Introduction
US history has interesting twists and turns, and foreign policy has changed. With the colonization of the West, fast economic expansion in the North, and a stream of innovations that altered American life, the latter part of the nineteenth century combined a crisis of American identity with a quest for fresh grounds for national pride. The growth of the Great Plains, the construction of railways, and the loss of livestock culminated in the Great Plains Indians’ humiliation and the US government’s ultimate shift away from an agreement system involving the tribes and towards recognizing them as dependents of the governing body. The early twentieth century was a period of the fight for social and political transformation, labeled “progressivism” in the United States. There were changes in US foreign policy, such as a shift from isolationism to internationalism, a shift to the domino theory, and a move away from racism, nationalism, and commercialism.
Changes in American Foreign Policy from the 1890s to the 1950s
From Isolation to Internationalism: Shifts in American Foreign Policy
The first half of the twentieth century was a crucial period in the development of American isolationism, as two global wars sought to replace conventional foreign policy with internationalism. The dominance of isolationism in the nineteenth century permitted the US to keep out of European disputes and focus all its efforts on deep penetration into the American continent. Only in 1943, as the defeat of fascism became obvious, did isolationists begin to consider the issue of a postwar peace settlement seriously. Internationalists, most notably US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, recognized the necessity to swiftly develop new concepts for American foreign policy when World War II began. This is what caused the creation of internationalism as the dominant foreign policy tendency.
The Domino Theory and US Military Intervention in Vietnam
The creation of the domino theory enabled the United States to halt the communist advance. The domino hypothesis held that communism flowed from one country to the next, and so on. It was based on Eisenhower’s falling dominoes analogy, popularised and widely accepted, thanks partly to the Comintern, which was run by the Soviet Union and propagated communism worldwide. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 US Marines arrived in Da Nang, South Vietnam, as the first wave of US military actions to discourage and safeguard against communism.
Throughout the Cold War and the Vietnam War, this thought affected US and Western foreign policy, notably towards Asia. Thus, the domino theory was a significant reason for the United States’ participation in Vietnam, because the Vietnam War would not have occurred if the “danger” of communism depicted by the domino theory did not exist. Nonetheless, the concepts of America’s worldwide presence, European pressure, and profit conflict were all crucial.
Social Dynamics and Their Influence on Foreign Policy
Racism, nationalism, commercialism, and humanism all had a role in America’s foreign policy. World War I radically altered American culture in the early twentieth century. Hundreds of thousands of African Americans were recruited into the army. While American commanders attempted to employ them as auxiliary soldiers wherever feasible, many of them battled with weapons in their hands. They gained top honors for their gallantry from European allies. All of these things helped to reduce inequality in American culture. Minorities were no longer regarded as enslaved by the US government, which improved relations with several countries.
Conclusion
Thus, the United States’ foreign policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been described as “expansionist.” Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the United States had a thriving economy, but its domestic market needed more robust policies to realize its objectives and potential. World War I and World War II greatly influenced the country’s foreign policy.
The US began to act on the principles of internationalism instead of isolationism. Also, the conditions of the war promoted greater equality in society, which also affected relations between countries. Another critical factor is the birth of the domino theory, which greatly influenced US foreign policy.
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