American Foreign Policy and National Security [Paperback]

Paul R. Viotti (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0130400270 | ISBN-13: 978-0130400277 | Publication Date: June 6, 2004

This annotated and edited anthology brings together the documents most closely related to the making of American foreign and national security policy. It focuses on the Constitutional context; the organizational context; strategy, doctrine, and policy; arms control and disarmament; and multilateralism in terms of security, economy, and identity. The U.S. Constitution, Foreign Policy and National Security. Legislative-Executive Authority. The Constitutional Allocation of War Powers. Foreign Policy and National Security in the Executive Branch. Before World War II. World War II. The Cold War. Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Foreign Policy. Controlling Armaments. Spatial Limits: Geographic or Locational Approaches to Arms Control. Functional Approaches to Conflict and Arms Control. Global Organizations. Collective Security and Collective Defense. The Environment and the Economy. Human Rights. For anyone interested in American Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Foreign Policy Making.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This annotated and edited anthology brings together the documents most closely related to the making of American foreign and national security policy. It focuses on the Constitutional context; the organizational context; strategy, doctrine, and policy; arms control and disarmament; and multilateralism in terms of security, economy, and identity. The U.S. Constitution, Foreign Policy and National Security. Legislative-Executive Authority. The Constitutional Allocation of War Powers. Foreign Policy and National Security in the Executive Branch. Before World War II. World War II. The Cold War. Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Foreign Policy. Controlling Armaments. Spatial Limits: Geographic or Locational Approaches to Arms Control. Functional Approaches to Conflict and Arms Control. Global Organizations. Collective Security and Collective Defense. The Environment and the Economy. Human Rights. For anyone interested in American Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Foreign Policy Making.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We bring together in this volume a select few of the many documents that inform the making and implementation of American foreign and national security policy. The choice of which documents include in a single volume and which to set aside is by no means easy. How much to include of those documents that make the short list is another difficult editorial challenge. Although historical documents from previous centuries are included, this collection is not intended to be a comprehensive diplomatic history. Because of the single-volume constraint, our purpose is to provide only a selective documentary record on which to base an understanding of the factors that influence American foreign and national security policy processes, decisions, and actions.

To assist the reader, we have taken the liberty to italicize those parts of the documents that we have identified either as keys to understanding American foreign policy and national security in general or as the main points of the document. Although space limitations preclude reprinting most of the documents in their entirety (except those of particular significance such as the U.S. Constitution and the United Nations Charter), readers may find reading the original, full-text versions of many of these and other documents worthwhile. Indeed, many of these documents also address important matters beyond the scope of this volume's focus on matters of foreign policy and national security interest.

Brief introductions before each document as well as an index facilitate use of this volume. Organized by topic, we have grouped the documents categorically into flue parts and eighteen chapters. We begin in Part 1 with foreign policy and national security aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents related to constituting the American republic. Constitutional interpretations on the actual conduct of American foreign and national security policy are the focus of Part 2-the federal role in relation to states on such matters, separation of powers and treaties, executive-legislative understandings on war powers, and civil liberties in wartime. In Part 3 we turn to actual foreign and national security policy "statements" of lasting or present-day importance, grouped chronologically in five separate chapters (viz., pre-World War II, World War II and its settlement, the onset of cold war, the cold war itself, and the post-cold war period to date). Part 4 takes up a substantial number of arms control agreements in three chapters organized categorically—controlling armaments themselves by institutionalizing qualitative and quantitative measures, establishing geographic (or spatial) prohibitions or limitations, and routinizing various functional measures. Finally, in Part 5 we look at American foreign policy and national security institutions and processes in two last chapters cast separately at domestic and international levels of analysis—one on the National Security Council and the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security and the other on a select few of the international organizations to which the United States has joined or was instrumental in forming—the League of Nations, United Nations, Organization of American States, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and North American Free Trade Agreement.

The editor deeply appreciates the assistance others have given him in this project. This began with Michelle Viotti s early help with identifying those parts of the Federalist Papers that deal with foreign policy and national security. Organization assistance and discussions with Radia d'Aoussi and other students in the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, helped in the difficult process of identifying and then narrowing the list of documents that should be included in this single volume. The editor also acknowledges beneficial discussions with Paul Viotti, Jr., and the encouragement offered by his friends and colleagues-Mark Kauppi and David Goldfischer, as well as the efforts of those who agreed to review parts of the manuscript in which they have particular expertise—Claude d'Estree, Jeffrey Larsen, James Smith, Bernard Udis, and David Viotti.

Many thanks to the following reviewers of this text: Fred Hertrich, Middlesex County College; Carlos Yordan, Visiting Assistant Professor, Hamilton College; Robert Blanton, University of Memphis; and William Kelly, Auburn University. The author found their suggestions helpful. Thanks are also due to Beth Gillette Mejia at Prentice Hall, who originally saw value in this project, and her colleagues, most recently Glenn Johnston. Thanks are also due to Michael Bohrer-Clancy for the production of the volume. Finally, this volume owes much to the love and support over many decades of Linda Viotti.

Paul R. Viotti
University of Denver

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (June 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130400270
• ISBN-13: 978-0130400277
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)