US FOREIGNPOLICY:

a Commemoration through the years

Prepared by: Eling Price

ObjectiveThe purpose of this project, is to explore the relevant eras of our nation, first beginning in 1899 onward to the 21st century, placing careful attention to the acts and decisions of each consecutive president who worked progressively towards establishing sovereignty and a strong background within the following areas: Foreign Relations, International Treaties, Military Defense, Diplomacy, National Security, Industrialization, Commerce and Trade.

WHY STUDY FOREIGN POLICY?

Foreign policy refers to actions the United States government takes on behalf of its national interests abroad to ensure the security and well-being of Americans and the strength and competitiveness of the U.S. economy. For, a secure group of citizens requires protection of recognized national boundaries, a strong economy, and a stable, orderly society.

The Significance Begins Here…

Following the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States acquired overseas colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

In its new status as an imperial power, the United States pursued a series of policies designed to protect American territories and aggressively expand its international commercial interests.

1899-1913 PART I:

Setting the stage

Theodore Roosevelt1901 - 1909

• Russo Japanese war• PANAMA CANAL

At the same time, President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the construction of the Panama Canal, which would have profound economic implications for American trade, and engaged in great power diplomacy in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War. In just over a decade, the United States had redefined its national and international interests to include a large overseas military presence, overseas possessions, and direct engagement in setting priorities in international affairs.

WOODROW WILSON1913- 1921

• The First World War

•The League of Nations

• The Inquiry Committee

• Fourteen Points

• The Wilsonian

Vision

•International Democracy

• Collective Security

• Article X

The First World War1914 -1918

A Call To Action

WHAT ACTIONS CAUSED WWI?

From what can be gathered from the events leading up to the US’s decision to become involved in WWI was unprecedented warfare by the Germans, which resulted in the sinking of several ships with US passengers in April 1917.

Within 8 months thereafter, President Wilson appeared before The Inquiry Committee to formulate specific provisions for a “peace clause”. In using the Committee’s schematics , Wilson perfected what would be known today as the Fourteen Points .

HOW DID THE US RESPOND?

Eight of the fourteen points treated specific territorial issues among the combatant nations.

Five of the other six concerned general principles for a peaceful world: open covenants (i.e. treaties or agreements), openly arrived at; freedom of the seas; free trade; reduction of armaments; and adjustment of colonial claims based on the principles of self determination.

The fourteenth point proposed what was to become the League of Nations to guarantee the “political independence and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike.”

The League of Nations was an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes. The idea of the League was grounded in the broad, international revulsion against the unprecedented destruction of the First World War and the contemporary understanding of its origins..

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

STIMSON DOCTRINE1932

This Doctrine stated: “The United States would not recognize any treaty or agreement between Japan and China that violated U.S. rights or agreements to which the United States subscribed”.

In short order, Japanese representatives simply walked out of the League, and the Kwangtung Army formalized its conquest of Manchuria.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

1933-1945

• Good Neighbor

Policy

• Axis Powers

• Atlantic Charter

•Pearl Harbor

•World War II

•Casablanca

• The Big Three

• Potsdam Declaration

• Atlantic Conference

• Allied Powers

Good Neighbor Policy

In his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt stated: "In the field of world policy would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.“Although domestic economic problems and World War II diverted attention from the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy represented an attempt to distance the United States from earlier interventionist policies

Establishing The Axis Powers

. In 1940, U.S. policy slowly began to shift from neutrality to non-belligerency by providing aid to the nations at war with the Axis Powers--Germany, Italy and Japan. In response to the growing emergency, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called upon the U.S. people to prepare for war.

The Bombing of Pearl Harbor:

December 7, 1941

The Atlantic Charter

In August 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met secretly and devised an eight-point statement of war aims known as the Atlantic Charter, which included a pledge that the Allies would not accept territorial changes resulting from the war in Europe. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the wartime conferences focused on establishing a second front

A Meeting With The Minds:Discussing Wartime Efforts

At Casablanca in January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to fight until the Axis powers surrendered unconditionally.

In November 1943 meeting in Egypt with Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to a pre-eminent role for China in postwar Asia.

The next major wartime conference included Roosevelt,

Churchill, and the leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin. Meeting at Tehran following the Cairo Conference, the "Big Three" secured confirmation on the launching of the cross-channel invasion and a promise from Stalin that the Soviet Union would eventually enter the war against Japan.

The Atlantic Conference

The first wartime meeting between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt, the Atlantic Conference held off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, took place before the United States had formally entered the war as a combatant. Despite its official position of neutrality, the United States joined Britain in issuing a joint declaration that became known as the Atlantic Charter. This pronouncement outlined a vision for a postwar order supported, in part, by an effective international organization that would replace the struggling League of Nations.

HARRY S. TRUMAN1945 - 1953

•The Cold War

• The National Security Act

• The Truman Doctrine

• Economic Cooperation

Act

• Marshall Plan

• NATO

• The Korean

War

• Treaty of San

Francisco

THE COLD WAR1941-1991

National Security Act of 1947

Brought forth the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) into making.

Created the Department of Defense, known today as The Department of Homeland Security.

Paved the way for the emergence of the Air Force

The Truman Doctrine

With the Truman Doctrine, arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in far away conflicts.

