on This is my final blog!! It is crazy to think I’ve been writing in this all year. This class has been so interesting and might I add, had the best professor to teach this material. Meg made class incredibly fun and an overall comfortable class environment! I shall miss all of my classmates, most of which I had the privilege to work with the entire year (RCL 1 and 2).
on It is 1939 at the beginning of yet another world war. The allies and axis powers were at war, and the United States was yet again in a state of isolation.
The United States remained neutral at the beginning of the war after declaring that it wasn’t their fight to get involved in. Despite this statement, the U.S. still threw its support towards Great Britain. Sending them military supplies and any resources they could spare, especially after France was invaded by the Nazis and a large amount of French and British soldiers were killed.
But what broke the United States out of its isolated shell was Germany attacking their supply ships that were on their way to Great Britain, and Pearl Harbor, an attack by the Japanese in Hawaii that left 2,403 killed and 1,000 injured. After these events, the U.S. joined the war and the allied forces won the war by 1945.
Following the war, the United States altered its foreign policy approach from isolationism to containment. With the goal to stop the spread of communism to countries not already under its influence. This method of containment led to the United States getting involved in the Korean War in 1950 and the Vietnam War in 1955.
The Cold War raged on from the end of World War Two until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The cause being the communist Soviet Union pushing its communist influences onto the countries it liberated from German control. The United States and its allies created NATO to resist the Soviets’ presence. The decades-long war finally ended with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, which led to the establishment of a democratic Russia.
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Following the Cold War, the United States has developed four key goals of foreign policy.
Sources:
https://davinciworldwartwo.weebly.com/us-foreign-policies-during-wwii.html
https://www.ushistory.org/gov/11a.asp
https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War
https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/dos/107330.htm
on Hello! Welcome to another blog of American foreign policy through the ages!! Super exciting right? In this post, you shall read about America’s relations with other nations during and after the GREAT war, also known as the first of two world wars.
As you know, the United States remained in isolation for the majority of its early history. Opening up to foreign policy more during the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama canal. But the United States faded back into its prior stance on isolationism when World War I came around. President Woodrow Wilson urged the nation not to become “emotionally or ideologically involved in the conflict”, and the rest of the country was perfectly fine with that. So for the first chunk of the war, America remained neutral.
American neutrality actually is a large reason as to why Wilson got reelected in 1916, with the popular slogan “he kept us out of war”.
But this slogan soon became false in April of 1917 when Wilson asked Congress to give the ‘okay’ to enter the war in order to make sure the world was “safe for democracy”. War was officially declared by the United States Congress on April 6, 1917. Even after entering the war, America remained semi-neutral, not “officially” joining the allied powers yet still fighting WITH Great Britain and France against the Central Powers.
Similar to regretting getting that “super cute tattoo” of an infinity sign with your boo’s name on it (no hate to those who do have it! You look great girl!), the United States began to question if entering the war was a mistake (it was). American citizens faced the backlash of the emotional and economical costs of the war. The war FINALLY ended on November 11, 1918.
Following the end of the war, the League of Nations was formed in 1920. This international organization was created to be a safeguard “help ensure a global ‘permanent peace”
Sources:
https://online.norwich.edu/academic-programs/resources/isolationism-and-us-foreign-policy-after-world-war-i
First Photo: https://www.historyforkids.net/america-in-world-war-1.html
Second Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_League_of_Nations_(1939–1941).svg
on Yes, more American history posts! Yayy!! Forgetting to mention this in the previous post, my civic issues posts will be a little bit different. I will still be following the topic of politics, and more specifically, foreign policy. But with a twist, while other posts may focus on the now, I am taking you through the United States’ history of foreign policy leading up to the policies in place in today’s government. Going back in time and researching policies and how foreign relations developed will hopefully shed some light on reasoning behind the global powerhouse that is the United States of America.
Up until this point in American history, the United States remained a neutral and globally quiet country. But because of this, European powerhouses such as France, Great Britain, and Germany saw the United States as weak and noninfluential in international issues.
Which is EXACTLY why the United States should have hit the ground running with international involvement. The founding fathers and decades worth of leaders should have done as much as they could to internally strengthen the country then move in on foreign relations to avoid being seen as weak.
But thankfully the global perception of the Red, White, and Blue of the United States drastically changed when Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 and introduced his foreign policy philosophy of; “speak softly and carry a big stick”.
Which the United States demonstrated in the Spanish-American war that they were not afraid to do what needed to be done to both stand up for what they believe is right, in helping the rebels in Cuba; and that they will not hesitate to avenge any lost Americans, retaliating following the explosion of the battleship Maine.
Roosevelt’s foreign policy later became well known as, “Big Stick Diplomacy”. The “speak softly but carry a big stick” referred to the United States’ unspoken threat of military power that the American government had no issue using if they needed to.
His greatest use of this “Big Stick Diplomacy” being the Panama Canal. Up until this point the United States desperately wanted a way to essentially cut through the top of South America to avoid spending two months sailing to the bottom of the continent and back up again. 1901 granted them the opportunity to use Panama as that pathway; in return for the United States helping to fund a Panama revolution, and providing a Naval blockade that prevented Columbian troops from setting foot in Panama.
The Hay-Banau-Varilla Treaty was signed in 1903 and the building started! The United States gained control of the canal for $10 million and an annual price of $250,000. Which is absolutely incredible knowing how different that ten million and two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars would be today; $285,714,285.71 and $7,142,857.14.
Roosevelt became the first president to ever leave the country during his term when he traveled to Panama in 1906 to check the canal’s progress. Imagine what it would be like if American presidents never traveled abroad to visit other rulers/government officials.
Ten years, 30,000 workers working ten hours a day finally finished the canal in 1914.
Sources:
https://www.theusaonline.com/history/industrialization.htm
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/sep2/big-stick-diplomacy/
https://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/foreign-affairs
on Benjamin Franklin once said; “A virgin state should preserve its virgin character and not go suitoring for alliances, but wait with decent dignity for the application of others.” Perfectly depicting the United States’ foreign policy, as in its early years as our nation’s leaders believed the United States to be too new and fragile to take on the drama of the rest of the world. This was a naive plan on the part of the founders and especially Washington when he said; “the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is to have with them as little political [as distinct from commercial] connection as possible.” in his farewell address, also mentioning how Europe had their own interests that did not particularly match up with America’s. It was incredibly naive that the leaders of early America believed that they could stay out of the business of the rest of the world; think of it as your two best friends (Britain and France) arguing and constantly pressuring you to take a side and you just keep repeating, “I refuse to take a side!!”
On the other hand, this era of isolation gave America time to improve itself. The United States obtained the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans, almost tripled in size with the Louisiana Purchase, and pushed westward to expand their reach in North America. This neutrality also forced Great Britain and France to acknowledge America as an independent nation, which was a good thing because it showed the rest of the world that the U.S. didn’t need the help of any other country to become successful and soon a global powerhouse.
I believe that the United States should have avoided keeping to itself for the first few decades because things could have gone very badly if a stronger country such as Spain took that as a weakness rather than strength and independence. But in the end, it was an incredibly smart move because it did show the rest of the world how strong the United States of America was on its own and what it could accomplish, simultaneously resulting in other nations wanting to become allies with the U.S.
Sources:
https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/development
https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-720
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-politicalscience/chapter/the-history-of-american-foreign-policy/