Join the class online

This session will introduce you to the module organization, structure and assignments. You will become aware of the time commitments you will need to make and the skills you will develop through the duration of the module. There will also be a historical background to the development of the Thirteen Colonies.

The situation changed rapidly with the shock of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, which thrust the US back into interventionist mode with its entry into WWII. This week will also cover the role of the US during the early Cold War, when it had a powerful influence on the structure of global institutions, while undertaking the role as the guardian of the “free world”. The module will explore US occupation policies in Japan and Germany and the policy of containment of the Soviet Union worldwide which marked the birth of full scale Cold War. The class will examine the balance of power issues of the Cold War.

Alongside the containment of the Soviet “Red Menace” there was an aggressive effort to contain, or at least manage, the growth of independent nationalist movements. This occurred during the Truman and Eisenhower presidency, during which the CIA was created and a variety of covert and psychological operations were launched worldwide. In this session we examine these attempts in three continents; including the interventions in Guatemala, Egypt; Syria; Vietnam; Indonesia and Central Africa in the 1950s and 1960s.

The class will then focus on the two presidents who sought to put a halt to the growing tensions and dangers of the Cold War; each in their own way. The aspirational and liberal president John F. Kennedy’s confrontations with the Cold War Warriors early during his administration, and attempts at reaching a reduction of tensions with the Russian Soviets and his encouragement of decolonization in Africa and South East Asia ended after his assassination in November 1963. However, despite his successor’s efforts to maintain Cold War doctrines, the next major president, Richard Nixon, also launched his own efforts at drawing down the Cold War by withdrawing from Vietnam and reaching a deal with China’s Chairman Mao- in Nixon’s case, the interest was more personal ambition but the end result was the same, a thawing of the Cold War and a president who was also removed from office (though not violently but via impeachment).

This week will cover American foreign policy during the Ford, Carter and Reagan periods. This was a decade when U.S. Foreign Policy came home. From the undermining of Carter’s re-election bid via the Iran-Contra crisis, to the collaboration with narcotraffickers during the Contras scandal, there was an increasing blur between the foreign policy goals and domestic political arena. Finally, we examine how this decade also spelled the end of the Soviet Union as a result of exhaustion in the Afghanistan imbroglio and Star Wars weapons race.

This week will explore the what has been referred to as the “Permanent Government”, the “Deep State”, or the “National Security Establishment”. Tracing the roots of the “Alphabet Agencies” from the 1947 National Security Act, we will examine the degree to which a certain consistent framework for U.S. foreign policy can be said to have existed over the post-World War II decades; regardless of domestic party stances or presidential aims. Students will judge the extent to which this has created a bureaucracy that is only accountable to itself and that buries its head into the terms of reference and worldviews that it creates.

This week will explore the influence of public opinion and lobby groups on the formulation of American foreign and defence policy. Beginning with the reaction to the Vietnam War, students will question the degree to which popular democratic opinion can restrain and contain American interventionism. Students will also look at the role of the Military-Industrial- Congressional complex in shaping foreign policy as well as the role of single-issue lobby groups.

This week will examine the shift from U.S. Cold War bipolarism to the unipolar moment following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the spread of U.S. sponsored “Washington Consensus” globalization in the Third World. Students will judge whether the U.S.’ victory in the Cold War has led it to become a “hyperpower” with sole jurisdiction worldwide, or if the rise of new blocs in the 1990s, particularly the East Asian and European Union economic powers, are proof that U.S. obsession with Russia left it open to multipolar opposition and underdevelopment at home.

This week will focus the shock to and reaction of the US political system that was the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The lecture will focus on the political damage to the US abroad of its invasion of Iraq as well as on the domestic political fall out. Students will examine what the impact was of the “With Us or Against Us” Bush Doctrine. This week also looks at the foreign policy record of the Obama administration -. Students will become examine the shifts in American foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly with respect to Libya and Syria and the reaction to the rise of ISIS, as well as US policy in Afghanistan. Students will debate whether there was a coherent Obama Doctrine, and if it has had any successes.

Students will examine and discuss Trump's foreign policy and what Biden's might consist of. Are thesethe presidents leaving a mark on foreign policy, or is are they being dictated to by the foreign policy establishment? Is there a set of united concepts guiding the Trump/Biden administration, or is it looking like an ad-hoc organization? Do Trump/Biden’s actions suggest the weakness of U.S. unipolarism and an acceleration of the shift toward multipolarism? This week students will have the opportunity to review the important and themes and issues highlighted during the module.