Chapter 14: Foreign Policy

Chapter Review

The Makers and Shapers of Foreign Policy Include the President, the Bureaucracy, and Congress

1. All foreign policy decisions must be made and implemented in the name of the president.
2. The key players in foreign policy in the bureaucracy are the secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury; the Joint Chiefs of Staff (especially the chair); and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
3. Although the Senate traditionally has more foreign policy power than the House, since World War II, the House and the Senate have both been important players in foreign policy.
4. Many types of interest groups help shape American foreign policy. These groups include economic interest groups, ethnic or national interest groups, and human rights interest groups.
5. The media has gained influence in recent years and more than ever serves to communicate issues and policies to the American people, and to communicate the public's opinions back to the president.
6. Individual or group influence in foreign policy varies from case to case and from situation to situation.

America Is Historically Suspicious of Foreign Entanglements

1. Traditionally, unilateralism, the desire to go it alone, was the American posture toward the world.
2. Although the traditional era of American foreign policy came to an end with World War I, there was no discernible change in approach to such policy until after World War II.

The Instruments of Modern American Foreign Policy Include Diplomacy, Money, and Military Force

1. Diplomacy is the representation of a government to other foreign governments, and it is the foreign policy instrument to which other instruments must be subordinated.
2. The United Nations is an instrument whose usefulness to American foreign policy can too easily be underestimated.
3. The international monetary structure, which consists of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, was created to avoid the economic devastation that followed World War I.
4. After World War II, the United States recognized the importance of collective security, and subsequently entered into multilateral collective security treaties and other bilateral treaties.
5. World War II broke the American cycle of demobilization-remobilization and led to a new policy of military preparedness.

Foreign Policy Values for America Today Emphasize Economic Relationships

1. During the Cold War, the world was "bipolar," meaning that it was dominated by the United States and its allies as one pole, and the Soviet Union and its allies as the other pole.
2. After the Cold War ended, the world became more "balkanized," meaning that many new nations and power centers emerged around the world.
3. After the Cold War, economic trade and markets became globalized, opening up and expanding markets around the world, but also causing major economic upheaval in many places.

Links

Norton Website
College Books
Professional Books
Trade Books
Help Desk

About W. W. Norton

W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Margaret D. Norton first published lectures delivered at the People's Institute, the adult education division of New York City's Cooper Union. The Nortons soon expanded their program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton's publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of 400 and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.