American Diplomacy Essay

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While both Europeans and the New American World had differing points of views on how a nation should be governed and seen, their viewpoints crossed-over and meshed into a combination of one. Today that [one] is the American Diplomatic Policy. Europeans balance-of-power system was geared toward eliminating dominance among the European states through stability and moderation. They believed that if they could keep everyone’s self interests at a controlled level then they could avoid power overthrows. In their belief, they felt that individual interests and conflicts would lead to a harmonious good. As the political thinkers of the Enlightenment said, “the universe, including the political sphere, operated according to rational principles which balanced each other out.” 1.
American Policy was established with an idealism of peace. Their inherent struggles were to remain individualized and yet expand their diplomatic views. Kissinger points out that Americans didn’t really want to say they had a foreign policy but inadvertently they did. Americans had the ability and resources to expand across unchartered territory, which led to a more powerful nation. They also had the ability to remain somewhat isolated – as they desired – due to the vast oceans between them and the other nations. They did not believe in the European balance-of-power system and felt that it was not their place to get involved with foreign policy. America had a completely different historical viewpoint. They believed in more of an isolationism and portrayed that image. However, before the two wars, “American benefited from the operation of the balance-of-power without being involved in its maneuvers, and while enjoying the luxury of castigating it at will.”2. With this isolationism and self-benefiting attitude, Americans seemed narcissistic. As the definition says, Americans portrayed “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration.”3. The growing American society insisted, “The principles of ethical conduct apply to international conduct.” 4.This new belief was reflected and interpreted differently through many different presidents – two most notably were Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson. Both men believed that America had a crucial part in international order, but their idealisms behind the way that Americans played this part were contradictory.
The New World’s goals were to expand to create an empire of inter-strength. They believed that peace was spread through diplomacy and Americans needed to expand their diplomacy concepts into greater territories. Americans wanted to represent power to others without really engaging and sharing their powers with the countries outside of their borders. As Kissinger states, “American leaders have taken their values so much for granted that they rarely recognize how revolutionary and unsettling these values can appear to others.” 5 Although we portrayed that we were not going to be involved in war or foreign policy, that’s exactly what we did with our own selfish justification for expansion. We used power over the Indians, Mexico, Texas, etc. to expand ourselves, and without realizing it, made ourselves look like a powerful international force. Our methods reflected empirical power that we diplomatically challenged was not our ideals of government. As Kissinger again points out, America’s contradictory actions not only made them stand out as the beacon of example (that they wanted to be seen as) but also as the crusader (that they did not intend to be seen as). This shaped and changed the international foreign policy that has led up to today.
Henry Kissinger, an obviously intelligent elitist, made a clear analysis of the difference between analysts and statesman – which would help explain the differences in points of view between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger verbalizes that only the truly great statesmen men made great foreign policy, and the
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