isolationism. An assessment of the relevance of the Monroe Doctrine in twentieth-century US diplomacy must take into account that (i) it outlined a space-based, regionalist view of world affairs and (ii) it expressed widespread notions of American culture, history, and national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt's approaches to formulating foreign policy within the context of contemporaneous debates about Isolationism and Internationalism. It argues that a 'Rooseveltian Maxim' can be identified based on common attributes found in each President's ideas about US foreign policy and national security interests. This 'Maxim' was not dogma for either president, as they were both astute political operators. Instead it is based on their essentially internationalist reading of America's role in the world. It meant that both were particularly mindful of the state of American public opinion informed by Washington and Jefferson's notions of isolationism, for it was the mood amongst American people that provided the 'finite space' which they as president has to make foreign policy. It concludes that by investigating the approaches both presidents adopted in such circumstances, we gain further insight into both presidents and our understanding of Isolationism and Internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the seemingly well known terms internationalism and isolationism. Both have a long history of use in the study of American foreign relations, but there are problems with both that limit their descriptive and analytical utility. Their limitations have been addressed before, yet they are still commonly used and remain popular among scholars and the wider public, partly due to the ease with which the history of American foreign relations can be simplistically defined as an ongoing struggle between the forces of isolationism and internationalism. Through an analysis of both terms, as well as a consideration of their use by historians and political scientists and with due respect to the transatlantic focus of this journal, this article looks to salvage the meaning of these terms, and more importantly, to move beyond them and find more accurate expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent US mid-term elections have not only dented President Obama's image at home and abroad, they have seen the return to 'divided government' whereby one party controls the Executive and the other controls either the Senate or the House of Representatives or both. Such divided government has been quite frequent since the Second World War; but the situation is often portrayed by political scientists as dysfunctional, even as they acknowledge that the Founders of the Republic deliberately created a federal system which would minimize concentrations of political power. Yet divided government is only one complaint among many levelled by American commentators at their political system. This article examines such criticisms both theoretically and historically, and also develops a historical approach which discusses American attitudes to the past, particularly US foreign relations. Here the emphasis is upon the ideologies that have powered American expansion, first across the North American continent and then overseas. A peculiar, even 'exceptional' aspect of this expansion has been its rhetorical form, in particular the invocation of past presidents to justify contemporary actions and the creation of a doctrinal canon (classically expressed in the Monroe doctrine). While these two lines of enquiry (emphasizing history and political science) are the methodological double core of the article, they are not treated discretely; rather the focus is on the interplay between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US grand strategy after 9/11 turned from post-containment drift to preemption. But the costs are high - suspicion of American power, hedging by traditional allies, expensive, go-it-alone ventures like Iraq. Tried-and-true containment better reflects American values. While forward in the world, containment is also defensive. It reassures skittish partners and reflects liberal, anti-imperial US preferences. In Asia, containment would deter the primary contemporary challengers of US power - radical Islam and Chinese nationalism - without encouraging a Bush-style global backlash. In a reductive analysis of US alliance choices, this article predicts a medium-term Indo-American alliance. India uniquely shares both US liberal democratic values and the same two challengers; it is the likely pivot in a US-backed neo-containment architecture in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines the assumptions that underlie Noam Chomsky's politics and argues that his analysis of US foreign policy since World War II may best be situated within the realist tradition in international relations. Chomsky's left realism has not been adequately understood or addressed by IR scholars for both political and disciplinary reasons. In opposition to most classical realists, he has insisted that intellectuals should resist rather than serve national power interests. In contrast to most political scientists, he has also refused to theorize, critiquing much of the enterprise of social science in terms of what he sees as highly suspect power interests within the academy. Hostility to Chomsky's normative commitments has consequently prevented IR scholars from discerning key aspects of his project, as well as important historical and theoretical continuities between radical and realist thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the return of diplomatic history--specifically U.S. diplomatic history--to the mainstream of historical study in the late 20th and early 21st centuries after years of marginalization due to the rise of social and cultural history. The work of diplomatic historians in relocating their field at the juncture of domestic and international relations is discussed, including through the study of ideology or "mentalités," international history, and culture and identity. Relations between diplomatic historians and other historical fields are discussed, as are a variety of interdisciplinary approaches.

A growing number of scholars, commentators, and pundits describe the contemporary US as an empire. This article argues that these authors have not paid sufficient attention to the historiography of empire and imperialism. Indeed, the historiography of the British and American empires offers important lessons for current debates including what is the appropriate definition of the American empire, what are the social and political foundations of the American Empire, and what are the consequences of the American Empire for the US and the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the Point Four agreement between Ethiopia and the U.S. was intended to assist in the development of Ethiopia. The agreement was designed to promote the sharing of scientific research, technology and resources to promote economic growth. The author suggests that former U.S. president Harry S. Truman developed the program in hopes it would promote democracy and American ideals in Third World countries. She notes that former Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie resisted attempts at democratizing Ethiopia and suggests he consolidated power as a means of modernizing Ethiopia. She comments on economist Colin Clark's theories of global poverty.

