A Faustian Foreign Policy from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush: Dreams of Perfectibility

Joan Hoff0521879051, 9780521879057, 9780511370991, 9780521714044, 0521714044

Professor Joan Hoff’s A Faustian Foreign Policy: Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush critiques U.S. foreign policy during this period by showing how moralistic diplomacy has increasingly taken on Faustian overtones. As long as the ideological outcome of the Cold War remained in doubt, there was little reason for presidents or government decision makers to question the unethical aspects of U.S. relations with the rest of the world or the universal and exceptional nature of American values. September 11 allowed the United States to assert its exceptionalism and dominance more unilaterally than ever before.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Contents……Page 7
Dedication……Page 9
Introduction: Toward a Faustian Diplomacy……Page 11
American Exceptionalism……Page 12
The Problems with Democracy and Capitalism……Page 15
Independent or Unilateral Internationalism……Page 17
“Good” and “Bad” Wilsonianism……Page 19
Adopting the Tactics of the Enemy during the Cold War……Page 22
The United States as a Virtuous Empire……Page 24
Moralism and Ethics……Page 27
1 The United States Forms and Refines Its Diplomacy……Page 32
The Monroe Doctrine……Page 34
Nationalism, Self-Determination, and Democracy……Page 36
Denials of Self-Determination……Page 38
Economic Sea Changes……Page 40
Presidential Leadership and Power……Page 42
Wilson and Intervention into Latin America……Page 45
The Roots of Wilson’s Views……Page 47
Wilson’s Views before World War I……Page 49
Wilson Does an About-Face……Page 51
2 The Faustian Impact of World War I on U.S. Diplomacy……Page 55
Wilson’s Fourteen Points and Self-Determination……Page 57
Wilson at Versailles……Page 60
Wilson as Armenia’s Only Hope……Page 61
Wilson and Intervention into Russia……Page 66
Wilson and the Rights of Other Minorities……Page 68
Ubiquitous Wilsonianism……Page 70
Wilson’s Legacy of Self-Determination……Page 74
3 The Faustian Aspects of Prosperity, Depression, and War……Page 78
The Struggle over Economic Foreign Policy……Page 79
German Reparations and Allied Debts……Page 81
The Monroe Doctrine versus the Good Neighbor Policy……Page 84
Political Foreign Policy……Page 87
FDR and Far Eastern Policy……Page 89
Bureaucratic Influence on Japanese Foreign Policy……Page 93
Secret Summit Diplomacy……Page 97
4 Faustian Aspects of U.S. Cold War Foreign Policy……Page 102
Faulty Memories……Page 103
Atomic Bomb Rationalizations……Page 105
Truman and the Origins of the Cold War……Page 107
Faulty Fears……Page 109
The Marshall Plan……Page 110
Minority Rights Redux……Page 113
Angola as a Case Study in Decolonization……Page 115
Middle Eastern Oil……Page 117
The Myth of Free Trade……Page 119
5 Cold War Transformation of the American Presidency……Page 122
The Imponderable Presidency……Page 124
Cold War Impunity……Page 126
Iran-Contra: Cold War Impunity par Excellence……Page 129
The Reagan (Kirkpatrick) Doctrine……Page 130
Cold War Independent Internationalism Blowback……Page 132
Origins of Neo-Conservatism……Page 134
Above All – Avoid “Provocative Weakness”……Page 137
Reagan and the End of the Cold War……Page 141
6 The United States Adrift in the Post-Cold War World……Page 144
The First Gulf War……Page 145
Neo-Cons in the 1990s……Page 148
Humanitarian Limits on Sovereignty……Page 150
Promoting Democracy……Page 152
Whither Globalization?……Page 154
Clintonian Diplomacy……Page 155
Nuclear and Conventional Weapons……Page 157
Ethnic Cleansing……Page 158
Intervention in Haiti but not Rwanda……Page 160
NATO Expansion and Intervention in Kosovo……Page 162
Clinton and Terrorism……Page 164
7 Flaunting Faustian Foreign Policy……Page 166
Bush’s Domestic Policy……Page 167
Economic Foreign Policy, Indebtedness, and Military Spending……Page 168
Bush Circumvents Clinton’s Political Foreign Policy……Page 170
North Korea……Page 172
Bush and Nuclear Power……Page 174
Struggle over Oil Diplomacy……Page 176
The Bush Doctrine……Page 178
Preemptive versus Preventive Wars……Page 180
Unitary Executive Theory and Signing Statements……Page 181
Rights of Detainees and Enemy Combatants……Page 183
“We Do Not Torture”……Page 184
Condoleezza Rice: Neo-Con Come Lately……Page 187
Transformational Democracy……Page 189
Epilogue: The Legacy of George W. Bush……Page 192
Bush’s Domestic Legacy……Page 193
Bush’s Foreign Policy Legacy……Page 194
Bush’s Rhetorical Legacy……Page 196
“God Made Me Do It”……Page 198
The Rapture……Page 200
Paths Not Taken toward a More Positive Legacy……Page 201
Paths Taken toward a Negative Legacy……Page 203
Revolts of the Realists and Neo-Conservatives……Page 206
Ethics and Efficiency……Page 209
March of Freedom or Folly?……Page 211
Notes……Page 215
Bibliography……Page 273
Index……Page 299