The Domestic Side of Foreign Policy

Abstract

The United States has fought in eight major international wars and one cataclysmic civil war, and has engaged in over two hundred lesser military opera tions. Moreover, the nation has been involved in scores of major diplomatic crises that brought its people to the brink of war before those crises were resolved peacefully. In almost all cases, citizens questioned their government's resort to arms, and in some of those cases, they influenced presidents and their agents either to call off the dogs of war or to end a war without, as President Lyndon B. Johnson once demanded, the coonskin nailed to the wall. People and organizations advocating the peaceful resolution of disputes have been important in America's diplomatic history, de spite the formidable powers of some aggressive presidents, particularly in recent years, and despite the fact that many Americans have not been interested in or knowledgeable about foreign affairs. Peace reformers have been important, in part, because of the unique fashion in which the United States conducts its af fairs in the international arena. In no other