HIST 364 The Rise and Fall of American Primacy: U.S. Foreign Policy Since The Cold War
This course offers a contemporary history of U.S. foreign policy from 1989 to the present. It examines why, how, and to what effect the United States has pursued a grand strategy of military primacy, often tethered to the promotion of liberal values. Although a consensus in favor of primacy emerged soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, politicians and intellectuals also engaged in a search for a clear purpose to put behind American power. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the United States appeared to have acquired an unimpeachable mission...only for successive policy failures, coupled with international power shifts, to leave America's world role deeply unsettled and increasingly contested. The course will explore influential efforts to articulate and shape U.S. grand strategy at three distinct levels: those of high-level policymaking, public discourse, and scholarly analysis. Particular attention will be given to the subjects of NATO enlargement, military intervention, the post-9/11 wars, and the rise of China.