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Foreign Poicy
Exam 1
38
Political Studies
Undergraduate 2
03/08/2006

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Term
Domino Theory
Definition
-20th Century foreign policy theory

-if one land in a region came under the influence of Communists, then more would follow in a domino effect

-Originally used by Eisenhower in 1954 to describe the prospects of communist expansion in Asia if Indochina were to fall, all of south east asia could fall

-Used by US during Cold War to justify intervention in Vietnam

Term
NSC 68
Definition
--A joint review of American security policy asked for by Truman, it pointed to Mao's victory in China and postulated that since the USSR had just acquired nuclear weapons, communist military aggression around the world would be relentless. It argued the only deterrence the US could use against communist agression was to develop its own large conventional and nuclear forces

--Written in 1950 by Paul Nitze, during Truman presidency

--argued Soviet Union had strategy aimed at the spread of Communism across the entire world, recommended that US adopt a policy of containment to stop the further spread of Communism

--'blue print' for Cold War

--Called for massive buildup and increase in military spending, active containment to stop communist spread, and aggresive miltary preparedness

Term
SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative)
Definition
--STAR WARS

--Proposed by Reagan in 1983

--Sytem to use ground and space based systems to protect US from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles

--Focused on strategic defense rather than strategic offense doctrine of MAD

--Never implemented, led to ABM systems of today

Term
Institutional Fragmentation
Definition
--due to the structural arrangements of the US government and the requirement for a government of seperate institutions that leads to friction among the branches over the conduct of foreign policy due to having too many parts in the policy making machinery

--Critics complain there are 535 would be secretaries of state on capitol hill, along with too many committee hearings that sap the time and energy of the real secretary of state, as well as too many laws that require the executive branch to report to Congress on foreign policy too often.

Term
Nixon's Grand Strategy
Definition
--His foreign policy that would rectify the situation he came into when elected

--Focused on detente with the Soviet Union, improved relations with China, and withdrawl from Vietnam

Term
Monroe Doctrine
Definition

--Monroe, 1823

--A Defining moment in foreign policy of the US

--Proclaimed US stance that european powers should no longer colonize Americas or interfere with sovereign nations in Americas

--In return US was to stay neutral in wars between European powers, or between European powers and its colonies, unless colony were in the Americas

Term
Truman Doctrine
Definition

--Proclaimed by Truman in 1947 amid Greek Civil War crisis

--US was prepared to send any money, equipment or military force to countries which were threatened by the communist government THUS offered assistance to countries resisting communism.

--response to perceived aggression by the Soviet Union

--US foreign policy towards USSR shifted to that of containment

Term
Roosevelt Corollary
Definition

--Amendment to Monroe Doctrine by TR

--Considered Latin America as an agent for expanding US commercial interests in the region, and keeping out European hegemony

--Basis for a use of economic and military hegemony to make the US dominant power in Western Hemisphere

--Allowed US to interven in latin american countries foreign affairs if they are unable to safeguard US investments in the region, or their own

Term
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
Definition

--Created at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944

--Part of a post WWII reconstruction plan established to stabilize exchange rates among major currencies and set their value in terms of the dollar and gold.

--The international organization entrusted with overseeing the global financial system by monitoring exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering technical and financial assistance when asked

--Stated objectivee: to advise and promote financial stability

Term
Fourteen Points
Definition

--Points of post WWI reconstruction delivered in a speech by Wilson in 1918

--Wilson argued for post war world with "open covenants" that were "openly arrived at", universal freedom of navigation on the high seas, the removal of tariffs and creation of equal trading opportunities for all, smaller militaries, self-determination for national minorities in europe, and an end to colonialism.

--Reached for high ideals, precursor to the League of Nations

--Post-war reconstruction of Euroe adopted only a few of the points

Term
World Bank
Definition

--Created at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944

--Mission: to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world

--A group of five international organizations responsible for providing finance and advice to countries for the purposes of economic development and poverty reduction, and for encouraging and safeguarding international investment

--Activities are focused on developing countries in such fields as human development (education, health), agriculture and rural development (e.g. irrigation, rural services), environment (e.g. pollution reduction, establishing and enforcing regulations), infrastructure (e.g. roads, urban regeneration, electricity), and governance (e.g. anti-corruption, legal institutions development). It provides loans at preferential rates to member countries, as well as grants to the poorest countries.

