How did American foreign policy change with the end of the cold war and the rise of a new context for world politics and international relations?

The American foreign policy change drastically this is because during the Cold War the only threat for the United States was the potential nuclear confrontation with Soviet Union and the spread of communism, but with the disappearance of this super power then the United States had to take into account other potential threats inside the international system. Luis Alexander Montero Moncada, in his text “Politica Exterior de Seguridad Estadounidense en la Post Guerra Fria y el Mundo Post 11 de Septiembre” takes the discussion between several authors like Daniel Kaufman, Jeffrey Mckitrick and Thomas Leney and explains how the foreign policy changed during this period after the Cold War. As I mentioned above the only concern that the United States had was the Soviet Union, but when the Cold War ended everything changed. According Montero the United States starts to take into account issues which are inside their own values as American citizens. Issues like survival, justice, liberty, democracy, prosperity, prestige and promotion of the national ideology start to play an important role inside the foreign policy of the country.

The new context of wor 

how did the us attempt to stop the spread of communism influence international security?

The attempt to stop the spread of communism influenced international security basically because of the foreign policies that the United States took against the Soviet Union. This need to stop communism was led by the idea that the communism was threat to the capitalist system and democracy. Under this idea, the United States started to develop different programs and policies to avoid the spread of communism.

The immediate actions took by the American government were the implementation of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall plan. On first instance the Truman Doctrine was aimed, according to President Truman’s speech, to “help the free and independent nations to maintain their liberty”. Based on this speech of Truman to the Congress, it was important to make some changes on the objectives and the purposes of the American foreign policy. Therefore the foreign policy of the United States was now directed to the defense of the free world and the free countries all around the world opposing to the totalitarian regimes. This speech was the beginning of the containment policy against communism.

Then we have the Marshall Plan, this plan is also known as the European Recover Program. This Plan was established because the United States was concern about that the critical economic situation that Europe was going through would led them to follow the communism model. Therefore George Marshall proposes to give economic aid to Europe. According to Rafael Aracil, the American government had giving Europe a total of 11 million dollars, but this wasn’t enough for the full recovery of the continent. One of the arguments that Marshall gave for the appliance of this plan was that it was possible that this economic crisis will affect the United States directly. The Plan Marshall helped sixteen European countries to regulate their economy but also increased the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union because of the rejection of the Marshall Plan from the Soviet Union.

There are also four other events that influenced in the international security, those are: the intervention of the United States in South Korea, the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the Eisenhower doctrine and the construction of the Berlin Wall.

On the first event, the United States sends troops to South Korea, with the purpose to stop the North Korean government of taking over the country. According to Henry Kissinger, the main interest of the United States was to show to the world that any aggression was going to be punished.

The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was created by President Eisenhower, as a part of the Truman Doctrine. The purpose of this organization was to stop the spread of the communist ideology in this part of the world. For this purpose the members of the organization were going to establish anti-communist bilateral and collective defense treaties.

The Eisenhower doctrine was based on the fact that any Middle Eastern country could have military or economic aid of they needed to resist the communists

And finally, one of the most important events was the construction of the Berlin Wall. This made the division between communists and capitalists bigger and therefore the threat of a armed conflict was also bigger. 

Finally and the most notorious threat to the international security was the missile crisis in Cuba. This event started in 1962 when the United States found that the Soviet Union had installed missiles in Cuba. The Soviet Union argued that this action was taken because the NATO had placed missiles in Turkey. The crisis lasted almost two weeks and it almost causes a nuclear war. 

How were the different programs proposed after Roosevelt’s New Deal tackling the problems created by the great depression?

To answer this question I’ll base most of the arguments on the text “La crisis economica de 1929: ROOSEVELT y el NEW DEAL” from Maria Serrano Segarra.

The programs proposed by Roosevelt during the policies of the New Deal were based on a single policy called the three R’s: Direct Relief, Economic Recovery and Financial Reform.

Also we have to take into account that the New Deal had to phases. During the first phase there were four main programs: the first program was the investment on public works with the purpose to create more jobs. This program was led by the Tennessee Valley Authority Plan. One of the most notorious accomplishments was the creation of dams, which provided cheap energy to the citizens and also encourage the implementation of more fabrics for this and another purposes.

The second program was aimed to the financial sector. The main purpose was to regulate Wall Street. To fulfill this purpose the government took several decisions: the approval of the Banking Emergency Law and the Economic Law. In addition to this, it was created the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. These measures regulated the banking system and Wall Street as well.

The third program was based on the agrarian sector. It was implemented the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This program wanted to pursue the recovery of the agrarian sector which had an overproduction problem since 1921. This Act wanted to control the production of goods and reduce the surplus to increase the prices of the agrarian goods.

Finally, the fourth program was aimed to the National Industry. It was approved the National Industrial Recovery Act. The aim purpose of this act was to avoid the free competition, to maintain the prices, to ensure minimal profits to the entrepreneurs, to eliminate the disloyal competitions and to encourage the creation of syndicates. 

