The New Imperialism? On Continuity and Change in US Foreign Policy

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 1527-1544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Glassman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Imperialism ◽  
The Cold War

The unilateral militarism of the George W Bush administration has rekindled interest in imperialism within geography and elsewhere in the social sciences, leading some authors to refer to a new imperialism, or neo-imperialism. This paper critically interrogates the notion that the foreign policy of this administration represents a significant break from past US practices, with the use of concepts from Gramsci and Poulantzas to analyze the class and class-fractional bases of US foreign policy both during and after the Cold War. It is argued that there are certain important continuities in contemporary US imperialism and that there are also differences that owe to the present, post-Cold-War context. It is suggested that if this analysis of continuities is correct then the problems and dangers posed by the “new imperialism” may not be as readily resolvable within a capitalist framework as is suggested by various contemporary commentators.

scholarly journals HAS THE US POLICY BEEN MORE ANTI-IRANIAN THAN PRO-ARAB WITH THE FALL OF THE SHAH? A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

2021 ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Ilmi Dwiastuti
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Dynamic Relations ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractSince the fall of the Shah, the US-Iran relations have changed significantly. During the Shah regime, US-Iran experience a warm relationship through economic and military partnerships, however, it changed since the Iran revolution until today. Iran turned out to be one of the axis of evil during the Bush administration. The fall of the Shah also changes the direction of the foreign policy of the US. It then led to the proposition of whether the US foreign policy has been more anti-Iranian than pro-Arab with the fall of the Shah. This paper seeks to answer this question through historical analysis. It examines the US policy during the Cold War era and the post-Cold War. Therefore, the US policy in the region is not always anti-Iranian than the pro-Arab case. The changed regional architecture influences the priorities of the President of the US at that time to put aside Iran's issue, as it happened on George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administration. Thus, the characteristic of the leader also heavily influences US posture in Iran, as Bush and Trump's personality and policies are clearly against Iran. However, despite the dynamic relations of the US-Iran, Iran has always been one of the threats for the US interest in the Persian Gulf since the Shah has fallen.

17. US foreign policy in Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Patman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Africa. It first considers the United States’ historical engagement with Africa, particularly during the Cold War era that saw the intensification of US–Soviet Union superpower rivalry, before discussing the rise of a New World Order in the immediate post–Cold War period that held out the possibility of positive US involvement in Africa. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a more realist approach after Somalia, as well as its renewal of limited engagement between 1996 and 2001. It also analyzes US policy towards Africa after 9/11, with emphasis on President George W. Bush’s efforts to incorporate Africa into Washington’s global strategic network as part of the new war on terror, as compared to the approach of the Obama administration calling for political transformation in Africa.

US imperialism after Iraq

Race & Class ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Harris
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War

The failure of its occupation of Iraq has provoked deep divisions among the US ruling elite over the future of foreign policy. The unilateralism promoted by the neoconservatives has been discredited, yet it is unclear whether the post-Bush era will be dominated by the `realists' or the `globalists', each of whom advocate different pathways for US imperialism. The `realists' — long the dominant trend in US foreign policy thinking — aim to maintain US leadership of the pro-western alliance formed during the cold war, whereas the `globalists', whose economic interests are those of transnational capital, seek to rethink US power within the context of an emerging polycentric world system, the parameters of which remain to be fully articulated. For the moment, there is a disconnect between the transnational economics of globalisation and the nationalist politics of the US ruling class, which remains committed to its belief that America has been uniquely chosen by history, culture and God to lead the world.

21. US Predominance and the Search for a Post-Cold War Order

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter focuses on the United States’s predominance and the search for order in the post-Cold War period. George H. W. Bush, who came to power in January 1989, concentrated on world affairs and had a series of foreign successes before the end of 1991. Bush’s cautious, pragmatic, orderly approach carried both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand he escaped any major disasters abroad and avoided antagonizing the Soviet Union or rekindling the Cold War. On the other hand, he seemed to be undynamic and at the mercy of events — he failed to provide a sense of overall direction to US foreign policy once the Cold War ended. The chapter first considers US foreign policy in the 1990s before discussing the Gulf War of 1990–1991, US–Soviet relations in the 1990s, US policy towards the ‘rogue states’ during the time of Bill Clinton, and ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Somalia and Haiti.

21. US Predominance and the Search for a Post-Cold War Order

2020 ◽  
pp. 503-533
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter focuses on the predominance of the US and the search for order in the post-Cold War period. George H. W. Bush, who came to power in January 1989, concentrated on world affairs and had a series of foreign successes before the end of 1991. Bush’s cautious, pragmatic, approach carried both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, he escaped any major disasters abroad and avoided antagonizing the Soviet Union or rekindling the Cold War. On the other, he seemed to be undynamic and at the mercy of events—he failed to provide a sense of overall direction to US foreign policy once the Cold War ended. The chapter first considers US foreign policy in the 1990s, before discussing the Gulf War of 1990–1, US–Soviet relations in the 1990s, US policy towards the ‘rogue states’ during the time of Bill Clinton, and ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Somalia and Haiti.

scholarly journals Why the end of the Cold War doesn't matter: the US war of terror in Colombia

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
South American ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War

Orthodox narratives of US foreign policy have been employed as uncontested modes of historical interpretation with US post-Cold War foreign policy in the Third World characterised by discontinuity from its earlier Cold War objectives. Chomsky's work adopts an alternative revisionist historiography that views US post-Cold War foreign policy as characterised by continuity with its earlier Cold War objectives. This article examines the continuities of US post-Cold War policy in Colombia, and explains this in terms of the maintenance of US access to South American oil, the preservation of regional (in)stability and the continued need to destroy challenges to US-led neoliberalism.

