All nation's foreign policy attempts to create social, economic, and political conditions in the world that most favor that nations interests. This thesis outlines the major decision points in U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, analyzing the reasoning behind the decisions and their impact. Recent U.S. counter-insurgency efforts have offered a different justification for intervention, and this thesis explores the authenticity of these new justifications in light of recent terrorist events.

This paper evaluates the United States' decision not to come to Austria's aid prior to and during the Anschluss of 12 March 1938. The uniqueness of this work is the two-front evaluation of both the internal/domestic affairs of the United States and the foreign policy of the US Government vis-à-vis Hitler's aggressive foreign policy. As this paper will show, Anschluss might have been prevented, but at a cost neither the United States nor European powers were willing to pay. The domestic situation in the United States was too fragile, as was the lack of public support for war for FDR to have any leeway in militarily aiding Austria. American, and to some degree European, opinion held that the Austrian question was a European matter, and to that end American domestic policy dominated foreign policy in hopes of reestablishing the United States economy prior to attempting to aid anyone else.

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This dissertation examines the relationship between intelligence analysis and policy formation during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1968. Rooted in a multidisciplinary approach that draws from history and international relations theory, it argues that Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, along with most of their top advisors, used intelligence analysis to confirm their preconceived notions about the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. Both presidents and the majority of their advisors all agreed that while victory in Vietnam would be difficult, allowing the Republic of (South) Vietnam (RVN) to fall to Communism was unthinkable. They filtered out intelligence analyses that suggested the U.S. could not win or that its geopolitical position could withstand the RVN’s loss. JFK and LBJ’s national security decision-making system enabled this dysfunctional use of intelligence. Both presidents relied on an ad hoc system of policy formation in which major policy decisions took place in informal meetings staffed only by their most trusted advisors. Doing so allowed either president or their advisors latitude to expel intelligence officers from critical meetings for any reason. Analysts who became bearers of bad news on the war effort or developed negative personal relationships with any influential member of the administration risked banishment to the policy wilderness. On the other hand, analysts who reinforced their customers’ preconceptions received more access to policy circles. Top Kennedy and Johnson administration officials abused intelligence in several different ways. Ignoring or disregarding analyses that cast doubt on the war effort’s prospects was most common. In such cases, officials favored more optimistic reporting or used their own reasoning. In doing the latter, most policymakers and military officials based decisions on personal insecurity, rigid anti-Communism, previous personal experiences during World War II, and interpretations of history that justified American involvement in Vietnam. They also “cherry-picked” or pulled language from analyses that justified their positions while ignoring language elsewhere in the same reports that did not. And when the war became more controversial within the Johnson administration in 1967, some pro-war officials began openly politicizing intelligence, or pressuring analysts to advance a particular conclusion regardless of evidence. Finally, gaps in intelligence collection and analytic tradecraft worsened the intelligence community’s standing during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Throughout the war, American intelligence collectors were unable to break the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam’s high-level communication codes or recruit any defectors or spies within the Hanoi government. Analysts thus used less reliable evidence, which weakened the reliability of their conclusions. Many analysts did not even cite sources at all. Analysts also used vague language that made their findings appear untrustworthy. All of these factors made Vietnam-era intelligence analyses easier for their readers to ignore. The result was flawed policy and strategy in Vietnam. / History

Americans view neutrality in the 1790s as the far-seeing wisdom of the Founders and a weak power's common-sense approach to a transatlantic war in which it could not afford to get involved. Far from this benign image of prudence, however, neutrality in the Early Republic was controversial: it was a style and paradigm of foreign policy that grappled with the consequences of a democratic politics exacerbated by diplomatic crises. Far from promoting tranquility, neutrality provoked uproar from the very beginning. Intense print battles erupted over sensational exposés of foreign influence and conspiracy, reverberating through the international, national, and local levels simultaneously. Print exposés of foreign intrigue provoked partisan warfare that raised the larger, unsettled (and unsettling) issues of the national interest, the exercise of federal power, and the relationship between the people and their government. This dynamic reflected and exacerbated preexisting sectional fissures in the union, triggering recourse to the politics of slavery. As a result, the politics of slavery calibrated the competing national visions of the emerging Federalists and Republicans, defining the limits of American independence while challenging the ability of the United States to remain neutral. Drawing on the efforts of diplomatic historians, political historians and literary scholars, this work illustrates the mutually constitutive relationship between print politics, foreign relations, and the politics of slavery in the Early Republic. It argues that neutrality was a style of foreign policy that both political parties used to contain sectionalism and faction, and that print politics and the politics of slavery combined to create a dynamic that made that style malleable. / History

During World War II, the United States had worked in a multilateral fashion with Great Britain and the Soviet Union to form the victorious "Big Three." The countries were optimistic that the peace they had achieved would be sustainable. However, after the Cold War began, the United States backed away from opportunities to work multilaterally; instead, working unilaterally to spread democracy and other principles around the globe. On many occasions, the United States has chosen to take action alone, leaving it isolated from other countries. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar system, the United States has sought superpower status and has sought to become a global hegemon on many fronts. Issues such as ideology and human rights have created tension in U.S. bilateral relations, notably with Russia, China, and France. While headway has been made to reduce tension since the Cold War, other issues have prevented the complete alleviation of tension in U.S. foreign relations with the three countries. The United States' pursuit of hegemonic status employing a unilateral approach and isolationist strategy has resulted in much of the tension seen today. While there are many examples, the most prominent example is that of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. This and several other issues are addressed in the evolution of U.S. foreign policy after the Cold War with Russia, China, and France.

