Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'United States – Foreign relations – 1969-1985'

The years from 1963 to 1974 were a turbulent and eventful period in American life . From the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the period was characterized by social and political upheaval. After the stability and predictability of the Eisenhower years and then the optimism and excitement generated by the youthful President Kennedy, the years o f Johnson and Nixon saw a sharp growth in domestic political dissent , unprecedented attacks on political institutions and civil authorities , and a deep questioning of many of the foundations of American foreign policy.

Japan and the United States, two bitter wartime enemies, have become two of the closest and perhaps most important allies in the world today. Given the dissimilarities between the two countries, the U.S.-Japan alliance is, indeed, a remarkable achievement. In spite of the marked differences in culture, tradition, language and ethnicity, the two countries share a basic similarity in that they are now industrial democracies, embracing democratic values and a free economy. Although the post-war U .S .-Japanese relationship can be viewed as a remarkable success, diverging national interests and differing perceptions have troubled the relationship from time to time. These create an ever-present potential for mishandling and misunderstanding, as were the textile dispute in 1969-71 and the "Nixon shocks" of 1971. Although Japan has been the cornerstone of the U.S. strategy of forward deployment in the Asia-Pacific region, recent U .S .-Japanese relations have been strained by chronic economic friction and U.S. demands for an increased Japanese defence effort. This paper deals with the strategic aspects of the current U .S .-Japanese relationship. It focusses on the period from 1975 to the present because since the late 1970s, the U . S .-Japanese security relationship has entered a new phase. Recent trends indicate that Japan seems to be increasingly integrated into the U.S. global alliance system. Some indications of this are joint defence planning, military technology cooperation and joint military exercises. But questions which need to be answered remain. Is Japan really prepared to meet the U.S. demands? What are the implications of the deepening military ties between the U.S. and Japan for the security of Japanese interests, or for the stability of the Asia-Pacific region? How can a more stable U,S.-Japanese security relationship be developed?

On 23 April 1964, five months after assuming the office of President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson launched the "More Flags" program as United States policy. While the publicly stated purpose of.the "More Flags" program was to obtain as much non-military free world aid for the Republic of Vietnam as possible, the program's principle goal centered around Lyndon Johnson's desire to obtain an international consensus for America's policies toward Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The "More Flags" program continued to serve both goals for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Although started with high expectations of success, the "More Flags" program never succeeded in achieving the levels of international cooperation Lyndon Johnson desired. In fact, the program's significant lack of success necessitated a number of changes, during the program's first year, in both its stated goals and in the methods used to prosecute it's implementation. The most important of these changes would be Washington's use of the program's beneficent objectives to mask it's use as the means through which the United States would purchase mercenary troops to fight in South Vietnam. "Mercenaries in Service to America: The 'More Flags' Foreign Policy of the United States," presents the available history of the "More Flags" program during the years of the Johnson Presidency, with an emphasis on the documentation of the program's use as a disguise for America's obtaining mercenary forces from the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. The non-mercenary troop contributions from Australia and New Zealand are likewise examined. The majority of documentary evidence comes from the original sources documents in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.

This thesis reviews the significance of the 1969 Japan-US Summit between Prime Minister Satii Eisaku and President Richard Nixon in light of official documents that have been disclosed in Japan since 2010 and in the United States since the 1990s. Based on newly available sources, this thesis shows that the 1969 Summit should be considered a Japanese-led initiative with two aims: firstly, to announce a deadline for Okinawa's return with all nuclear weapons removed; and secondly, to reform the Japan-US security treaty system without repeating the kind of outright revision concluded in 1960. The Japanese plan to reform the security treaty system involved simplifying the prior consultation formula by making a public commitment to the security of South Korea of sufficient strength that the United States would agree to the dissolution of the 1960 secret 'Korea Minute'. The Japanese Government achieved its first aim but only partially succeeded in its second. Whilst the return of Okinawa was announced, the status of US bases in Okinawa and mainland Japan continued to be governed by an elaborate web of agreements, public and secret, which damaged public confidence and hampered an improvement in relations between Japan and its neighbouring countries. This thesis shows that commonly held academic opinions about the 1969 Summit are incorrect. Firstly, there was no quid pro quo in which Japan linked its security to South Korea in exchange for Okinawa: both these outcomes were in fact Japanese objectives at the beginning of the summit preparations. Secondly, the success of the summit did not depend on 'backchannel' negotiations between Wakaizumi Kei and Henry Kissinger: it is likely that an announcement on Okinawa's reversion would have been achieved in 1969 even if preparations for the summit had been left to the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the US State Department. Word Limit: Approx. 98,000 words, excluding Bibliography

