August 27 2014 Terms Isolationism Uni polar Hyperpower George Washington Balance of power American Century Providential Pragmatic Democracy Elites Imperial Presidency Ideological Is America in decline Washington s Farewell Address United States history is told in two stories The first is about how it was created The second is about how it came to be today the pursuit of world power 1796 Addressed the question as to what side the country should take in the Napoleonic Wars He proposed the idea of isolationism The US had to set itself apart and avoid entangling alliances The key was to remain isolated As vulnerable as the US was it would always be a junior partner in the alliance He feared that they would be taken advantage of by the senior partner in the alliance Traditional practice is to be an isolationist power Today that is still the way the country is During the times that we have acted as a world leader it has been done in reluctance The US was not strong enough to be a part in foreign affairs Concluded the address with his dream of the day the nation would possess the strength of a giant and there will be none who can make us afraid Whether or not isolationism was to be a permanent posture in the United States The situation had changed considerably 200 years after the speech Roughly around 1989 1990 at the end of the cold war Washington could have never dreamed of the power Charles Krauthammer said we had reached a unipolar moment and we controlled all of the others powers in the world We have been in bipolar world where US and Soviet Union controlled relations Before that there was a multi polar world where many countries were in control American hyperpower in 1999 Isolationism has distorted our view of foreign policy August 29 2014 Major Themes Sense of destiny The thought of western expansion The Americans were destined wanted to inhabit the entire North American continent We should be the rulers of both the north and South American continent This was a world mission in the 20th century Views of the international order Americans like this idea of the old world and the new world Dates back to Columbus and the colonial period Crossing the ocean colonists decided they wanted to leave the old world to create a new and better world An idea that we are the leading powers of the new world We were skeptical on how involved we should in the in the international order Should the US be involved in the United Nations or stay out of it We were skeptical of the traditional government as we moved west Wondered if we were going to fit in with the other world powers and the new age form of government Traditional diplomacy vs liberal internationalism The link from the old world to the new world Should American enter the game of the great power and competition Or should it try to change the traditional rules of diplomacy By making things less competitive making international laws should it engage in self diplomacy and peruse its self interests or use its supreme position in the world to peruse better world relations Pragmatism or ideology When American decides to intervene with military in a foreign country should it make these decisions on what is practical or what is in its own self interest or should it operate based off its ideology ideals values Where does the American public stand on this issue and how have leaders stood Democracy and foreign policy In the 19th century we were dealing with a democracy What impact has the democracy had on the pursuit of world power In other countries at this time Foreign policy is based on a view of the highly educated who were groomed to be politicians Everybody else just watches the debates and does not get to decide anything The separate branches of government Main ones we will look at are the executive and the legislative The state department goes through many changes since the beginning Imperial Presidency many are engaged in this subject This is the expansion of the presidential powers over the time of the American government going back to WW1 The president has stepped up and assumed powers that were not necessarily given to him in the constitution It has taken away powers from the legislative branch and given them to the president There s a constitutional imbalance in how they conduct foreign policy We need to bring the executive branch back in line with the constitution OR change the constitution to match what is happening now The Civil War People at the time understood that the outcome of the civil war was going to have very important meanings It was going to have big implications for world affairs If the union could have a victory over the confederacy it would set the US to have a world power in the decades after the civil war It also had big implications for the European powers of the 19th century Great powers in the 19th century Great Britain France Russia Germany In the late 19th century Japan has become a great power The Monroe Doctrine Architects of the Monroe Doctrine o James Monroe and John Adams powers could no longer expand Where ever territories were in the western hemisphere those were frozen and the European At the time the US did not have the force to enforce the Doctrine It showed the vision of what Adams and Monroe had in the future By the time of the civil war the US mobilized massive military forces The outcome of the civil war would have a strong impact on whether the doctrine could be enforced If the union lost the civil war this would have defeated the Monroe doctrine It would have opened to another wave of European colonization The country relied on the north as the production center and the south as the raw materials European powers in the 18th century were very conservative Classical conservative was a favor for monarch as a form of government and a belief in aristocracy Classical form of liberalism favored republics and social equality Abraham Lincoln The last best hope on earth for the whole family of man Talking about the ideological implications of the civil war Abraham Lincoln said that slavery was evil but it was protected by the constitution For the first two years of the war Lincoln said that the south could keep slavery if they came back to the north as long as slavery did not expand American Nationalism People were going to self identify as Americans first rather than Virginians or the like This was pretty popular around the 1860 during and after the war People wanted to stand behind their country Russia and