--Five agencies: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), International Development Association (IDA), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Term
American Exceptionalism
Definition
--The view that the US was somehow different from other countries sometimes

--Coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831

--Historically referred to as the perception that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its unique origins, national credo, historical evolution, and distinctive political and religious institutions

--Presence of unique traits in the United States, such as a tradition of anti-authoritarianism, individualism, the failure of socialist parties, the geographical separation of The Americas from the rest of the world, and high levels of religious influence, particularly Christianity, that do not correlate with national characteristics in either the similarly developed nations of Western Europe and Scandanavia, or in communist states or the Marxist-influenced populations of Latin America.

Term
Berlin Blockade/airlift
Definition
--Began in 1948 as the Soviet Union cut off Western access to the divided city and tried to prevent the Western powers from issuing a new currency in their zones of Germany. The US responded with the Berlin airlift, during wich American military planes supplied all the needs of the residents of Berlin until the blockade was finally lifted in 1949.

--One of the first major crises of the Cold War, occurred from June 24, 1948 - May 11, 1949

--Soviet Union blocked Western railroad and street access to West Berlin.

--Crisis abated after the Soviet Union did not act to stop American, British and French airlifts of food and other provisions to the Western-held sectors of Berlin following the Soviet blockade.

--The Berlin Airlift was one of the biggest airlifts in history, transferring supplies to 2.2 million inhabitants of Western Berlin over 324 days btw 1948-49

Term
Gunboat Diplomacy
Definition
--The threat to use naval force to enforce a policy

--Refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power—implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare, should terms not be agreeable to the superior force

--Considered form of hegemony

--Examples: Roosevelt's big stick diplomacy was later superseded by dollary diplomacy.

Term
Sandinistas
Definition

--Members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a leftist political party that ruled Nicaragua for roughly 12 years from 1979 to 1990

--After emerging victorious from a brief civil war it formed the government of Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990, during which time it faced heavy opposition from the United States due to its Marxist ideology and its military alliance with communist bloc countries such as the Soviet Union and Cuba. It organized - and lost - the February 25, 1990 elections and peacefully surrendered power

--Marxist-Leninist based, and like many Communist groups began to present its struggle as a "movement for national liberation" against the US back Somoza family dictatorship

Term
Open Door Policy
Definition
--The maintenance in a certain territory of equal commercial and industrial rights for the nationals of all countries

--First advanced by US as a specific policy in treaties concluded with China after the Opium War (1839-42)

Term
United Nations Security Council
Definition

--The most powerful organ of the United Nations

--The most powerful organ of the United Nations

--Has the power to make decisions (Security Council Resolutions) which member governments must carry out under the United Nations Charter, other organs can only make recommendations.

--President rotated and lasts for one month --Two categories of membership: Permanent Members and Elected Members --Five Permanent Members originally drawn from victourious powers of WWII: China, Russia, France, UK, and the USA

--Five members Security Council Resolutions

--Each permanent member has veto powers that can void any resolution and outweighs any majority

Term
Lend -Lease Program
Definition

--Began in March 1914, nine months before the US entered the war in December 1941

--A program of the United States Federal government during World War II which enabled the United States to provide the Allied nations with war material while the US was still officially a neutral country

--The first large step away from American isolationism and towards international involvement since the end of WWI

--Its a revision to the Cashy and Carry program that failed when Allied countries ran out of cash and transportation

--A critical factor in the eventual success of the Allies in World War II, particularly in the early years when the United States was not directly involved and the entire burden of the fighting fell on other nations

Term
Reforms Under Gorbachev
Definition
--US-Soviet relations improved dramatically as he introduced reforms in Soviet domestic, foreign, and military policies that transformed the USSR, intended to address its problems, led to end of the Cold War and the demise of the USSR

--Leader of Soviet Union (1985-1991)

--His attempts at reform led to the end of the Cold War, but also caused the end of the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union

--He tried to reform the stagnating Communist Party and the state economy by introducing "openness", "restructuring", and "acceleration" of economic development

--He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Term
Zimmerman Telegram
Definition

--A coded telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on January 16, 1917, to the German ambassador in Mexico at the height of World War I

--It instructed the ambassador to approach the Mexican government with a proposal to form an alliance against the United States

--It was intercepted and decoded by the British and its contents hastened the entry of the United States into World War I

Term
Massive Retaliation
Definition
--A military doctrine in which an entity commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.

