American Foreign Policy Research Articles

What’s so Critical About Critical Oral History?

ABSTRACT James Blight, David Welch, and Janet Lang developed Critical Oral History in the 1980s and 1990s as an attempt to expand foreign policy history’s understanding of the past beyond a document-based epistemology. Despite this new method’s incorporation of “oral history” into its name, Blight, Welch, and Lang utilized few methodological or theoretical perspectives from oral history. While Critical Oral History has had a small renaissance in foreign policy history research in recent years, differentiation from political science’s method of expert interviews is still largely absent. In this article, I argue that if international history and international relations researchers are to use the concept of oral history as opposed to expert or elite interviews, it should be an indicator of the type of epistemological assumptions and thus, methodological analysis, in which memory is problematized. This will allow foreign policy history researchers to open a new variety of research questions and analytical foci while also problematizing memory. For oral historians, it offers reflections on intersubjective power relations and opportunities to expand understandings of misremembering, silence, and other key tenets of oral history theory. Examples from oral history interviews with retired Finnish and American diplomats are presented to implement these ideas in what I term a Foreign Policy Oral History method and methodology.

Isolationism as the United States’ Grand Strategy: From the Founding Fathers to Donald Trump

The article explores the characteristic features and controversies of the grand strategy of the 45th president of the United States in the context of the evolution of the US isolationism as one of the main historical strands in the US foreign policy thought. In order to provide a more nuanced approach than the classical isolationism-internationalism dichotomy the author turns to the four schools theory of American historian W. R. Mead. Within the theory framework, the two isolationist schools, i.e., Jeffersonianism and Jacksonianism, are studied in detail. As a special methodology, the author applies neoclassical realism, which allows to determine the impact of domestic factors on the controversial nature of Trumps’ grand strategy. Isolationist ideas are studied on the example of the interwar period when the public debate about the course of the US foreign policy reached its peak. The next section analyzes D. Trump's grand strategy using the theory of W. R. Mead and neoclassical realism methodology. Despite the fact that Trump’s ideology combined Jeffersonian and Jacksonian components, in practice the 45th President gravitated more towards Jacksonian hawks than to the minimalist realism of the Jeffersonian school. The differences from the Jeffersonian school were especially evident in the spheres of defense and security policy. Finally, the resistance of the foreign policy apparatus, opposition of the Congress and the subjective inconsistency of Trump explain the failures in the implementation of Trump’s grand strategy. The author draws the conclusion about the coexistence of the two parallel grand strategies during Trump’s presidency: isolationism and interventionism.

THE INFLUENCE OF US POLICY ON THE FORMATION OF A COMMON APPROACH BETWEEN IRAN AND RUSSIA TO RESOLVE THE SYRIAN CRISIS

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the US has always played the most important and influential role in the Iran-Russia relations. From the second half of the 1990s, one of the US foreign policy priorities has constantly been on the separation and divergence in the Iran-Russia relations, for which the US spared no efforts. Since the synergy of powers between the two countries and their anti-unipolar policies have always been a serious threat to the US hegemony at a global level, by the beginning of the Syria crisis in late 2010, following the Arab Spring, the US interests and goals were directly at odds with Iran’s and Russia’s political and security interests. The goals of Washington in the Syria crisis included: the decline of the Syrian government, the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, and an effort to establish a pro-Western government to eliminate the sole ally of Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and also to prevent Iran’s regional penetration, particularly its proxy groups like Hezbollah. For achieving these goals, Washington has profited from its allied countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, as a front line. The US strategy in Syria not only exacerbated the crisis but also provided a situation in which Iran and Russia achieved their highest level of military and security cooperation in the past three decades. And it was precisely the same incident that the US considered a serious threat to its national interests and policies. Although Iran and Russia have pursued specific and sometimes contradictory interests, in the end, focusing on common goals and threats – arising from the Syrian crisis – they were able to cooperate effectively and take a new step in building a strategic unity.

