{"id":106,"date":"2025-07-09T15:35:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/americangovernment\/?p=106"},"modified":"2025-08-14T20:18:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:18:30","slug":"chapter-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/americangovernment\/chapter-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Revolution and the Constitution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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This chapter dealt with the role of foreign policy and the United States\u2019 position and interests in the international political-economic system. First, it examined the relative weakness of the American colonies as they were pawns in the great imperial struggles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially between Britain and France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, this chapter discussed the development of U.S. foreign policy from the articulation of the Monroe Doctrine through the World Wars and the Cold War. After a retreat from empire and intervention following World War I, the United States became the unmatched political and economic power in the wake of the end of World War II. It led in the creation of a series of political and economic alliances like NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, now called the World Trade Organization or WTO) in order to secure itself (the Realist view) and promoted democratic-capitalism (the Idealist view) around the world in its containment driven struggle with the USSR during the cold war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Soviet Empire retreated from its hegemonic challenge, a multi-polar economic world had arrived due to Americans\u2019 relative decline after the successful recovery of the Great Powers. This was due to American-led reconstruction efforts in the wake of World War II. New security threats like terrorism have arisen, in particular since 9\/11, and America\u2019s unmatched hard power has had to be moderated with its soft power in order to face the constraints and embrace the opportunities of a New World Order. Additionally, the strains of American hegemony have been showing due to global economic competition leading to trade deficits as well as the security dilemmas corresponding to military commitments in the earlier wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  This includes challenge of ending the war between Russia and Ukraine and rebuilding Gaza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the twin problems of global overpopulation with its attendant economic disparities as well as the depletion of global energy reserves have complicated an already tense global environment. And, the unrestrained employment of industrialization\u2019s usage of fossil fuels\u2019 ongoing impact on global warming will continue to test American global leadership for decades to come.  How the United States will respond to these challenges is open to question as prescriptive theories from Realists, Idealists and Neo-Conservatives debate passionately the question, \u201cWhither America in international relations?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Quizzes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n