Defence date: 26 November 2010
Examining Board: Prof. Giovanni Federico (European University Institute) – Supervisor; Prof. Kiran Patel (European University Institute); Prof. Matthias Schulz (Université de Genève); Prof. Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses

This dissertation explores the central paradox of Mexico's foreign relations with Cuba and the United States in the decade following the Cuban Revolution--why did a government that cooperated with the CIA and practiced conservative domestic policies defend Castro's communist regime? It uses new sources to prove that historians' previous focus on the foreign and ideological influences on Mexico's relations with Cuba was misplaced, and that the most important factor was fear of the domestic Left. It argues that Mexican leaders capitalized upon their country's "special relationship" with Castro as part of their efforts to maintain control over restive leftist sectors of the Mexican population. This project uses new sources to illuminate how perceptions of threat shaped Mexico's foreign and domestic politics. In 2002, the Mexican government declassified the records of the two most important intelligence organizations--the Department of Federal Security and the Department of Political and Social Investigations. The files contain the information that Mexico's presidents received about potential dangers to their regime. They reveal that Mexican leaders overestimated the centralization, organization, and coordination of leftist groups, and in so doing gave them more influence over policy than their actual numbers or resources logically should have afforded. The dissertation uses the concept of threat perception as an analytic and organizational tool. Each chapter considers a different potential source of danger to the Mexican regime in the context of the Cold War and the country's relations with Cuba. For the sake of clarity, it breaks the threats into the categories of individual, national, and international, even though these subjective categories may blend into one another throughout the course of the analysis. The first chapter begins with an individual threat: Lázaro Cárdenas, a powerful former president who became one of Fidel Castro's most dedicated supporters. The next three chapters analyze threats on the national level by looking at the domestic groups that Mexican leaders perceived to be the greatest dangers to their regime. The final two chapters move to the international level and examine the roles of Cuba and the United States. As a whole, this study of the connections between Mexico's foreign and domestic politics makes a significant and timely contribution to the historiographies of modern Mexico, U.S.-Latin American relations, and the Cold War.
text

On October 1, 1949, standing at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Mao proclaimed the birth of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese people have stood up.. nobody will insult us again. These words reflected the culmination of the revolution and the end of the century of dishonour and humiliation of China.

This study argues that despite the basic inertia in U.S. China policy during the Kennedy and Johnson years, the period nonetheless witnessed a fundamental evolution in the strategic presumptions underlying Washington’s approach to the China “problem.” By increments, U.S. policymakers began to seriously question the wisdom of a policy predicated on the idea that the containment of the People’s Republic of China necessitated its political and economic isolation. Inversely, a basic consensus emerged in interested corners of the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy that considered attempts to engage the Chinese—on levels bilateral and multilateral, official and unofficial—could serve to socialise China’s revolutionaries, thereby facilitating a reduction in Sino-American tensions and paving the way to a bilateral rapprochement. Critically, in this analysis “engagement” was seen as a means of enhancing, rather than simply supplanting, the larger effort to contain China. The dynamics involved in the emergence of this consensus are manifold and complex, and cannot be properly understood without close reference to changes in both the international strategic environment and the domestic political context through the 1960s. At the heart of this process, however, were advocates of policy moderation within the U.S. bureaucracy, mediating external pressures for policy movement, and championing the case for a more conciliatory approach to Sino-American relations. The growing acceptance of what was sometimes articulated as “containment without isolation”—shorthand for a policy framework that implicitly rejects the either/or choice between containment and engagement—found expression in, and was in turn fostered by, basic adjustments in Washington’s posture toward Mao’s China. By the end of 1968 senior U.S. officials had repeatedly signalled that Washington was reconciled to the reality of a Communist-controlled mainland China, and would in fact welcome expanded efforts toward bilateral accommodation and even cooperation. These postural shifts may not have been matched by concrete policy changes, yet they remain significant. In the most immediate sense, the less provocative posture toward China enhanced Washington’s capacity to communicate U.S. intent to China’s leadership, thereby helping avert a direct Sino-American conflict in the 1960s, even as the two sides pursued antithetical objectives in the Asian region. In a longer-term frame of reference, the more flexible posture adopted in the 1960s played an important role in challenging the domestic politicisation of China policy, while establishing a rhetorical framework and conceptual foundation for more substantive policy movement. In the course of tracing these developments, this study also provides new interpretative insights on a number of specific issues pertaining to U.S. China policy in the Kennedy and Johnson years, including the policy preferences, relationships, and roles of key U.S. officials in shaping the policy process; the impact of domestic politics, alliance politics, and various Cold War strategic concerns on policy outcomes; the question of how to deal with China’s nuclear development; and the manner in which major China-related events and developments in the 1960s—such as the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the 1962 Taiwan Strait crisis, the Sino-Indian border war, China’s involvement in Vietnam, and the Cultural Revolution— were interpreted by U.S. officials, and, in turn, shaped understandings of and responses to the China problem.
http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1330812
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