This dissertation examines U.S. food diplomacy in occupied Germany. It argues that the origins of food aid as an anti-communist strategy are located in postwar Germany. Believing a punitive occupation was the best insurance against future conflict, Allied leadership agreed to enforce a lower standard of living on Germany and did not allow relief agencies to administer aid to German civilians. Facing a growing crisis in the U.S. Zone, President Truman authorized food imports and permitted voluntary agencies to operate in 1946. This decision changed the tenor of the occupation and provided the foundation to an improved U.S.-German relationship. It also underscored the value of American food power in the emerging contest with the Soviet Union. Food served as a source of soft power. It bridged cultures and fostered new relationships while reinforcing notions of American exceptionalism. Officials recognized that humanitarian aid complemented foreign policy objectives. American economic security was reflected in their abundance of food, and the dispersal of this food to war-torn Europe, especially a former enemy, made a strong statement about the future. As relations with the Soviet Union soured, policymakers increasingly relied on American food power to encourage German embrace of western values. Occupation officials portrayed food relief as an expression of democratic ideals, emphasizing the universality of Freedom from Want and focusing on well-nourished German children as the hope for future peace. American food fostered the spread of liberal democracy but its dispersal also contained communism. This work bridges diplomatic history and food studies to investigate the consequences and significance of the transnational food exchange. Food aid had layered political, cultural, and emotional implications. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this dissertation examines the role of compassion in diplomacy and the symbolism inherent in food to demonstrate the lasting political currency of humanitarian aid. Paying close attention to the food relationships that emerge between Germans and Americans allows one to better gauge the value of U.S. food aid as a propaganda tool. Food embodies American power; it offers a medium for understanding the experience and internalization of the occupation by Americans and Germans alike. Food aid began as emergency relief in 1946, reflecting the transition from a punitive to rehabilitative occupation policy. Recognizing Germany’s need for stability and self-sufficiency Military Government officials then urged economic recovery. Food aid was an important piece for German economic recovery, with supporters emphasizing Germany’s potential contribution toward European recovery. The positive press generated by the Marshall Plan and Allied airlift of Berlin contributed to the growing significance of propaganda in the emerging Cold War. Food relief was both good policy and good public relations, providing a narrative that cast the United States as a benevolent power in a rapidly changing world. Food aid to Germany underscored America’s humanitarian obligations, conscripted emotion into the Cold War, and swayed public opinion on the home front and with the former enemy. / History

International education served a dual function in the American-Iranian relationship during the thirty-seven-year reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. On the one hand, education was the most important component to the shah's project of authoritarian development - a model of rapid socio-economic development predicated on the premise that anti-communist statism, a less vibrant political milieu, and a more forceful role for the security forces would maintain domestic stability, guarantee the westward flow of Iranian oil, and keep Iran firmly entrenched in the American camp in the cold war competition. Iranian alumni of American universities were elected to the majlis, entered the shah's bureaucracy, staffed the Plan Organization, worked in the financial sector, served in the armed forces, joined university faculties, and assumed the premiership. On the other hand, the influx of Iranian students to American campuses spawned debates outside of traditional foreign policymaking communities about international relations, human rights, and development that were quite different from those that took place in the halls of power in Washington or Tehran. What emerged was a coalition of progressive American and Iranian internationalists that rejected the shah's authoritarian model of development, challenged the American assumptions that propelled U.S. ascendance in the Persian Gulf region, and called for the realization of civil and political rights in Iran. These educational networks made the American-Iranian relationship at once the most intimate and volatile of the cold war era. In the end, I argue that international education produced more friction than harmony as proponents of authoritarian development and progressive internationalists negotiated the acceptable boundaries for the exercise of state power. / History

The dissertation addresses the causes and consequences of the 1973-1974 energy crisis. A new postcolonial concept of sovereignty, "permanent sovereignty over natural resources," challenged the structure of the international economy in the early 1950s. The proponents of permanent sovereignty identified the relationship between the industrial nations and raw material producers as a vestige of empire. By gaining control over national resources, Third World leaders hoped to reset the relationship between the developing and developed nations. The concept of permanent sovereignty authenticated new definitions and goals of decolonization and statehood. A new middle ground between U.S. diplomacy and Third World economic thought emerged in international oil politics. Chapters on the 1967 Arab oil embargo, Saudi and Iranian demands in the wake of imperial Britain's Persian Gulf withdrawal, the legal battles over the Iraqi Ba'ath regime's nationalized oil, and the reverberating effects of newly radical Libyan politics, explain how members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) remade permanent sovereignty between 1967 to 1972. OPEC underscored the salience of permanent sovereignty in the international political economy, but it also undermined it. The built-in tension culminated in the 1973-1974 energy crisis. The final chapters discuss how the impregnable sovereignty preached by OPEC and its transnational backers in the New International Economic Order engendered a strategic response from the United States: neoliberal diplomacy. OPEC's cartel politics became a scapegoat for policymakers who simplified and codified neoclassical economic ideas. Market-centered reform developed into an analytical refuge in the political-economic wreckage of the energy crisis. American strategy toward the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations reveal that neoliberal diplomacy became widely influential in U.S. foreign policy. / text