The Foreign Policy of the United States

America’s Founders saw America’s geographical isolation from Europe as an ideal opportunity to develop the new nation in solitude. “Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course”, Washington said in his farewell address in 1796 (referred to above). Thomas Jefferson too, warned against “entangling alliances”. With the exception of the successful 1846-1848 Mexican War, which expanded US borders to include California and much of the American west, the US was disinclined to get involved in military adventures in other parts of the world.

- BY TISSA JAYATILAKA

Ake topic I was invited to speak on today is the foreign policy of the United States. This is a very broad theme and to give you a detailed account of it, in the time at our disposal today, would be impossible. So, what I shall attempt to do is to give you a summary ora thumbnail sketch of the foreign policy of the United States from 1776 to the 1930s focusing in particular on two presidents who took charge of the foreign policy of the US during their terms of office: William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson.

And thereafter reflect more closely on the period from 1941 to the present. It is believed that the farewell address of President George Washington outlined the foreign policy goals of the United States which included, among others, the cultivation of peace and harmony with all nations. It recommended the avoidance of permanent alliances with “any portion of the foreign world” and advocated trade with all nations. In the early years of the existence of the United States, the most important goal of its foreign policy was to balance the relations with Great Britain and France. Of the two major political parties at that time, the Federalist Party sought close ties with Britain but the Democratic-Republican Party favoured France.

Broadly stated, the striking feature of the history of US foreign policy since the American Revolution is the shift from isolationism before and after World War 1 to interventionism post-World War 11, especially during the Cold War period which lasted for about four decades and a half from 1947 to 1990/91 during which the United States played a hegemonic role in the world.