Ideas and American Foreign Policy

Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor Emeritus of History and International Relations at Boston University. A graduate of West Point and a Vietnam Veteran, he has a doctorate in history from Princeton and was a Bush Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He is the author of several books, including Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, and the New York Times best-seller The Limits of Power.

• IntroductionI. Founding TraditionJohn Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630)Cotton Mather, "Theopolis Americana" (1709)Samuel Davies, "Religion and Patriotism the Constituents of a Good Soldier" (1755)Patrick Henry, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" (1775)Tom Paine, "Common Sense" (1776)Ezra Stiles, "The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor," (1783) Publius [Alexander Hamilton], "The Federalist No. 11" (1787) George Washington, "Farewell Address" (1797)II. Young Republic Thomas Jefferson "Third Annual Message" (1803)John Quincy Adams, "Speech on Independence Day" (1821)James Monroe, "The Monroe Doctrine" (1823)Andrew Jackson, "On Indian Removal" (1830)William Penn [Jeremiah Everts], "Present Crisis in the Condition of the American Indians" (1830)John Ross, "Letter to Congress" (1836)William Wirt, "The Triumph of Liberty in France" (1830)Alexis de Tocqueville, "Conduct of Foreign Affairs by the American Democracy," Democracy in America (1835)William Ellery Channing, "A Letter to the Honorable Henry Clay" (1837)John L. O'Sullivan, "The Great Nation of Futurity," The United States Magazine and Democratic Review (November 1839)John L. O'Sullivan, "Annexation," The United States Magazine and Democratic Review (July-August 1845)Walt Whitman, "Our Territory on the Pacific," Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1846)Thomas Corwin, "On the Mexican War" (1847)Abraham Lincoln, "The War with Mexico" (1848) Millard Fillmore, "Letter to the Emperor of Japan" (1853)Walt Whitman, "A Broadway Pageant," Blades of Grass (1860)Abraham Lincoln, "Gettysburg Address" (1863)III. Toward EmpireJohn Fiske, "Manifest Destiny," Harper's New Monthly Magazine (March 1885)Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885) Alfred Thayer Mahan, "The United States Looking Outward," The Atlantic Monthly (December 1890) Stephen B. Luce, "The Benefits of War" North American Review (December 1891) Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893)Albert J. Beveridge, "The March of the Flag" (1898) William Graham Sumner, "On Empire and the Philippines" (1898) Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden," New York Sun (February 10, 1899)Finley Peter Dunne, "Expansion," Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen (1899)Jane Addams, "Democracy or Militarism" (1899)Andrew Carnegie, "America versus Imperialism," North American Review (January 1899)Albert J. Beveridge, "In Support of an American Empire" (1900)Mark Twain, "Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated" (1900)William Jennings Bryan, "Imperialism (Flag of an Empire)" (1900)IV. Rising Power John Hay, "First Open Door Note" (1899) Fifty-Sixth Congress, "The Platt Amendment" (1901)Theodore Roosevelt, "Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine" (1904)Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (1909)Homer Lea, The Valor of Ignorance (1909)William James, "The Moral Equivalent of War," McClure's Magazine (August 1910)William Howard Taft, "Dollar Diplomacy" (1912)V. Fateful EmbraceWoodrow Wilson, "Speech in Philadelphia" (1915)Woman's Peace Party, "Preamble" (1915)Emma Goldman, "Preparedness, the Road to Universal Slaughter," Mother Earth (December 1915)Woodrow Wilson, "Democracy of Business" (1916)Woodrow Wilson, "Peace Without Victory" (1917)Woodrow Wilson, "War Message" (1917)George Norris, "Against Entry into War" (1917)Robert LaFollette, "War with Germany" (1917)George M. Cohan, "Over There" (1917)Woodrow Wilson, "Address on Flag Day" (1917)Randolph Bourne, "The State" (1918)Eugene V. Debs, "Canton, Ohio Anti-War Speech" (1918)Woodrow Wilson, "League of Nations Speech" (1919)Woodrow Wilson, "Pueblo, Colorado Speech" (1919)Henry Cabot Lodge, "Opposing the League of Nations" (1919)William E. Borah, "The League of Nations" (1919)VI. Interwar United States Senate, "Report of the Overman Committee" (1919)Madison Grant, "Introduction" to Lothrop Stoddard, Rising Tide of Color (1921)Charles Evans Hughes, "The Conference on Limitation of Armament" (1921)Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)Henry L. Stimson, "Letter to Senator Borah" (1932)H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen, Merchants of Death (1934)Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket (1935)Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Chatauqua Speech" (1936)VII. The SummonsCharles A. Beard, "Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels," Harper's (September 1939)Charles Lindbergh, "Neutrality and War" (1939)Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Fireside Chat" (1940)"Step by Step - The War," Social Justice (September 