During the second stage of the New Deal the measures taken by the government were measures with a higher social component, along with new social protection policies for the citizens, especially the policies that can ensure the decrease of unemployment.

On the industrial sector, the government encouraged the collaboration of the private companies by giving them economic profits if they stabilized the prices. It was also created the Work Progress Administration with the purpose to create more public employment.

Two more Acts were established: the National Labour Relations Act and the Social Security Act, which were established to guarantee the rights of the syndicalists and the implementation of a federal pension plan for retirement.  

We can see that the programs proposed by Roosevelt were programs that involved completely the state on the decision making of the policies and in the economy and the market, therefore the New Deal policies were taken as a huge success by the American citizens. 

What policy measures taken during the interwar period represent a shift from interventionism to isolationism and how did they affect America’s international stance?

Before I can answer the question I think it’s important to look first at the context of this interwar period. After the First World War and because of the decline of Europe as a result of the war, the United States was seen as the biggest world power of the international system. Some authors as Felipe Pigna argue that the United States was the only victorious country of the war and because of this it had become the first economic power.

After this victory the government of the United States took an isolationism policy, were the Americans didn’t what to intervene in European politics or problems, although we can see a big American influence in the economic issues. One of the main isolationism policies taken by the government were the restriction policies for the emigrants, which gave the result of a drop in the immigration rate inside the United States. Also the prohibition of alcoholic beverages played an important role in this isolationism policy

In addition to the isolationism policies taken by the American government, we can also see that the American citizens approved these policies. They didn’t wanted to support any policy which didn’t affected them directly.

Then it comes the period of the 20’ were the American economy grew substantially. By 1928 the people stopped investing in the industry because there was an overproduction and the products were accumulating and therefore everyone started to invest on Wall Street (stock of commerce).

During this period the foreign policy of the United States had some interventionist policies. This was mainly because this country searched world peace. In an article written by Beatriz Heraz we can see that the United States participated in two international conferences: the Washington conference (1921-1922) and the Geneva Conference (1927).

On 1929 the big American entrepreneurs realize that there was too much money in the stock and that there wasn’t much production. This generated mistrust and they started to sell their shares. This resulted in a domino effect leading the economy to the great depression of the 30’.

Before this crisis the government trusted on the power of the economy and, as Adam Smith would say, in the power of the invisible hand and the self-control and self-regulation of the market. But the crisis showed a different perspective of the market this forced the presidents Hoover and Roosevelt to intervene directly in the economy.

Based on the above, President Roosevelt applied and economic policy known as the New Deal. His main objective was the recovery of the economy after the crisis and the stabilization of the national economy. Therefore his presidential period was only leaded by the recovery of the country and didn’t pay much attention to foreign problems.  

The New Deal policy showed the benefits of the intervention on the market and in the economy and led the United States to an impressive recovery. Therefore President Roosevelt was reelected. During his second period the idea of isolationism policies weren’t as strong as they were on his first period and consequently he applied some foreign policies which were based on increasing the trades with other countries, to solve the problems created by the war between China and Japan and finally the outbreak of the Second World War.

why did the US fight a civil war and in what ways did this country change after it?

The United States fought a civil war mainly because of the differences between the states from the north and the states from the south. The author McPherson in his overview of the American Civil War, as well as Morison in his book “Historia de los Estados Unidos de Norteamerica”, agree that the main differences between the northern and the southern states were economic and social differences. Following to this argument both authors are consistent in that the states from the north were basing their economy in an industrial development, construction of factories and the research and the use of new technologies. Meanwhile the states from the south had an agrarian economy; their economy was based on the work in cotton, tobacco and sugar crops. This also meant a dependence of the northern states because this states had the infrastructure and the technologies so that the farmers from the south could export their products to Great Britain.

The authors mentioned above don’t only look the economic differences; they also argue that there are important social differences between these two parts: the northern states, because of their style of economy, were building a free-labor capitalist society, adding to this the progress that they had, slavery was seen as something trivial for their economy, they didn’t need that amount of labor inside their economy, the fabrics had replace that. Contrary to this, because of the economy of the south was based on the work on the crops they needed a major labor force, which was provided by the slaves they owned.

After this war the American society had some drastic changes inside their society, after the “victory” of the states of the north, there were some important consequences. According to Asimov, the most important consequence was the implementation of the 13^th Amendment to the 1865 Constitution. This Amendment completed the total abolishment of slavery inside the United States. According to a document on the web page of the United States Embassy, this Amendment gave the liberty to almost four million slaves were most of them were located in the states of the south.

In addition to this important change in the Constitution of the United States, few authors and analysts of this war agree that after this confrontation the idea of the United States as an indivisible nation grew inside the American citizens. The idea of the government of not having semi-independent states but a sole nation, was legitimize by this feeling of nation that grew on the Americans. This legitimization gave an important authority to the federal government and gave cohesion to the whole idea of the United States of America.