--The aim of this strategy is to deter an adversary from performing the initial attack

--For it to work, it must not only be publically announced, but the adversary must believe that the entity announcing the policy has the capability and is willing to go through with it in the event of the attack.

--Based on the west's increasing frustration at its inability to dominate in wars like Korea with conventional strategies

--By relying on large nuclear arsenal Eisenhower believed convential forces could be reduced while still maintaining military prestige and power

--Raised tensions with Soviet bloc, had little practical effects, encouraged massived first strike.

--Led to mutural assured destruction doctrine

--Abandoned by JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis in favor of flexible response

Term
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Definition
--President Herbert Hoover signed the act into law on June 17, 1930

--It raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels, and, in the opinion of many economists, protracted or even initiated the Great Depression

--As countries resorted to protectionism, the general amount of international trade radically decreased, causing the world economy to slow.

Term
state-supported terrorism
Definition
--A political term used to refer to finance and bounties given across international boundaries to terrorist organizations and the families of deceased militants for the purpose of conducting or rewarding attacks on civilians

--believed to produce strategic results where the use of conventional armed forces is not practical or effective

--In Western politics: certain politics and finance in the Arab world, i.e. politics and finance used to promote terrorism rooted in ideological Islamic nationalism amongst various radical Islamist militant groups.

--Intentions: Destabilisation of a target state, Creation of international visibility for a persistent problem, Acts of retaliation against a target state, and/or Attempts to promote a state's interests

Term
Good Neighbor Policy
Definition
--The policy of FDR's administration in relation to Latin America during 1933-45

--Established lessesned military intervention

--Moved from the U.S. intervention of previous decades in pursuit of hemispheric solidarity against external threats

--The policy was not explicitly contrary to the Roosevelt Corollary which it effectively superseded, but its tone foreshadowed a more co-operative approach to the resolution of hemispheric problems.

Term
Iran-Contra affair
Definition
--A mid-1980s political scandal in the United States

--Reagan's administration sold arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, as Americans were being held hostage in Lebanon by Hezbollah, a militant Shi'a organization loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini

--The generated large amounts of cash that became a problem since the activity was not authorized by congress

--Both the sale of weapons to Iran and the funding of the Contras violated stated administration policy and legislation passed by the Congress.

--Hezbollah took new hostages as they released old ones, producing no results

--Contras: right-wing guerrillas engaged in an insurgency against the Socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua

--Reagan supported the Contras out of a conviction that all of Latin America was in great peril due to the actions of populist local political movements

Term
Appeasement (after the Munich Conference)
Definition

--A strategic maneuver, based on either pragmatism, fear of war, or moral conviction, that leads to the known acceptance of imposed conditions in lieu of armed resistance

--France and USSR were unprepared for war, an election year for France with a weak leader, and USSR questioned capital alliances

--No Western Europe powers wanted war: severely overestimated Hitler's military ability at the time and thought they had fallen behind

--Reasons why the British government appeased Hitler and gave Sudentland to Germany: Memories of the First World War, Fear of strategic bombing, The flaws of the Treaty of Versailles, The Communist threat, Failure to recognise the evil of Nazism, Support for the League of Nations, Support for the League of Nations, and The Economic Impact of World War I.

Term
Detente
Definition
--French for relaxation

--A general reduction in the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and a weakening of the Cold War, occurring from the late 1960s until the start of the 1980s

--US economy in trouble due to Vietnam and Arms Race unsustainable for USSR

--Generally, it may be applied to any international situation where previously hostile nations not involved in an open war "warm up" to each other and threats de-escalate

Term
League of Nations
Definition
--An international organization founded after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.