Unipolarity’s unpeacefulness and US foreign policy: consequences of a ‘coherent system of irrationality’

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haro L Karkour
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
The Social

Drawing on Hans J. Morgenthau, this article argues that a key contributor to the unpeacefulness of the post–Cold War unipolar order was the irrationality of US foreign policy. Post–Cold War US foreign policy was irrational in that it failed to base its strategy on the prudent evaluation of the empirical facts in the social and political context in which it was formulated. Instead, it reinterpreted reality in terms of a simplistic picture of the world as accepted by US policymakers a priori, and sought the use of military force as the sole national security strategy to impose the inviolability of the ideals entailed in this picture. This turned post–Cold War US foreign policy into a self-contradictory endeavour as far as the results were concerned: not only did it confuse desirable for essential interests in standardising the enemy – whether Milosevic, Saddam or Qaddafi – to fit the a priori categorisation, but it also opened a gap between the desirable and the possible. For one thing such an irrational post–Cold War US foreign policy failed to accommodate or annul was the empirical reality of conflicting interests in the social and political contexts upon which it sought to impose its a priori picture. This resulted in consequences that were untenable from the standpoint of US objectives and international peace and security, contributing, overall, to the unpeacefulness of the post–Cold War unipolar order.

2. Theories of US foreign policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter considers some of the competing theories that have been proposed to explain US foreign policy. It first provides an overview of some of the obstacles to constructing a theory of foreign policy before discussing some of the competing theories of US foreign policy, including systemic theories such as defensive realism and offensive realism, theories that accentuate domestic factors like liberalism and Marxism, and a theory that combines systemic and domestic factors, such as neoclassical realism and constructivism. The chapter also revisits the theoretical debate over the origins of the Cold War and concludes by analysing the debate on the most appropriate grand strategy that the United States should follow in the post-Cold War era, with particular emphasis on, primacy, liberal internationalism, and offshore balancing.

scholarly journals Os contornos da estratégia imperial da política externa dos Estados Unidos no pós-Guerra Fria: uma leitura crítica

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-389
Author(s):  
Leandro Carlos Dias Conde
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War

O artigo apresenta a política externa dos Estados Unidos como continuidade do período da Guerra Fria. Objetiva-se analisar a política externa dos Estados Unidos no pós-Guerra Fria como continuidade, tendo ela se tornado mais violenta em um contínuo crescente do poder dos EUA na ordem global desde o fim da Guerra Fria. Para tanto, assumimos uma postura crítica buscando analisar os fatos históricos mobilizados em relação ao papel dos EUA nesse período. Portanto, pretende-se analisar os novos contornos do sistema internacional no pós-Guerra Fria em relação ao papel de superpotência dos Estados Unidos. Discutindo o papel dos EUA nesse período, assim como o seu papel na economia política internacional do pós-Guerra Fria, como instrumento de política externa, no sentido de manter e estender o seu poderio.   Abstract: This paper presents US foreign policy as a continuation of the Cold War period. It aims to analyze US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era as a continuation, having become more violent in a steadily growing US power in the global order since the end of the Cold War. To do so, we took a critical stance to analyze the historical facts mobilized in relation to the role of the United States in this period. Therefore, we intend to analyze the new contours of the international system in the post-Cold War period in relation to the role of the United States as a superpower. Discussing the role of the United States in this period, as well as its role in the post-Cold War international political economy, as an instrument of foreign policy, to maintain and extend its power. Keywords: Foreign Policy; United States; Cold War; Post Cold War.     Recebido em: agosto/2017 Aprovado em: maio/2018

The dangers of US interventionism

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan P. Dobson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Both policy articles about US post-Cold War foreign policy and the recent rhetoric of US policymakers appears to be slipping back into the language of the ‘arrogance of power’, against which Senator Fulbright warned America in the 1960s. In what follows, the USA's style of foreign policy; its criteria for intervention; its invasion of Panama; its capabilities; its intervention in Bosnia; and the impact of contending theories about changes in the international sphere will be examined with a view to casting some light on how the USA has responded to the world outside its boundaries after the Cold War. Finally, in the light of Senator Fulbright's criticisms of US interventionism in the recent past, the essay draws towards its conclusion by specifically addressing the key questions of the whens, whys and wherefores of US intervention into and exits from international crises. It explores some of the problems posed by continuity and change in the struggle to adjust US foreign policy to a non-Cold War world and examines the wisdom of enthusiastic calls for the US to spread democracy abroad.

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