2, 1940)Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, "Statement of Policy" (1941)Charles Lindbergh, "Des Moines Speech" (1941) Franklin D. Roosevelt, "The Four Freedoms" (1941)Henry Luce, "The American Century," Life (February 17, 1941)Walter Lippmann, U. S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (1943)VIII. CrusadeHarry S Truman, "The Truman Doctrine" (1947)X [George F. Kennan], "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs (July 1947)Eleanor Roosevelt, "Statement to the United Nations' General Assembly on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (1948)Henry A. Wallace, "My Commitments" (1948)Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (1949)NSC 68: "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security" (1950) Douglas MacArthur, "Farewell Address to Congress" (1951)Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (1952)W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960)John F. Kennedy, "Inaugural Address" (1961)Lyndon Baines Johnson, "Peace without Conquest" (1965)IX. Challenging the ConsensusGraham Greene, The Quiet American (1955)C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (1956)William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959)Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Farewell Address to the Nation" (1961)Students for a Democratic Society, "The Port Huron Statement" (1962)Barry Goldwater, "Acceptance Speech" (1964)J. William Fulbright, "The Fatal Arrogance of Power" (May 15, 1966) Martin Luther King, "Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam" (1967) Country Joe and the Fish, "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag" (1967)John Kerry, "Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee" (1971)Jimmy Carter, "Crisis of Confidence" (July 15, 1979)X. Grappling with Total WarJohn Cuthbert Ford, SJ, "The Morality of Obliteration Bombing," Theological Studies (1944) Harry S. Truman, "Statement by the President Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima" (1945)Dorothy Day, "The Catholic Worker Response to Hiroshima," The Catholic Worker (September 1945)Bernard Brodie, "Implications for Military Policy" (1946)John Foster Dulles, "The Evolution of Foreign Policy" (1954)Albert Wohlstetter, "Delicate Balance of Terror" (1958)John F. Kennedy, "American University Speech" (1963)Curtis LeMay, "Graduation Address, United States Air Force Academy" (1964)Dr. Strangelove, a film by Stanley Kubrick (1964) [excerpt from script]Ronald Reagan, "Star Wars Speech" (1983)U.S. Catholic Bishops, "The Challenge of Peace" (1983)Carl Sagan, "Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe," Foreign Affairs (Winter 1983 / 1984)XI. The Passing of the Cold War Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "Dictatorships and Double Standards," Commentary (November 1979)Ronald Reagan, "Time to Recapture Our Destiny" (July 17, 1980)Caspar Weinberger, "The Uses of Military Power" (1984)Lee Greenwood, "God Bless the USA" (1984) Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History?" The National Interest (Summer 1989)Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Moment," Foreign Affairs (America and the World 1990 / 1991) Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993)Robert Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy," The Atlantic Monthly (February 1994) Thomas L. Friedman, "A Manifesto for the Fast World," New York Times Magazine (March 28, 1999) Anthony Lake, "From Containment to Enlargement" (1993) XII. Impact of 9/11 George W. Bush, "Address to a Joint Session of Congress" (2001)George W. Bush, "State of the Union Address" (2002)George W. Bush, "West Point Commencement Speech" (2002) Bernard Lewis, "A Time for Toppling," Wall Street Journal (September 28, 2002) Frum and Perle, An End to Evil (2004)Norman Podhoretz, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, Why We Have To Win," Commentary (September 2004)George W. Bush, "Second Inaugural Address" (January 20, 2005)XIII. Dissent after 9/11 Susan Sontag, "Tuesday and After," The New Yorker (September 24, 2001)Barack Obama, "Weighing the Costs of War in Iraq" (2002)Stanley Hauerwas, "September 11, 2001: A Pacifist Response," Southern Atlantic Quarterly (Spring 2002)Immanuel Wallerstein, "The Eagle Has Crash Landed," Foreign Policy (July / August 2002)Wendell Berry, "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States of America," Orion Magazine (March / April 2003)Robert Byrd, "America's Image in the World" (2003)Sheldon Wolin, "Inverted Totalitarianism," The Nation (May 1, 2003) Patrick Buchanan, "No End To War," The American Conservative (March 1, 2004)Peter Beinart, "A Fighting Faith," The New Republic (December 13, 2004) Andrew J. Bacevich, "Twilight of the Republic?" Commonweal (November 27, 2006)XIV. Chastened SuperpowerRobert Kagan, "Superpowers Don't Get To Retire," The New Republic (May 26, 2014)Donald J. Trump, "Presidential Campaign Announcement" (2015)John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "The Case for Offshore Balancing," Foreign Affairs (July / August 2016)Donald J. Trump, "Inaugural Address" (January 20, 2017)Index