Foreign and Military Policy

1. Foreign and Military Policy Chapter 20

2. Foreign PolicyUnanswered fundamental questions • How can U.S. wage war in remote nations that harbor terrorists? • If terrorists are sheltered or supported by other nations, otherwise friendly to U.S. , what d0 we do about these countries? • Should U.S. allow other nations (Israel) to wage war against terrorists (those in neighboring Palestine), or try to be mediators? • How can the military, designed to fight big, conventional land wars in Europe, be redesigned to make it effective in small long-lasting struggles against terrorists? • Do we support any nation that goes along with us, or only those that are reasonably free and democratic? • Are we the world’s policeman?

3. Alexis de Tocqueville • “A democracy can only with great difficulty regulate the details of an important undertaking, persevere in a fixed design, and work out its execution in spite of serious obstacles. It cannot combine its measures with secrecy or await their consequences with patience.” • In other words… • Democracies are forced to play foreign policy poker with its cards turned up.

4. Kinds of Foreign Policy • Majoritarian Politics • Confer widely distributed benefits and impose widely distributed costs • War, Alliances • Interest Group Politics • Identifiable groups are pitted against one another for costs, benefits • Benefits on certain business firms and labor unions and impose costs on other firms and unions • Tariffs • Client Politics • Benefits go to identifiable group, without apparent costs to any distinct group • Policy toward Israel • Aid to American business abroad

5. The embargo with Cuba remains a divisive foreign policy issue. Former President Jimmy Carter paid a visit there in 2002 and was the first U.S. president to do so since Fidel Castro rose to power fifty years ago.

6. Majoritarian Politics • Great issues of national diplomacy and military policy are shaped by majoritarianpolitics • Widely distributed benefits and • Impose widely distributed costs • Going to war • Establishing military alliances • NATO 1949 • Nuclear test ban treaties 1963 • Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties 1970s • Response to Soviet Blockade of Berlin 1948 • Response to Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Aiding the Contras in Nicaragua 1985 • Opening diplomatic relations with China 1979 • President dominates • Public opinion supports but does not guide the president • Political ideology is important

7. In 1962 President Kennedy forced the Soviet Union to withdraw the missiles it had placed in Cuba after their presence was revealed by aerial photograph.

8. Majoritarian Politics • But majority opinion is weakly defined • In general, it approves of the United States playing an international role but • In particular cases would like the U.S. to stay at home and mind its own business. • When there is a crisis or when troops are sent overseas, however, • Decisions and the troops are strongly supported

9. Interest-group Politics • Identifiable groups pitted against one another for costs, benefits • Example • Tariffs on Japanese steel • Larger congressional role • Central only to those issues—such as • Free trade or the • Allocation of military contracts—that engage their interests

10. Client Politics • Benefits to identifiable group, without apparent costs to any distinct group • Examples • Policy toward Israel • Transformation to interest-group politics? • Arab-Americans have begun to pressure concerning needs that are not in sync with Israel’s • Aid to U.S. corporations doing business abroad • Larger congressional role

11. Entrepreneurial Politics • Iran-Contra 1986 • Presidential aides • Sought to trade arms for hostages in Iran and then • Use the profits from the arms sales to support anti-Marxist contras fighting in Nicaragua • Congress • Became involved and investigatedexpanding its power over foreign affairs • Reversing policy

12. Foreign Policy • Chapter concentrates on • Majoritarian politics issues • Grand issues of foreign affairs • War • Peace • Global diplomacy

13. ConstitutionPresident and Congress • Defines the authority of the president and of Congress in foreign affairs in a way that as • Edwin Corwin put it is an “invitation to struggle” President Congress • Commander-in-chief • Appoints ambassadors • Negotiates treaties • Americans think that the president is in charge and history confirms that belief • Appropriates the money • Senate confirms them • Senate must ratify them • With a two-thirds vote • Only Congress can • Regulate commerce with other nations and • Declare war