 

On top of the mentioned above, there were also important changes regarding banking, currency, education, infrastructure, and the idea of reconstruct the devastating consequences of the war. All this new measures were going to be based on the idea of having a nation based on a free-labor capitalism country and therefore the institutions inside the system were going to follow the same logic.

All this conflict and its consequences were very important for the development of the American state for several reasons, especially one in particular: the idea of starting a nation based on the ideology of free-labor capitalism and therefore their institutions would be based on this same logic as well. This would give the first vision for the United States of America to have a liberal point of view on economic issues and becoming the basis for this country to be the main promoter of capitalism, as well as being one of the world powers, economically speaking.

Asimov in his book “Los Estados Unidos de la Guerra Civil a la Primera Guerra Mundial” gives us an idea of the changes in the point of view the Americans had after the civil war. According to this author this change of perspective could be clearly seen in the response this country had on the First World War, were they decide that they didn’t wanted to participate actively in the conflict, and it was only because a major events such as the difficulties they were having on trading issues and the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, they decide to participate actively in the conflict. 

What is the intended scope of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States? Is it an example of an “individual rights theory” or a “collective rights theory?

According to the first question stated above, I think that the scope of the second amendment  its huge. This is because its written as an amendment in the Constitution of the United States. Therefore what its stated on this amendment are the rights of every American citizen. Although it is stated on the Constitution we have to see the context when this was written. This is a law which was written after a war, therefore the citizens had a sense of “paranoia” and they felt they needed to protect themselves from the “tyrants”. At that time it seems pretty logical this decision, but can this amendment be apply to the present day? who decides who are the tyrants and who aren’t?

Now, is it a “individual rights theory” or a “collective rights theory”? I think its really hard to say, because acoording to the amendment its the right of every American citizen to bear arms, but if we take into account all the massacres that had occur on the last few years, we can start thinking that its not a very good idea that everyone has the opportunity to have a gun. Moreover and counteracting the massacres we also have to see how many people have defended their homes or their stores with a gun that they had purchase.

Besides all this, we also have to see the cultural and the economical aspect of the amendment. The American culture is used to have the right to bear arms, therefore its going to be really hard to take away this right. And also we have to see that the gun bussiness its a really good bussiness in the American economy, so a lot of powerful interests are at stake.

What were the effects of American Independence on the establishment of a form of government in the United States of America?

The effects of the American Independence on the establishment of a form of goverment in the United States were several. Among them we have the idea of popular sovereignty, also the establishment of an independent nation wich was based in the “freedom” of their citizens and public safety. I put “freedom” in quotes because this freedom was only basically for white males: women had no rights and also slaves didn’t had any freedom. Among these results from the Amerian Independence their is also the appearance of republicanism and it started the idea of the need to separate the church from the state.

The idea of democracy was also gaining power, although as I said before, the rcitizen rights of voting for elections were only for white males.

What processes ocurred in the British colonies for the establishment of a political system in America?

The processes that ocurred in the British colonies were:

1. The Stuart Restoration: During this process the monarchs wnated to regain power in the colonies. For his purpose, Charles II made America a source for settlements and raw materials. Also, the British encourage immigration from Britain to America, they did this by offering religious tolerance and liberal land system. Moreover they gave legal titles of lands in America and also gave a certain political authority.

Because of the political authority they had, it was implemented a new settler system, in which the settlers had the right to elect and organize assemblies as well as make laws for their lands. Thereby giving certain freedom and ideas of how to establish a political system.

2. Based on the above, the settlers established representative institutions of goverment and therefore a political system.

3. The idea of religion freedomo was very important for the settlers, because some of them were being persecuted in Britain so America was seeing as a new opportunity with tolerance and respect for all the believes of the people. This was a very important fct for the immigration to America. This tolerance also gave the Americans a huge mixture of cultures but they were all unified by the same language (english) and the same political institutions.

3. The last process we can find for the establishment of a political system in America is a economy based in families who were owners of farms. This farms were a type of communities and between farms they trade different resources. As consequence of this economy, the settlements became enterprises which didn´t had a lot of control from Britain

Another importat event, although it didn´t happened in America, it was really important for the estabishment of the freedom the Americans had. This event was the Puritan Revolution. it was really important because this event made sustainable the idea of having a representative institutions without too many control from Britain.

 

What are the effects of colonialism and mercantilism in America?

The main effects of colonialism and mercantilism in America can be seen mostly in the economy of the colonies: the settlements in America were attached to the mercantilism structure, therefore the main purpose was the accumulation of bullion for the home country: this means it was oike a chain of trade were the Americans didn´t had any advantage. This change consisted in that the colonies gave their Gold, Silver, Lumber, etc. to the home country, then the mother country gave the colonies manufactered goods which the Americans had to buy. Another important aspect that we can see from the economy of the colonies is that America was a really important source of raw materials, therefore the British were trying to export as many goods as they can to the home country for their factories.
All this issues plus all the laws that restricted the trade among the colonies gave us one of the effects of mercantilism: the smuggling and the evasion of taxes.

if we talk about govermente we can see that the American colonies had a representative assembly but the British always had the control over this assemblies.