JFK in his 1963 Ich bin ein Berliner speech, renowned for its last four words, he also included in it’s three minute duration that we did not have a perfect system ourselves, but we never had to build a wall to keep people from leaving.
Hank Toles and I would like to invite you to join our course which follows the pluses and minuses of US foreign policy from the time of declaring our independence, when we grew from a small, weak, unimportant country into a current global giant, with the world's largest economy and most powerful military. Our book The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy, by Michael Mandelbaum offers a new framework for identifying how this came to pass.
The book is easy to read and has already been deemed a masterpiece by several critics and an essential read by Tom Friedman. It describes and analyzes American foreign policy into 4 distinct periods, each marked by an increase in American power. It started as a weak power (1765-1865) evolved to a great power (1865-1945) further to a superpower (1945-1990) and finally to the world's sole hyperpower (1990-2015).
We will also analyze and discuss current foreign policy under Trump and Biden emphasizing China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, and relations with our allies. Core features of American foreign policy which have remained constant have been the use of economic instruments to conduct foreign policy and a strong motivation for better or worse toward exporting democratic policy beyond our borders.
