As I indicated in class, the final will be simply two essay questions with ample time for good answers.
One of the questions will ask you to apply the material on the traditions of American foreign policy to the contemporary world, as described in several of the assigned readings in the last few weeks. The other question will focus primarily on Codevilla's book, from which most of the readings assignments since the mid-term are taken. Be able to identify Codevilla's main argument.
The questions will be general and broad. You must show your familiarity with and understanding of the substance of the readings by using appropriate details from the assigned readings.
The reading assignments that are relevant for the final exam are as follows:
Hard copies of the review are due by 3:00pm on Monday, May 7, in my office. No emailed copies will be accepted. A grade will be deducted for each late day. Please come in and talk with me about the paper at least once before handing it in.
As I indicated in class, the main point of the five-page review is a critique or commentary (can be a comparison-contrast with other material) on the author's main point (thesis) and on how the author supported and defended that point (the argument). This is descriptive and should take no more than two pages total. The rest of the review is your critique, your discussion and evaluation, of the author's thesis and argument. I suggest that you use the other materials from the course to make comparisons and contrasts.
Basic requirements:
Please read the handout I gave you on the "Market State" from Philip Bobbitt's book, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History.
Consult with me soon about the book you must review by May 7th.Books for review:
For Wednesday, please read (1) chapter 19 & 20 of the Codevilla book and (2) Joseph Nye's "Soft Power".
If you have trouble accessing Nye's article, or the link does not work (it is working fine for me, now), you can access the article on the Reinsch Library website. Follow these steps:
Don't forget to see me to select a book or articles to review. Soon!
The reading assignment is chapters 1-9 in the Codevilla book. For each chapter, identify (1) Codevilla's main opoint in the chapter (one sentence only!) and (2) how he goes about proving or illustrating his point (one sentence only!). Ellen will report on one of the chapters. Nate and Kathiana also owe me reports, so if either of you want to pick one of the assigned chapters in Codevilla and report on it (after I approve your selection—I want only one student reporting on each of the chapters), email me and claim one. The reports will also clearly and succinctly state Codevilla's main point and how he goes about proving or illustrating it, but should also include a brief comparison-contrast with the other material that we have read in the course.
As I mentioned in class, some books for review:
I'll add others to the list. Please come and talk with me about what you wish to review.
As I told you on the 7th, the assignment for the 21st was the completing of the McDougall book. That will be the first order of business on Wednesday, but we must also push ahead. Please read the Preface and Introduction of the Codevilla book, also. Bring two or three questions about the readings for class discussion.
The last two chapters of McDougall bring that narrative up to the end of the twentieth century. McDougall begins to discuss presidents and people who are still alive and who you may have heard of. His follow-up book, The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy continues to discuss contemporary policy and personnel, as well as taking us on another trip through American history. (I assigned a handout from Tragedy during one of the early classes in the semester.) Codevilla also focuses primarily on contemporary issues, policies, and personnel. This sets the tone for the rest of the semester as we focus on contemporary issues and policies. I want to include one class on the legal-constitutional aspects of American foreign policy, as well.
If the bookstore is out of the Codevilla texts, the book is and has been available through Amazon for the last several months, so there are no excuses for not having access to a copy (it is cheap, too!). I will have a bunch of short handouts for you, as well, on Wednesday. See you then.For the mid-term:
The exam will be an essay exam with several questions based on the assigned readings. As I indicated in class, the main focus of the exam will be on the concepts or traditions that McDougall describes in Promised Land, Crusader State: Exceptionalism, Unilateralism, Expansion, the American state system, progressive imperialism, liberal internationalism, and containment (and the alternative labels that McDougall and others use for these traditions.
You should also review the material in the Ikenberry introduction and the Holsti essay on the realism approach to international relations and to the levels of analysis that Waltz, Singer, Jervis, and Gilpin use, according to the short treatment of them in the Ikenberry and Holsti readings. In stead of the ambiguous "Level One," "Level Two," and "Level Three" labels, we will use the more descriptive labels of "individual or decision-maker analysis," "state or national analysis," and "international system or state system analysis." Realists Singer, Jervis, and Gilpin make amendments to Waltz's three levels, but they are all taking a similar approach. Review the three or four pages in Ikenberry's essay and Holsti's essay on these writers and the realistic approach.