14. Presidential Power • Presidents have been relatively strong in foreign affairs • Two presidencies • More success in Congress on foreign affairs • Than on domestic affairs • And yet presidents have been comparatively weak in foreign affairs by the standards of other nations • Treaties signed by the president are little more than a promise to try to get the Senate to act

15. Checks on Presidential Power • Congress • Control of the purse strings • Limits the president’s ability to give military or economic aid to other countries • Oversight • House and Senate Intelligence Committees • Must be fully informed • Including covert operations

16. Presidents • Have asserted the right to send troops abroad on their own authority in more than 125 instances • Only six out of thirteen major wars that this country has fought in have followed a formal declaration of war • War of 1812 • Mexican War 1846-1848 • Civil War 1861-1865 • Spanish American War 1898 • World War I 1917-1918 • World War II 1941-1945

17. Presidents and Right to Send Troops • President may be stronger than the Framers intended regarding military deployment and diplomacy • 1801 Jefferson sent the Navy to deal with the Barbary pirates • 1845 Polk sent troops to Mexico • 1861 Lincoln blockaded southern ports and declared martial law • 1940 FDR sent destroyers to Britain to be used against Germany • US was technically at peace with Germany • 1950 Truman sent troops to Korea • 1960s Kennedy, Johnson sent advisors and then troops to Vietnam • 1983 Reagan sent troops to Grenada to overthrow a pro-Castro regime • 1987 Reagan sent the Navy to protect tankers in Persian Gulf • 1989 George H.W. Bush ordered invasion of Panama to depose Noriega • 1990 George H.W. Bush forces to Saudi Arabia when Iraq invaded Kuwait • 1999 Clinton ordered attacked against Serbs in Kosovo • 2001 George W. Bush sent troops to Afghanistan • 2003 George W. Bush invaded Iraq

18. Presidents comparatively weak by standards of other nations • Other heads of state find U.S. presidents unable to act • Wilson and FDR • Unable to ally with Britain before World War I and World War II • Wilson • Unable to lead United States into League of Nations • Ford • Could not intervene in Angola to support an anti-Marxist regime • Reagan • Criticized on his commitments to El Salvador and Lebanon • George H.W. Bush’s waging of Gulf War • Extensive Congressional debate • George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq • Bitterly controversial in the 2004 election

20. Court and Foreign Policy • Supreme Court has ruled • Federal government has foreign and military policy powers beyond those specifically mentioned in the Constitution • Leading decision in 1936 • Holds that the right to carry out foreign policy is an inherent attribute of any sovereign nation • The power to declare and wage war, to conclude peace, to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations with other sovereignties, if they had never vested in the Federal Government as necessary concomitants of nationality. • Supreme Court is reluctant to intervene in • Congress-president disputes about war powers

22. Evaluating the Power of the PresidentSupreme Court’s Position • Upheld • Lincoln’s extraordinary measures during Civil War • Refused to intervene with the conduct of • Vietnam War by Johnson and Nixon • Supported Carter freezing Iranian assets during the hostage crisis • Upheld FD Roosevelt’s WW II • “Relocation” of 100,000 Japanese Americans

23. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt ordered all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast be interned in prison camps.

24. Checks on Presidential Power • Limitations on aid • War Powers Act 1973 • Intelligence oversight • House and Senate Intelligence Committees • Office of the Director of National Intelligence

25. War Powers Act 1973 • Terms • President must report in writing to Congress within 48 hours after he introduces troops into hostile territory • Within 60 days Congress must by declaration of war or other specific statutory authorization provide for the continuation of hostile action • If Congress fails to authorize • President must withdraw the troops • If Congress passes a resolution (which the president may not veto) directing the removal of troops • President must comply

26. War Powers Act 1973 • Has had very little influence on American military actions • Only a sixty-day commitment of troops can be made unless there is a declaration of war or a specific statutory authorization • Every president since the passage of the War Powers Act has sent troops abroad without congressional approval • Presidents deny that the War Powers Act is constitutional

28. Machinery of Foreign Policy • Expansion after WWII • President put foreign policy at the top of the agenda • Policy was shaped by scores of agencies • Rivalries within the executive branch intensify rivalries between that branch and Congress • Interests of the various organizations affect the positions they take

