When the first Nixon Administration took office, all the main conditions that make foreign policy innovation likely were present in an acute form: a combination of external and domestic crises coupled with widespread political self-doubt and unrest. There were essentially two alternatives for the new Administration: First, to implement a 'holding operation' that would preserve the key features of the conservative-realist definition of the US national interest, but would also include tactical adjustments to a changed environment that demanded - at least temporarily -a more differentiated policy of global containment. The second option open to the Nixon-Kissinger team was to set in motion a process of redefinition of the prevailing notions of national interest and security, and of the objectives of US foreign policy, questioning the basic (conservative-realist) ideological presuppositions that had guided this policy until the Vietnam debacle, and also the role played by the 'liberal' ideological discourse as a legitimating device disconnected from US actions - particularly in the Third World. The central thesis of the study is that substantial ideological innovation - not merely a change in tactics - was feasible and also necessary at the time in order to avoid a repetition of costly mistakes, to relate the US to emerging forces in world politics, and to restore an equilibrium between the ethical values that give cohesion to a free society and its actions abroad. Kissinger brought to office a conceptual framework that allowed him to impose significant coherence upon US foreign policy, but which also made it extremely difficult for him and Nixon to introduce the ideological innovations called for by the Vietnam experience. In this study four themes intertwine: (1) a consideration of the nature and functions of ideology in politics; (2) a characterization of US foreign policy ideology; (3) a discussion of the problem of innovation in the field of foreign policy; (4) an analysis of Kissinger's political thought and the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy strategy. The conclusion is reached that under Nixon and Kissinger the conservative-realist aspect of US foreign policy ideology reached a higher point of political maturity and sophistication, without in any fundamental sense deviating from the assumptions about US aims and security interests that took America into Vietnam.

The oil shocks of the 1970s, initiated by the first Arab oil embargo in 1973, stunned the industrialized world. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) controlled a resource that was vital to the national well-being and national security of America and its allies. In the United States, gas lines formed as Americans waited for increasingly costly and scarce fuel. Europeans realized that the energy shortages, which they originally believed to be short-term, might permanently change their lives. This dissertation places the historical debate about the effectiveness of domestic and foreign energy policy within the framework of the global transformations taking place at the end of the twentieth century. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and the advent of petrodollars on world currency markets, the emergence of the Soviet Union as an oil exporter, the rise of OPEC as a regulator of oil prices and the consequent decline in the power of the seven major multinational oil companies, and the growth of a global environmental movement, all contributed to the shifting interplay of forces confronting the United States and its allies in the late twentieth century and shaped the debate over national and international energy policy. America's efforts to work with its allies to develop a cohesive national and international energy policy fell victim to the struggle between political autonomy and interdependence in an era of globalization. The allied response to the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan highlighted these conflicts within the alliance.

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This study analyzes recent developments in U. S.- Iranian relations during the Nixon administration and attempts to portray the principal objectives of the United States and Iran vis-a-vis each other. Complex Interdependence is the model for development of the arguments. Due to the circumstances, however, the study substantially draws on Realism as well. Chapter I discusses methodology. Chapter II focuses on the Nixon Doctrine and its impact on U. S.-Iranian relations. Chapter III discusses the evolution of mutual interests between the two nations in the Gulf area. Chapter IV drawing on the previous chapters, concludes that an interdependent relation between the two nations has developed to the extent that in some areas policy of one nation would have an impact on the other, i.e., increase in the price of oil.

Under 1960 och 1970-talen grep militären makten i en rad latinamerikanska länder. Uruguays förvandling från ”Sydamerikas Schweiz” till en av de hårdaste diktaturerna i regionen skedde inte i isolering utan under en längre process där utomstående aktörer även spelade en avgörande roll. Denna uppsats använder en rad nyligen offentliggjorda amerikanska och brasilianska dokument för att visa hur dessa två länder, ibland på egen hand och ibland med viss koordinering, påverkade Uruguay under den kritiska perioden då landets militär tog makten i landet. / During the 1960s and 1970s, the military seized power in several Latin American countries. Uruguay's transformation from "the Switzerland of South America" to one of the harshest dictatorships in the region did not happen isolation, but during a longer process in which outside actors also played a crucial role. This essay uses a range of recently declassified American and Brazilian documents to demonstrate how these two countries, sometimes independently and sometimes with some coordination, influenced Uruguay during the critical period when the country's military took control of the country.

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