The American political and academic elite on the end of the conflict in Ukraine

By the end of 2023, the American ruling circles got rid of illusions about the possibility of inflicting a decisive defeat on Russia during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. From the point of view of the American political and academic elite, this conflict is clearly dragging on, diverting American resources from other US foreign policy priorities. According to many American experts and practical politicians, the United States has managed to extract serious benefits from the events in Ukraine, and it is time to limit its participation in this conflict before it becomes another "endless war" for the United States.

The Caspian Region in the US Foreign Policy Strategy

The Caspian Region in the US Foreign Policy Strategy

Three Illusions of US Foreign Policy

The United States, and more broadly, the West, is prone to be surprised. We are surprised by China’s pursuit of hegemony through economic and military means; by Russia’s engaging in the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945; by the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. We think that economic sanctions will fundamentally alter the calculus of our enemies—even deter a potential attack—and we are puzzled when they do not. The recent streak of surprises is not a fluke of history, an unlucky combination of events. This article contends that our surprise is due to a series of illusions that characterize our foreign policy vision. These illusions stem from a mistaken series of assumptions about the causes of political order and about the drivers of political behavior.

Racial Tropes in the Foreign Policy Bureaucracy: A Computational Text Analysis

AbstractHow do racial stereotypes affect perceptions in foreign policy? Race and racism as topics have long been marginalized in the study of international relations but are receiving renewed attention. In this article we assess the role of implicit racial bias in internal, originally classified assessments by the US foreign policy bureaucracy during the Cold War. We use a combination of dictionary-based and supervised machine learning techniques to identify the presence of four racial tropes in a unique corpus of intelligence documents: almost 5,000 President's Daily Briefs given to Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. We argue and find that entries about countries that the US deemed “racialized Others”—specifically, countries in the Global South, newly independent states, and some specific regional groupings—feature an especially large number of racial tropes. Entries about foreign developments in these places are more likely to feature interpretations that infantilize, invoke animal-based analogies, or imply irrationality or belligerence. This association holds even when accounting for the presence of conflict, the regime type of the country being analyzed, the invocation of leaders, and the topics being discussed. The article makes two primary contributions. First, it adds to the revival of attention to race but gives special emphasis to implicit racialized thinking and its appearance in bureaucratic settings. Second, we show the promise of new tools for identifying racial and other forms of implicit bias in foreign policy texts.

The Diplomacy of Whataboutism and US Foreign Policy Attitudes

AbstractDoes whataboutism work in global affairs? When states face international criticism, they often respond with whataboutism: accusing their critics of similar faults. Despite its prevalence in policy discussions, whataboutism remains an understudied influence strategy. This study investigates how states use whataboutism to shape American public opinion across various international issues. We find, using survey experiments, that whataboutism mitigates the negative impacts of criticism by reducing public approval of US positions and backing for punitive actions. Whataboutist critiques referencing similar, recent misdeeds have more power to shape opinions. However, the identity of the whataboutist state does not significantly affect effectiveness. US counter-messaging often fails to diminish the effects of whataboutism. These results show that whataboutism can be a potent rhetorical tool in international relations and that it warrants greater attention from international relations scholars.

US Foreign Policy Beyond 2025

Every four years often signals change in American politics whether the incumbent president is re-elected or there is partisan turnover in the White House. While individuals change and pursue their campaign promises with their own style and appointees, there is much continuity across administrations. Longstanding security commitments in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East with bipartisan agreement on national interests, the sclerotic structure of the Executive Branch, plus congressional, judicial, and international limits imposed on the presidency prevent wholesale change in American foreign policy. Simply, one cannot understand international politics without understanding intranational politics.

Coffee, Ships, and Peace: Brazilian and US diplomacy at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

Coffee, Ships, and Peace: Brazilian and US diplomacy at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

Discursive Features of United States Foreign Policy Phetoric Towards the Middle East

In the contemporary international order, marked by increasing global interdependence and complex power relations, understanding the role of the United States as a global actor is crucial. This paper explores the interplay between American identity, discourse, and U.S. foreign policy rhetoric, particularly in its engagement with the Middle East. Rooted in the concept of American exceptionalism, it investigates the selective and strategic nature of U.S. rhetoric towards key Middle Eastern actors. The research integrates linguistics and international relations, with Critical Discourse Analysis as the primary theoretical framework. By addressing research questions concerning American identity, discursive strategies and their linguistic realisations, and rhetorical selectivity, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of U.S. foreign policy rhetoric towards the Middle East.

