AMERİKAN DIŞ POLİTİKASI - Deneme Sınavı - 13

In the early 1800s, Latin America was still colonized by the Spanish and the Portuguese empires. The independence of the United States from Great Britain, and subsequent political regime created in the north appealed to the nationalists in Latin America. Between 1810 and 1820, when many Latin American nations declared their independence from Spain, they looked up to the US as a model for basic political institutions. Instead of adopting the Continental model of parliamentary regimes, many Latin American nations opted for the US model of presidential system, with a bicameral Congress and a Supreme Court.

Fighting among the European powers also offered significant advantage to the newly founded United States. The Spanish had lost the Louisiana to the French, but the Napoleonic Wars were costly adventures. In order to finance his ambitions in Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to sell this far away land to the United States for $15 million cash. This price corresponded to around 3 cents for an acre, which is about 4046 square meters. The map of U.S. expansion illustrates the expansive amount of land gained, through Louisiana purchase from the French. This area consists of nearly onethird of the modern day United States.

Monroe Doctrine of 1823 could be classified as the first official foreign policy doctrine of the United States. It was articulated by President James Monroe during the 7th State of the Union address to the Senate and the House. In his long speech, the president carefully makes the case that the U.S. does pay attention to the conflicts in Europe, because they share the same origins, but does not pick sides.

President James Polk (1845-49) ran on a platform of territorial expansion and won. Initially, he tried to convince the Mexicans to sell their massive northern territory, but the Mexican leadership did not agree to a sale. The Mexican American War of 1846 to 1848 eventually cost the Mexicans nearly half of their national territory. They even faced the occupation of their capital, Mexico City, by U.S. troops. Eventually, 10 new states emerged from the territory the U.S. took from Mexico: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, Kansas, parts of Colorado, Oklahoma and Wyoming.

President Theodore Roosevelt, who served for two terms from 1901 to 1909, was a strong advocate of US expansionism. He was a naval commander before his presidency. When he got elected to the White House, he made sure the U.S. military presence was felt across the world. Around this period, there were negotiations with Colombia to build a canal that would connect Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. However, the Colombians were reluctant to grant exclusive privileges to the Americans. President Roosevelt was instrumental in supporting the secessionist elites in Colombia, who eventually led to the formation of a small but independent Panama in 1903. The newly independent Panama immediately signed a treaty with the U.S. for building the Panama Canal, and granted the U.S. exclusive rights for five miles (8 km) on either side of the canal, (the Canal Zone) until 1979. This meant the U.S. had a permanent base in the Canal Zone, and full control of the Canal until 1979. After 1979, the jurisdiction switched to a joint commission. Panama could not reclaim total jurisdiction over the Canal Zone until 1999.

Summary of Wilson’s Fourteen Points

1. Open diplomacy among nations, no secret treaties.
2. Freedom of the seas, except territorial waters
3. Free trade; removal of all trade barriers
4. Disarmament: reducing military build up
5. Anti-colonialism
6. End the invasion of Russia.
7. End the invasion of Belgium.
8. End the Prussian invasion of France.
9. Italy’s national borders must be respected.
10. People of Austria-Hungarian Empire should have “the freest opportunity of autonomous development.”
11. End the invasion of Balkans, respect territorial integrity of Balkan nations.
12. Restore the sovereignty of Turkish portions of the Ottoman Empire, autonomy to others, free passage from Dardanelles.
13. A free and independent Poland with access to the sea.
14. Establish an association of all nations, big and small, respecting the sovereignty of each.

The Reagan Presidency also coincided with massive economic crisis in the developing world. Hyperinflation, foreign currency shortages and capital flight were common across the Global South. The Reagan administration and the international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushed the countries struggling with economic crisis to make structural changes. These countries had to abandon their prior economic development models (import substation industrialization -ISI) and switch to the free market model. Also referred as neoliberalism, the new development model required:

The 43rd President of the United States won a disputed victory against the Democratic candidate Al Gore in 2000 presidential elections. While Al Gore won the popular vote, George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote. This result was due to a very slim (less than 700 votes) margin in the state of Florida, which came after multiple rounds of recount.

The “tariff wars” triggered by President Trump resemble a protectionist and isolationist doctrine. His election slogan “Make America Great Again” can also be interpreted as a protectionist and isolationist motto. However, it is difficult to gauge his legacy when he is still in power and is willing to make drastic changes in his own foreign policy initiatives.

Containment: US foreign policy adopted in late 1940s against the rising powers of the Soviet Union. It tried to curb the expansion of the Soviet influence and socialism at military, political, economic and ideological levels.

Deterrence: Having a credible threat to punish a potential aggressor if they take a negative action.

Primary: Elections within the party to select the nominees for the upcoming elections. Candidates need to run against the candidates from their own party and win the primaries first, in order to compete for political office.

Sanctions: A tool of statecraft, frequently involving economic measures such as asset freezes and trade restrictions, or visa and travel restrictions. Used to exact a certain behavior or outcome from another party. The U.S. and EU sanctions against Russian companies and individuals that aim to encourage Russia to end its interference in Ukraine are an example.