29. National Security Council (NSC) • Created to coordinate departments and agencies • Chaired by president • Includes • Vice president • Secretaries of State and Defense • Usually includes the • Director of the CIA • Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff • Attorney General • National Security Adviser (NSA) heads staff • Goal of staff is to present various perspectives, facilitate presidential decision making, and implement presidential decisions • Grown in influence since JFK • Downgraded by Reagan but NSC appointees precipitated Iran-contra scandal • NSA may rival the Secretary of State

30. Foreign Policy and Public Opinion • Public tends to support the president in crises • Military casualties often lead the public to support escalation, so fighting will end more quickly • Since World War II, the public has generally felt the U.S. should play an important international role

31. Foreign Policy and Public Opinion • World War II 1939-1945 • Vietnam 1964-1975 • September 11, 2001 • Backing the President • Mass versus Elite Opinion

32. Backing the President • Public tends to support the president in crises • Strong support, rally ‘round the flag, in presidential foreign policy initiatives • Boost in popularity often occurs immediately after crisis • Exceptions • Boost did not occur when Clinton sent troops to Bosnia or launched attacks on Iraq • Attack on America (9/11) boosted G.W. Bush’s favorability rating • From 51% to 86% • Military casualties often lead the public to support escalation, so fighting will end more quickly • Tradition of opposition • About 20% of Americans opposed invading Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea • Opposition is generally highest among Democrats, African Americans, and people with a postgraduate degree

33. Mass vs. Elite Opinion • Mass opinion • Generally poorly informed about foreign policy • But since World War II, public has generally felt the U.S. should play an important international role • Elite opinion • Well informed but opinions are likely to change • Leaders are more liberal and internationalist than the public • Cleavage between mass and elite opinion even wider if elite is restricted only to those involved in making foreign policy

34. Popular Reactions to Foreign Policy Crises

35. How the Public and the Elite See Foreign Policy 2004

36. Worldviews • Worldview (or paradigm) • Comprehensive mental picture of world issues • Four World views • Isolationism paradigm 1920s–1930s • Opposes getting involved in wars • Containment (anti-appeasement) paradigm 1940s–1960s • Postwar policy to resist Soviet expansionism • Disengagement (Vietnam) paradigm 1970s, continuing • Reaction to military defeat and the political disaster of Vietnam • Human rights • Prevent genocide—the mass murder of people, usually because of their race or ethnicity • Kosovo 1999

37. Appeasement A meeting that named an era Munich 1938 British prime minister Neville Chamberlain attempted to appease the territorial ambitions of Hitler. Chamberlain’s failure brought World War II closer.

38. The battleship USS West Virginia burns after being hit by Japanese war planes at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

41. Party Affiliation and Foreign Policy

42. Use of Military Force • Two views of the role of the military • Majoritarian • Client • Military-industrial complex • War in Iraq

43. U.S. Military Intervention in the Middle East

44. Military Intervention in Central America and Caribbean Since 1950

45. Defense Budget • Changes in spending reflect public opinion and general support for a large military • Demise of the U.S.S.R. generated a debate about cutting costs • Desert Storm 1991 and Kosovo 1999 • Demonstrated the U.S. would have to use military force • With Kosovo, it also became clear that cuts had impaired the military’s ability to conduct a sustained campaign

46. Defense Budget • What do we get with our money? • Personnel • Personnel Issues • Movement to an all-volunteer armed forces • Increase in the numbers of women in service • Homosexuals in service • Readiness • Training and readiness issues • Bases • Keeping bases open • 1998 Commission on Base Realignment and Closure

47. Defense Budget • Military budget • When it is developed, it tends to obey • Majoritarian politics, but • When it is spent on the services and military contractors • Interest-group politics intervenes

48. Defense Budget: Total Spending

49. Public Sentiment on Defense Spending 1960-2002

50. U.S. Military Forces Before and After the Breakup of the Soviet Union