--Goals: disarmament; preventing war through collective security; settling disputes between countries through negotiation and diplomacy; and improving global welfare

--Lacked an armed force of its own and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, which they were often very reluctant to do

--Ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis Powers in the 1930s, replaced by the UN after WWII

--Impetus for the founding of the League came from Democratic U.S. President Woodrow Wilson although the United States never joined the League of Nations

--philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought

--Old philosophy: Europe as a shifting map of alliances among nation-states, creating a balance of power maintained by strong armies and secret agreements

--New philosophy: creating a balance of power maintained by strong armies and secret agreements

Term
German Unification
Definition
--Took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of East Germany(GDR) were incorporated with West Germany(FRG)

--The advent of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 caused waves of reform to propagate throughout the Eastern bloc, presenting an opportunity for change in East Germany

--After the GDR's first free elections on 18 March 1990, negotiations between the GDR and FRG culminated in a Unification Treaty

Term
Marshall Plan
Definition
--The primary plan of the United States for the reconstruction of Europe following World War II, $13 billion was given by the US, which was the basis of European economic recovery

--Named after US Secretary of State George Marshall, meeting of participating European states took place in 1947 and ran for four fiscal years

--By the time the plan had come to completion, the economy of every participant state, with the exception of Germany, had grown well past prewar levels

--Long been seen as one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased tariff trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level.

Term
Democratic Peace
Definition
--the theories that democracies rarely if ever went to war with other democracies

--a theory in international relations, political science, and philosophy which holds that democracies—specifically, liberal democracies—never or almost never go to war with one another. It can trace its philosophical roots to Immanuel Kant

--Some theories of democratic peace also hold that lesser conflicts are rare between democracies, or that violence is in general less common within democracies, or that there is also peace between oligarchies

Term
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
Definition
--functioned as the precursor to the World Trade Organization trading system.

--Created at the Bretton Woods Meetings in 1944

--setting out a plan for economic recovery after World War II, by encouraging reduction in tariffs and other international trade barriers

--Creation of the WTO made in GATT in 1995

Term
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)
Definition
--a free trade agreement among Canada, the United States, and Mexico, went into effect on January 1, 1994.

--called for immediately eliminating duties on half of all U.S. goods shipped to Mexico and gradually phasing out other tariffs over a period of about 14 years

--also used to refer to the tripartite trading bloc of North American countries.

Term
MAD (Mutual assured destruction)
Definition
--the doctrine of military strategy in which a full scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender

--It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons

--The strategy is effectively a form of Nash Equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome--Nuclear Annihilation.

--The payoff of this doctrine is expected to be a tense but stable peace.

--The primary application of this doctrine occurred during the Cold War (1950s to 1990s) in which MAD was seen as helping to prevent any direct full-scale conflicts between the two power blocs while they engaged in smaller proxy wars around the world. It was also responsible for the arms race, as both nations struggled to keep nuclear parity, or at least retain second-strike capability.

Term
Levels of Analysis
Definition
--State to state: level of analysis is that the state is an entity unto itself and will act as it chooses to act

--Government to government: this level of analysis takes into account that internal governmental issues drive how a state relates with another state. The head of government may not be getting along with the legislative branch and therefore may act according to this schism

--personal level: this is a very complex level of analysis and borders on the fields of psychology and social psychology. This level takes into account the personalities that are in the government as individuals and the influence those individuals have or may have on the internal process of that state and therfor how that state relates with other states

Term
WTO
Definition
Charged with overseeing world trade, adjudicating trade disputes, and lowering tariffs and other barriers to trade.

Became operational in 1995 and superceded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Claims that not all nations are treated equally, criticized as a tool of multinational corporations, and an enemy of the environment.

Term
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)
Definition
    --a free trade agreement among Canada, the United States, and Mexico, went into effect on January 1, 1994.

    --called for immediately eliminating duties on half of all U.S. goods shipped to Mexico and gradually phasing out other tariffs over a period of about 14 years

    --also used to refer to the tripartite trading bloc of North American countries.

Term
Domino Theory
Definition
    -20th Century foreign policy theory.

    -if one land in a region came under the influence of Communists, then more would follow in a domino effect

    Originally used by Eisenhower in 1954 to describe the prospects of communist expansion in Asia if Indochina were to fall, all of south east asia could fall

    Used by US during Cold War to justify intervention in Vietnam

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