Satisficing: The term, used in political psychology, refers to the processes of reasoning in decision making. Instead of finding the optimum or the best solution to a problem, settling for the “good enough” option.

The combination of isolationism and Moralpolitik prevailing at the time is best justified by John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, in his 4th July 1821 address: “ Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benediction, and her prayers. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own…She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself …in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of …envy and ambition…She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit..”

Between 1897 and 1901, President William Mc Kinley ushered in the American Century, the era in which the United States replaced Great Britain as the world’s greatest power. "By the time he was reelected in 1901, he was heading a country that was the world’s economic leader and, by a historic shift at the turn of the century, a global military and diplomatic power".

Concerned particularly with Latin America, the United States would, according to Roosevelt, “speak softly, but carry a big stick” and in the following years, would not only engineer a domestic uprising in northern Colombia, but after recognizing the Republic of Panama, sign a treaty to build and lease the Panama Canal, intervene militarily in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and other countries where internal social unrest threatened foreign investments and lives. Attaching an equal importance to the international balance of power, President Roosevelt negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.

The last pre-World War I president was William Howard Taft (1909-1913) He followed President Rossevelt’s policy of worldwide influence, albeit through different methods.

It is an obvious fact that the United States had no direct stake in the outbreak of World War I -also known in history as the Great War. Profound social changes in Europe brought about by a population explosion which began in the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution and its social impact, engendered, in turn, new doctrines such as socialism, communism and the ever carrier of all types of mass frustration, nationalism. These factors culminated behind a number of existing intraEuropean rivalries -i.e. French-German conflict over Alsace-Lorraine, German-Russia competition over the Middle East, traditional Ottoman-Russia antagonism, Balkan nationalism towards AustroHungarian and Ottoman Empires, German-British rivalry over naval power etc.- turning the continent into a powder keg that a small spark could ignite. Against this background, technological advances leading to military developments and the growth of an interlocking system of alliances initiated by the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck were to act as the catalysts leading to World War I (Stokesbury, 1981, 11-19). Europe’s major nations had indeed grouped themselves into two main alliances opposed to each other -Central Powers, composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy and the Triple Alliance of Great Britain, France, and Russia.

When on June 28, 1914, a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip assasinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and his wife, visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, no one imagined that it would trigger a chain of events drawing Europe into a world war and the United States into a new era in its foreign relations (Bagby, 1999, 18). A former Ottoman province, Bosnia had been annexed by Austria in 1909 and this had antagonized neighboring Serbia - also former Ottoman territory- that had hoped to annex it by itself, retaliating by promoting revolution among national minorities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Consequently, Austrians understandably suspected the Serbian government of conspiracy and decided to punish Serbia by invading it on July 28. Russian and French mobilization followed that with a view to defend Serbia, Germany’s declaration of war on them, Britain’s entry into war as part of the Allies, and finally Ottoman Turkey’s, on the side of the Central Powers. By August 1914, World War I had begun.

On August 4, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), then much more interested in domestic than foreign affairs and largely endorsed by his people, declared that the United States would remain “impartial in thought as well as in action”.

As the war neared its end, President Wilson spelled out his vision of peace in a speech delivered on 8 January 1918 before Congress. Known as the “Fourteen Points” speech, it not only enumerated the conditions for bringing an end to hostilities, but it also included references to open diplomacy as opposed to secret treaties and alliances, as well as arms control and a new organization of nations to ensure the peace in the future, thus introducing the concept of collective security.

America’s inter-war and wartime president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) inherited the Great Depression, who was a Harvard graduate Democrat from a patrician family linked to the former President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt and himself appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy twice by President Wilson.

As far as the US was concerned, the military & diplomatic developments in the history of World War II can be divided into three stages: from December 1941 to January 1943; from January 1943 to August 1944; and from then on to the end of the Pacific war in August 1945 (İriye, 2013, 193-217).

After weeks of consultation with military and congressional leaders, President Truman made a momentous address to Congress on 12 March 1947, underlining the danger looming over the two countries and declaring in what would be known as the Truman Doctrine, that “ it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (americanrhetoric.com). A $ 400 million package of military and economic aid to both countries was proposed by the President and voted by Congress that day. This is recognized as the definitive end of the politics of isolationism.

What would follow was the European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan, announced by Secretary of State Marshall in a 5 June, 1947 speech at Harvard University to help ensure Europe’s survival, given its “economic, social, and political survival”. Over the four and a half years of the Marshall Plan, America gave more than 1 percent of its GDP in aid, a total of $13.5 billion by June 1952. England received $3.2 billion, France $2.7 billion, Italy $1.5 billion and Germany $1.4 billion. In the words of British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, this was “generosity beyond belief” ( Bagby, 1999, 153), but also a visionary policy, since the two defeated powers of the Axis were also included in this massive geopolitical investment of the Cold War, leaving behind the scars of World War II.