The author argues that the Vietnam War made the field of U.S. foreign relations history vibrant during the formative years of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). He explains how and why the war had such great impact on foreign relations historians. He also shares how the war played a role in his decision to specialize in U.S. foreign relations history.

The article explores the roots of anti-American sentiment in the Americas. The author argues that the U.S. policy elites, scholars and pundits of the Cold War era used the notion of Anti-Americanism to claim that the nationalist and revolutionary sentiments in Latin American countries like Venezuela and Cuba were not based on actual grievances against U.S. power; rather they were a psychological reaction to modernization. With its legitimacy called into question, the U.S. government painted manifestations of anti-Americanism as fear born from ignorance.

The article discusses anti-Americanism in Asia. The authors, acknowledging the diversity of cultures and political beliefs in Asia, describe a pattern of anti-American attitudes that spans over one hundred years. The authors argue that the majority of Asian people are dissatisfied with the perceived inability of the U.S. to act in accordance with its democratic and anti-imperial rhetoric. At the same time, Asians find much to admire about American culture; however this sentiment often is expressed simultaneously as accusations of American arrogance.

The article offers a historical comparison of the foreign policies of Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush. There are some similarities in the foreign policies of the two U.S. presidents in such a way that they both have a common ideology. The article uses Wilson as a reference in analyzing the global war on terrorism by Bush and how will it fit in the history of U.S. diplomacy. It only looks at the important similarities and differences between the two presidents.

Sometimes called the "Forgotten War" because Americans pay so little attention to it, the Korean War was nevertheless a pivotal event in US foreign policy. Three themes will be integrated into this article as it analyzes Korean War policy. First, the Korean War heightened the debates and divisions among US foreign policymakers. If Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor helped to silence these divisions, then President Truman's handling of North Korea's 1950 invasion of South Korea helped resurrect them. Second, while foreign policy goals are generally assumed to drive the objectives of war in the classic Clausewitzian sense, the opposite frequently occurred in Korea as changes on the battlefield drove policy objectives of officials in Washington. Third, although the Americans, Chinese and Soviets all worked assiduously to keep the Korean War limited to the Korean Peninsula, the war had repercussions far beyond the Korean battlefield. Its ramifications were felt in Taiwan, Vietnam, Europe and in US defense expenditures as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate about the goals of American foreign policy at the end of the twentieth century, especially that thread differentiating “conservative” from “neoconservative” perspectives, might profit by revisiting the debate over American expansion at the end of the nineteenth century. “I am an imperialist,” Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan once remarked, “simply because I am not isolationist.” This paper explores the connection between Mahan's defense of imperialism-often couched in terms of national interest and balance of power- and the norms of American power in world politics. The will-to-power behind American expansion and involvement, a formidable pillar in Mahan's realism, coexisted (often uneasily) with the affirmation of national purpose, a less formidable but still important part of Mahan's idealism. Mahan's strong conservative inclinations in politics were matched by a willingness to employ the tools of realism-particularly traditional diplomatic methods-as a way to uphold historic national goals and moral vision in American foreign policy. Far from seeing an irremediable conflict between the counsels of realism and limited moral gains in foreign policy, Mahan understood that governments are not immune from certain overall constraints. Seldom if ever could American actions abroad be defended by arguing solely for the maintenance or increase of national power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps the greatest void in the scholarship on U.S. foreign relations is the lack of a synthesis covering the Civil War era, 1848-77. Largely as a result of the crisis of the Union, these years constitute a distinct period in foreign relations that should be treated as a whole. Though sectionalism, party conflict, the Civil War and Reconstruction did not influence foreign policy in a consistent manner, statesmen viewed foreign affairs through a lens colored by the process and meaning of the domestic conflict. Additionally, ethnicity and race, flows of capital, and geopolitical and commercial rivalries all factored into the equation of foreign policy formulation. This essay explores the historiography and suggests that foreign relations in the Civil War era constituted a contested period of transition, dominated by the crisis of the Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the history of U.S.-Japanese baseball in the period culminating the Second World War. Role of the Americans in organizing baseball in Japan; Background of the first all professional American baseball team to visit Japan; History of the first encounter of Japanese baseball team with American baseball.