Provisions of The Containment Policy

George F. Kennan, a career Foreign Service Officer, formulated the policy of “containment,” the basic United States strategy for fighting the cold war (1947- 1989) with the Soviet Union.

Kennan’s ideas, which became the basis of the Truman administration’s foreign policy, first came to public attention in 1947 in the form of an anonymous contribution to the journal Foreign Affairs, the so called “X-Article.”

Founding of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Signed in 1949, the treaty, one of the major Western countermeasures against the threat of aggression by the Soviet Union during the cold war, was aimed at safeguarding the freedom of the North Atlantic community.

The Korean War

During World War II the United States

and the Soviet Union agreed to

temporarily divide Korea at the 38th parallel in order

oversee the removal of

Japanese forces. Only in 1953 did

the two sides reach an uneasy truce, thus crystallizing

the division between North and South that exists

today.

United States-Japanese Security Treaty

The Treaty of San Francisco ended the state of war between Japan and 47 of the Allies (most nations allied with the Soviet Union refused to sign), concluded the U.S. Occupation, and excused the Japanese from reparations for the war. On that same day the US and Japan signed the United States-Japanese Security Treaty, allowing the United States to station troops in Japan, and making the Japanese islands into an important facet of America's global containment structure.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

1953-1961

The Eisenhower Doctrine1957

. Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state.."

JOHN F. KENNEDY1961 - 1963

Keep Out:The Constriction of The

Berlin Wall Mounting tension been the United

States and the Soviet Union, and war in Vietnam determined U.S. foreign policy in the 1960s. In 1961, the Soviet Union erected the most iconic image of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, which physically divided the Western and Eastern Blocs of Germany's city of Berlin.

From A Bay of Pigs To A Missile Crisis

In early 1961 President John F. Kennedy concluded that Fidel Castro was a Soviet client working to subvert Latin America. After much debate in his administration, Kennedy authorized a clandestine invasion of Cuba by a brigade of Cuban exiles. The brigade hit the beach at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, but the operation failed within 2 days.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON1963-1969

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

On August 7 1964, U.S. Congress approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing military action in Southeast Asia. The resolution drafted by the administration authorized “all necessary measures” to repel attacks against U.S. forces and all steps necessary for the defense of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. In March 1965, President Johnson sent the first U.S. combat forces to Vietnam and in 1969 the U.S. military had a force of 534,000 men in Vietnam.

RICHARD NIXON1969-1974

Putting An End To Vietnam Tension

In January 1969, the United States, governments of South and North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong met for the first plenary session of peace talks in Paris, France. These talks, which began with much hope, moved slowly. They finally concluded with the signing of a peace agreement, the Paris Accords, on January 27, 1973.

As a result, the south was divided into a patchwork of zones controlled by the South Vietnamese Government and the Viet Cong. The United States withdrew its forces, although U.S. military advisers remained.

JIMMY CARTER1977-1981

On March 26, 1979, Sadat, Carter, and Begin signed the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, which formalized the specific details of the arrangements agreed to at Camp David.

By the 1960s, Panamanian calls for sovereignty over the Canal Zone had reached high pitch, and United States relations with Panama deteriorated. President Carter saw returning the Panama Canal as key to improving U.S. relations in the hemisphere and the developing world. Although opponents of the Treaty returning the Canal to Panama by 2000 criticized Carter’s efforts on the basis of "We Built it, We Paid for it, It's Ours," the Treaties narrowly passed the Senate in April 1978.

RONALD REAGAN1981-1989

Reagan Doctrine

In his 1985 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan called upon Congress and the American people to stand up to the Soviet Union, what he had previously called the “Evil Empire”: "We must stand by all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth."

Putting An End To Barriers: The Ejection of The Berlin

WallOn the night of November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall—the most potent symbol of the cold-war division of Europe—came down.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH1989-1993

Tension In The Gulf

In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. A U.S.-dominated coalition including Arab nations and traditional U.S. allies gave Iraq an ultimatum to withdraw from Kuwait. When Iraq refused, large-scale bombing campaign began in January 1991, followed by a March invasion that quickly liberated Kuwait.

BILL CLINTON1993 - 2000

The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self Government

Arrangements The Oslo Accords were signed by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington, DC, on September 13, 1993 This agreement established an important new approach for achieving a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by initiating open, direct talks between Israel and the PLO.

Newly Established Principles For NATO

. On May 14 1997, Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) came to an historic agreement, paving the way for NATO expansion. “[T]he fundamental goal of [expanding NATO] is to build, for the first time, a peaceful, free and undivided trans-Atlantic community,” said Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. “It is to extend eastward to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union the peace and prosperity that Western Europe has enjoyed for the last 50 years.”

GEORGE W. BUSH2001-2008

War On Terror

September 11 marked the start of a new era in U.S. strategic thinking. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration turned its attention to a war against terrorism. In response, the United States under the Bush Administration launched large- scale military attacks against Al Qaeda terrorist camps and the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Ending Taliban Regime

The United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in order to end the ability of the Taliban regime to provide safe haven to al Qaeda and to put a stop to al Qaeda’s use of the territory of Afghanistan as a base of operations for terrorist activities. With Afghanistan devastated after more than 20 years of warfare, the fall of the Taliban paved the way for the success of a long-stalled U.N. effort to form a broad-based Afghan government and for a U.S.-led coalition to begin building legitimate governing institutions.