Political Campaign finance and the United States Foreign Policy Decisions: A Cursory Look at the Jewish Lobby Group and the United States Middle East foreign policy

The act of providing fund for political candidate by wealthy private individual and group has become a recurrent phenomenon in the United State electoral system. It is a pervasive campaign practice that cannot be isolated from the US politics. Individual and group donate huge sum of money to support political candidate or political parties of their choices. Of greater concern is the ease with which interest group adopts the strategy of campaign finance to influence state apparatus to achieve interest based policy concession. The Jewish lobby group is a loosed coalition of interest group whose primary objective is the advancement of the US- Israel relation for favourable foreign policy toward Israel. It is a prominent interest group with members who are often the richest and highest campaign donor in any election circle in the United States. The group over the years capitalised on the strategy of campaign financing to stronghold the United States Congress and the executive in order to shape the country Middle East foreign policy in favour of Israel. The study seeks to examine the dynamic role of interest group, the link between campaign financing and interest group using the Powerful Jewish lobby group as the basis of analysis. The theoretical foundation for the work is the elite theory postulated by Gaetano Mosca and the Italian school of elitism. Secondary source of data collection was adopted to extrapolate fact that are relevant to the study. The article find out that campaign fiancé is an integral part of the United States politics and cannot be divorced. Interest group such as the Jewish lobby group adopts the instrumentality of campaign financing to advance private interest

РОЛЬ КОНГРЕССА В ФОРМИРОВАНИИ ИРАНСКОГО ВЕКТОРА ВНЕШНЕЙ ПОЛИТИКИ США (НА ПРИМЕРЕ ЯДЕРНОЙ СДЕЛКИ)

This article investigates the role of the U.S. Congress in constructing American foreign policy on Iran by implementing the institutional theory. The author emphasizes the decreased role of the legislative power in U.S. foreign policy decision-making, although the legislative branch has retained such functions as shaping the policies regarding war and peace, oversight of the executive branch, ratification of treaties, and regulation of international trade, including economic sanctions. In particular, Congressional legislative acts on Iran reflect broad bipartisan consensus on the sanctions issue. At the same time, the analysis of Congressional hearings (2009–2023) on the Iran nuclear agreement indicates that the U.S. Democratic Party did not come to a coherent stance on Iran, while the Republican Party’s support for sanctions remained unwavering

Speech acts of American Foreign Policy’s Tragic and Enduring Legacy in the Middle East in Thomas Rick’s Fiasco

Speech acts of American Foreign Policy’s Tragic and Enduring Legacy in the Middle East in Thomas Rick’s Fiasco

ЗОВНІШНЯ ПОЛІТИКА США: МІЖ ПОЛІТИЧНИМ РЕАЛІЗМОМ І ЛІБЕРАЛЬНИМИ ЦІННОСТЯМИ

The author of the reviewed monograph showed the mutual influence of the domestic and foreign policy of the United States. The reviewed book is interesting for its conceptual generalizations and establishment of causal relationships between different stages of the political history of the United States in the context of the history of Americanforeign policy. The independence of the United States marked the emergence of a potential world power. The North’s victory in the Civil War eliminated external threats to the United States. The author considers the period of the two world wars to be a continuation of the process of the United States entering the forefront of the world. During World War I, the United States turned from a debtor country into the world’s largest creditor. The author indirectly considers isolationism to be relevant to that time in the history of U.S. foreign policy. The policy of neutrality was based on American public sentiment. The author of the monograph considers the lack of a common vision of the post-war world, insufficient understanding of the culture of the USSR and the USA, the loss of hopes for the liberalization of the Stalinist regime, and the politics of fear for one’s security to be the prerequisites of the Cold War. After World War II, the United States supported the independence of former European colonies. The Korean War and the Vietnam War were attempts to defend the American vision of international relations. The collapse of the USSR created the prerequisites for the rise of a new world power, communist China. The author of the monograph criticizes Trump’s imperial isolationism. The balance between political realism and liberal values is the key to effective U.S. foreign policy. On the ideological scale between liberal, revisionist, and conservative paradigms of conceptual understanding of the history of U.S. foreign policy, Warren Cohen’s monograph takes a position on the left of the liberal flank with its anti-colonial discourse, criticism of interventionism, hopes for a balance between realism and idealism.