Explores the China-U.S. relations and Chinese broadcasting in from 1920 to 1930. Historical background on the conflict between the U.S. and China with regard to the Open Door policy; View of the U.S. toward the Chinese resistance to technology; Discussion of the control of mass media as part of the Chinese Nationalist party agenda; Details of a protest against the Chinese radio law.

Drawing of Guatemalan and US sources, this paper complicates the instrumentalist argument that US assistance and intervention explain the Guatemalan military's repeated intervention in politics, and the rise of a military government in 1963. This study contends that the US government had little to do with giving Guatemalan officers the capacity and motive to intervene in politics. However, the US did contribute to their opportunity to intervene through its opposition to regimes it opposed, as was the case in the infamous 1954 coup, and also by inadvertently weakening regimes it backed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the efforts of Bolivian Ambassador Víctor Andrade Uzquiano to influence the U.S. foreign policy from 1944-1962. Role of Uzquiano in the rise of power of the Revolutionary National Movement; Attempt of overcoming racism in his relationship with Washington's representatives; Impact of the Bolivian Revolution of 1952 on Bolivian history.

Anti-Americanism in Nicaragua arose from a dialectical relationship between US power and influence and opposition to it. The expressions of anti-Americanism were directed against American power and intervention and not towards some of the shared values such as liberty,self-determination and democracy. The Sandinista revolution was largely successful because it coalessed around a 'coalition of revulsion' against the US client regime. It resisted both the US economic presence and its overbearing culture, attitudes, diplomacy and disproportionate influence. North Americans were widely regarded as the champions of democracy, liberty and self-determination. When those narratives did not accord with the experience of those who encountered US power, and when that power was perceived as creating economic dependencies or supporting political authoritarianism it fermented strong resentment. US attitudes further polarised the situation, giving rise to an identity politics based on caricature, exclusion, fundamental essences and intolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the myths and motivations behind US foreign policy towards Iraq in America's ‘war on terrorism’. It argues that the foreign policy of the Bush administration is widely misunderstood and that much of the debate about Iraq policy that has taken place has been conducted at an unhelpful level of analysis. It addresses arguments that the Bush administration is motivated by oil, revenge or hubris as well as the more mainstream arguments that an attack on Iraq would provoke instability through the entire Middle East, as well as encouraging further acts of and support for murderous terrorism; that there is no urgency to act against Iraq as containment and deterrence remain adequate means to manage this threat; and that Iraq should be a lower priority than dealing with North Korea. It does this by analysing the development of American foreign policy thinking on the war on terrorism, what motivates it, and why it rejects the arguments of its critics. The article explains the intellectual process by which the US decided upon this course of action and how Europe's failure to understand this process added to its incomprehension of American policy. It does not argue that European's opposition would have been swept aside had they better understood the Bush administration, the central disagreement about the necessity and prudence of military action versus containment remains, but that such an understanding would have allowed for a better and more focused level of debate than the one which has got us to this point. Nor does it argue that the Bush administration approach is necessarily persuasive or justified, merely that its case is reasoned and explicable in terms of America's foreign policy traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the U.S. position on imperialism. Overall policy needs and concerns of the U.S. that reflect on its stance on imperialism; Changes in U.S. thinking on the imperial idea; Relationship between imperial idea and U.S. national identity.

Explores the use of U.S. diplomatic threat in overthrowing the dictatorship of former Cuban President Gerardo Machado in 1933. Role of U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles on the downfall of Machado; Cause of depression and oppression among Cubans; Inclusion of economic cooperation with U.S. after administration recovery.

The explosion of information in the last decade has had more of a decentralizing than a centralizing effect on society, says Joseph S. Nye Jr., Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy and Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In the following article, Nye examines the possible effects of the information revolution on the domestic and foreign policies of governments, in particular the impact on soft power—the power of persuasion through ideas, cultures, and policies. Foreign policy will no longer be the sole province of governments as the centrality and functions of the sovereign state will change and political institutions will need to adapt to this brave new world. Nye concludes that the US has an edge in the current era of globalization but it should be careful not to negate the positive values of its soft power by acting unilaterally or arrogantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aid of the 'butterfly effect' theory, this article investigates the role of ordinary individuals, both Chinese and American, in the formulation, implementation and promotion of 'Ping Pong Diplomacy', which brought about the US–China rapprochement in the early 1970s. Through examining the twists and turns in the process of 'Ping Pong Diplomacy' making, this study intends to bring one's attention to a number of seemingly less significant historical episodes and their long-term impact on US–China relations. Like small butterflies whose spontaneous actions can generate unexpected climatic changes, the various individuals in this study, including players and officials of the table-tennis teams, low-ranking diplomats and journalists, played an indispensable part in bringing forth a dramatic transformation in US–China relations, which in turn altered the Cold War climate in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]