1 THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY Government 312L (37623, 37624) Professor Robert G. Moser Fall 2015 MEETING PLACE: On-demand streaming through Canvas MOSER OFFICE: BATTS 2.116G PHONE: 232-7260 EMAIL: [email protected] OFFICE HOURS: M 11-12, TH 10-12 TEACHING ASSISTANTS OFFICE HOURS Deirdre Appel Jason Bilodeau Dasha Djukic Rachel German Michael Gibbs Lucy Kellison Brian Lange Michaela Machicote Vincent R Mauro Sam Naik Julianne Phillips To contact the Teaching Assistants with general administrative questions about the course or substantive questions, please post your question on Piazza. For more individualized questions, like those over grades, please direct your inquiry here: [email protected] or visit in-person office hours. Office Hours for all TAs will be located in 1.118 Batts Hall. Contact technical support outside of class at: [email protected] COURSE OVERVIEW Since its founding, the United States has played a central role in shaping the larger international political order. American victories in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War coupled with its support for democracy and open global markets stand at the heart of this legacy. At the same time, external pressures in the form of war, globalization, and the spread of transnational ideological movements have stressed American institutions and shaped an evolving American national identity. This course explores this mutually interactive relationship by examining the making of American foreign policy over the past two centuries more broadly. It explores such topics as American entry into World Wars I and II, the role of Congress in foreign policy making, the construction of the national security state in the twentieth century, competing partisan conceptions of America’s national interest, the Cold War, nuclear deterrence and proliferation, territorial expansion, trade liberalization, nation building, humanitarian intervention, and more recent challenges like terrorism. As part of this broad overview, the course will also explore the moral and ethical dilemmas of many foreign policy challenges faced by the United States. Should the United States ever use torture when combatting its enemies? Does the U.S. have an interest or even an obligation to promote democracy abroad? When is military intervention justified? What is our moral obligation to address global warming? This course fulfills the second half of the legislative requirement for government. It may be taken for credit only once. This course carries the Ethics and Leadership flag. Ethics and Leadership courses are designed to equip you with skills that are necessary for making ethical decisions in your adult and professional life. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments involving ethical issues and the process of applying ethical reasoning to real-life situations. The class is designed to accommodate 800 or more students. The course meets online through Canvas. Students are encouraged to visit http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tower/tech.html to test their computer and network connection and learn about the course structure. ONLINE COURSE FORMAT This is the digital version of the American Government course—unlike almost all other courses offered at the University of Texas, you will be viewing this class online (from the comfort of your own home, library, or coffee joint) rather than in-person. You are expected to “attend” class by logging into the course to watch recorded lectures that have already been posted to Canvas. You will also complete a series of associated activities that accompany each lecture module. There will be two types of lecture segments. The first are the segments that are detailed in this syllabus from Modules 1 through 26. The second are a set of lecture segments that will be uploaded to our Canvas page once a week during the fall semester. These are our “In the News” segments that utilize concepts introduced in class to examine current stories about some aspect of US foreign policy being discussed by prominent media outlets. Questions and participation in class—We will rely primarily on Piazza, our online discussion tool, to interact with students during the course to ensure that your questions are answered. TAs will monitor these discussions and provide feedback on a daily basis.3 We expect that you will treat online discussions as though you are having a civil, respectful discussion with your fellow classmates in the same classroom. Please refrain from using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity. Please do not bait other commenters or personally attack them. Please do not use sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively. And please do not make the same point over and over again. In short, please just respect the right of your colleagues to ask questions and discuss their opinions about the subject matter of our course on the discussion board. Violators of these discussion rules will simply be shut out from all class communications—email, Piazza, and office hours. TECHNICAL AND COMMUNICATION LOGISTICS CLASS WEBSITE. To get to everything associated with the class, simply go to: https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/1146630 You can enter directly from the internet or through Canvas (https://utexas.instructure.com/). To log into Canvas and the class website, you will need your UTEID and password. Once you reach the class website, you can navigate your way to other areas. Some of the most important include: 1. Homepage – The homepage will have links to the Course Syllabus, the technical requirements for viewing the lectures, information regarding technical questions, as well as contact information for the instructors and teaching assistants. On the left-hand side of each page of the Canvas course site are navigation tabs to all parts of the website, including the Syllabus. 2. Modules – The Modules page includes links to the daily Reading Assignments, lecture slides, activities, taped lecture segments, writing assignments, and other course documents. 3. Piazza—This is our course tool for organizing communication over both administrative and substantive questions in this course. 4. “In the News”—This can be found at the top of our Modules