First thing I remembered AFTER class was the first thing I wrote on my agenda BEFORE the class: discuss the levels of analysis for various foreign policies described in chapters 5 & 6. I apologize for not covering these. We will definitely do so next week.
The reading assignments for next week are chapter 7 in the McDougall text and the individual reports assigned in class:
(If I have mistaken any of these specific assignments, let me know.)
The first four pertain to chapter 6; the last, to chapter 7. The first four are quite short; the last is substantially longer. Each report/paper should do the following:
Please email me with any questions you might have about preparing your reports.
Mid-Term on Wednesday, March 7th. The focus will clearly be on your understanding of (1) the levels of analysis that Ikenberry and Holsti discuss in the opening essays of the course and (2) more importantly, the seven traditions or concepts that we will have covered before the exam and the historical circumstances that McDougall associates them with.
Good discussion last time. Please read chapters 5 & 6 of McDougall for class. Try to form a clear understanding of the two concepts or traditions that McDougall is discussing and a clear understanding of their differences from one another. How does each of these traditions depart from the four Old Testament traditions that McDougall discussed before?
You should also identify one specific policy (not tradition) that McDougall describes in one of the two chapters and explain to the class whether the policy emerged primarily from Level 1 (decision-makers), Level II (national or domestic forces), or Level III (the international state system). It seems to me that no foreign (nor domestic) policy can be understood using just one of the levels of analysis, but it is possible to make a reasonable case that one of the levels of analysis is more productive of understanding than the other levels in a particular historical situation. That should be your goal.
Please read chapters 3 and 4 of the Promised Land text. As you read about the specific examples of American foreign policy that McDougall describes along the way, try to apply the three levels of analysis to each example: was the American policy primarily a result of (1) America's place in the conbtemporary state system (Level 3), or (2) was the policy a result of domestic forces such as political or economic forces (Level 2), or (3) was the policy primarily the work of an identifiable individual or set of individual decision-makers (Level 1)?
We begin the history of American foreign policy with Walter McDougall's Promised Land, Crusader State. Please read the Preface, Introduction, and chapter one of the book. I may or may not ask for outlines, depending on how the class discussion of Holsti's article goes. It's a good idea to take notes or make an outline of the chapters, anyway.
For February 7th, chapter two of McDougall's text, some excerpts (handouts) from his Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy, and Washington's Farewell Address will be assigned, and we will have my old colleague Chuck Smith visit the class to lead the discussion of the Address. Dr. Smith originated this course twenty-five years ago. Plan to be here.
Please read John Ikenberry's "Introduction," which is a review of material that we discuss in the first class, and Ole Holsti's "Models of International Relations and Foreign Policy." Extra copies are in the rack on my office door.
For the next class, please outline in the form described in class and infra Holsti's article. This is a written assignment; please type it and hand it in after discussing it on January 24th as I explained in class. Outline format to follow: outline
John Adams's and the Continental Congress's Model Treaty of 1776 Massachusetts Historical Society, The Adams Papers
George Washington's Sentiments on a Peace Establishment (1783)
George Washington's Farewell Address (1796) (Avalon)
John Quincy Adams's Fourth of July Address (1821) University of Virginia Miller Center
James Monroe's December 2, 1823, Speech—the Monroe Doctrine Speech University of Virginia Miller Center
James K. Polk's Inaugural Address (1845) (Avalon)
Woodrow Wilson, Speech to the League to Enforce Peace (1916) (American Presidency Project)
Woodrow Wilson's "Peace without Victory" Speech (1917) (BYU Library)
Woodrow Wilson's Message to Congress asking for a Declaration of War (1917) (BYU Library)
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (1918) (Avalon)
Treaty of Versailles (1919) (Library of Congress)
F.D.R.'s Arsenal of Democracy Speech (1940) (Mount Holyoke)
Harry Truman's "Truman Doctrine" Speech (1947) (Avalon)
George Kennan's "Long Telegram" (1946)
George Kennan's "Mr X Article" (1947)
Nitze's NSC 68 Memorandum (1950)
Jimmy Carter's Notre Dame Commencement Address (1977)
Ronald Reagan, Speech to British Parliament (1982) (Emerson Kent)
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Soft Power," 80 Foreign Policy (Autumn, 1990), 153-171.
Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" (1993)
Anthony Lake, "From Containment to Enlargement" (1993)
National Security Strategy, 2002 (State)
George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address (2005); Same
Joseph Nye, On "Soft Power", (Ikenberry review)