Issues of Teaching Armenian in a Diplomatic Setting (on the Case of American Diplomacy)

Issues of Teaching Armenian in a Diplomatic Setting (on the Case of American Diplomacy)

Atividades do corpo da paz nas grandes cidades da China: uma exceção à filosofia diplomática americana?

Abstract: The Peace Corps program was once considered an unconventional approach to American diplomacy centered on pragmatic philosophy. The iniciative of Peace Corps in China was perceived as an extraordinary endeavor, yet it has been effectively operating in China for nearly thirty years. The volunteers involved in the program have been instrumental in promoting people-to-people exchanges between the United States and China, drawing from their experiences in cultural immersion. The creation of the “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers” path was intended to improve bilateral relations between the two nations. Despite opposition from the U.S. Congress, the Peace Corps has not surpassed the foreign policy of the Untied States. However, when the Peace Corps program goes against the policy between the United States and China , it has to end its development in China. This contradicts the claimed political neutrality of the Peace Corps. Throughout the “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers” program, most volunteers have worked in universities in large cities. Consequently, the cultural adaptation environment for Peace Corps volunteers in China is unique. They are presented with more challenging cultural differences, with relatively lower acculturation stress in their material life. The Peace Corps enables most volunteers to bolster cultural exchanges between China and the United States through active cultural learning support. The development of the Peace Corps project in China reveals no fundamental distinction between its activities in China and other countries. Hence, the “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers” program of the Peace Corps is not an exception to the pragmatic diplomatic philosophy of the United States.

Perubahan Kebijakan Luar Negeri Amerika Serikat dalam Mengatasi Imigran Ilegal di Perbatasan Dengan Meksiko

The United States, particularly illegal immigrants from the Mexico border, is the primary destination country for these immigrants. In addressing the threat posed by illegal immigrants, the US implements foreign policy measures. Research aims to explain the factors contributing to these changes and examine the extent of changes in the US foreign policy concerning illegal immigration. The factors and levels of changes are analyzed using the foreign policy change theory developed by Jakob Gustavsson. The factors of change consist of international and domestic factors, encompassing political and economic elements. The levels of change categorized as adjustment changes, program changes, problem/goal changes, and international orientation changes. The research methodology employed is qualitative, utilizing a descriptive analytical approach and relying on secondary data. The international factors within the political realm include increasing criminal activities, while the economic aspect pertains to issues regarding low wages for workers. Domestic factors within the political sphere involve changes in foreign policy resulting from the fulfillment of campaign promises influenced by political parties, and the economic aspect relates to the declining income of the American population, affecting the average income of U.S. citizens. The observed levels of change predominantly fall under program changes and international orientation changes.

Challenges in Containment: Assessing the Ineffectiveness of US Sanctions on Iran’s Regional Ambitions

The objective of this article is to delve into the topic of sanctions in international relations, with a primary focus on the case of Iran, from a theoretical standpoint. The aim is to showcase that sanctions did not diminish Iran’s regional importance but rather fostered increased cooperation between Iran and Russia. This article critically examines the efficacy of sanctions as a tool in US foreign policy, shedding light on the significant costs incurred due to the exclusion of Western businesses from the sanctioned Iranian market. By doing so, the article challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding sanctions and offers a nuanced perspective on their impact in the realm of international diplomacy.

Negotiation diplomacy in American foreign policy

No country in the world has enjoyed the capabilities of a huge power and technological and technical capabilities that enable it to use them according to the situation and nature of the discharge of affairs in it, which made it the decisive power in international conflicts, and it depends on its attractiveness largely on the values ​​that it expresses in its foreign policy and its style in negotiation, and soft power depends as an element of attraction in mobilizing and cooperating with others without resorting to the use of coercion, and that measuring the effectiveness of diplomacy depends on the ability to employ soft power in achieving the objectives of American foreign policy.