On Understanding American Foreign Policy: Will the Real Explanation Please Identify Itself?

Abstract

Richard K. Betts. Soldiers, Statesmen and Cold War Crises. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977.292 + xi pp. William H. Blanchard. Aggression American Style. Santa Monica, Cal.: Goodyear Publishing Company, Inc., 1978.314 + xii pp. Lloyd S. Etheredge. A World of Men: The Private Sources of American Foreign Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978.178 + xv pp. During the Cold War, analysts of American diplomacy lived in a stable world, comfortable in the knowledge that whatever the roles of public opinion, bureaucratic politics, careerism and the personal predilections of persons in high places, the main lines of American foreign policy could be understood as primarily a response to the aggressive expansionism of com- munism. Observers readily acknowledged that the United States might over- react in some instances, or make errors of judgment on tactical details. But the grand design of American foreign policy—to protest the free world to promote economic development, and to maximize opportunities for free trade and exchange of goods, money, ideas and people—was on the whole admirable, honestly developed, and often generously implemented. If one sought explanations of American activities abroad, one had to look no further than Peking or Moscow. The sources of American foreign policy resided primarily outside the United States; America was reacting to the aggressiveness of others, not launching crusades which threatened anyone.