This study argues that despite the basic inertia in U.S. China policy during the Kennedy and Johnson years, the period nonetheless witnessed a fundamental evolution in the strategic presumptions underlying Washington’s approach to the China “problem.” By increments, U.S. policymakers began to seriously question the wisdom of a policy predicated on the idea that the containment of the People’s Republic of China necessitated its political and economic isolation. Inversely, a basic consensus emerged in interested corners of the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy that considered attempts to engage the Chinese—on levels bilateral and multilateral, official and unofficial—could serve to socialise China’s revolutionaries, thereby facilitating a reduction in Sino-American tensions and paving the way to a bilateral rapprochement. Critically, in this analysis “engagement” was seen as a means of enhancing, rather than simply supplanting, the larger effort to contain China. The dynamics involved in the emergence of this consensus are manifold and complex, and cannot be properly understood without close reference to changes in both the international strategic environment and the domestic political context through the 1960s. At the heart of this process, however, were advocates of policy moderation within the U.S. bureaucracy, mediating external pressures for policy movement, and championing the case for a more conciliatory approach to Sino-American relations. The growing acceptance of what was sometimes articulated as “containment without isolation”—shorthand for a policy framework that implicitly rejects the either/or choice between containment and engagement—found expression in, and was in turn fostered by, basic adjustments in Washington’s posture toward Mao’s China. By the end of 1968 senior U.S. officials had repeatedly signalled that Washington was reconciled to the reality of a Communist-controlled mainland China, and would in fact welcome expanded efforts toward bilateral accommodation and even cooperation. These postural shifts may not have been matched by concrete policy changes, yet they remain significant. In the most immediate sense, the less provocative posture toward China enhanced Washington’s capacity to communicate U.S. intent to China’s leadership, thereby helping avert a direct Sino-American conflict in the 1960s, even as the two sides pursued antithetical objectives in the Asian region. In a longer-term frame of reference, the more flexible posture adopted in the 1960s played an important role in challenging the domestic politicisation of China policy, while establishing a rhetorical framework and conceptual foundation for more substantive policy movement. In the course of tracing these developments, this study also provides new interpretative insights on a number of specific issues pertaining to U.S. China policy in the Kennedy and Johnson years, including the policy preferences, relationships, and roles of key U.S. officials in shaping the policy process; the impact of domestic politics, alliance politics, and various Cold War strategic concerns on policy outcomes; the question of how to deal with China’s nuclear development; and the manner in which major China-related events and developments in the 1960s—such as the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the 1962 Taiwan Strait crisis, the Sino-Indian border war, China’s involvement in Vietnam, and the Cultural Revolution— were interpreted by U.S. officials, and, in turn, shaped understandings of and responses to the China problem.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
In the early 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower encouraged citizens to “Wake Up! Sign Up! Look Up!” to the Soviet atomic threat by joining the Ground Observer Corps (GOC). Established by the United States Air Force (USAF), the GOC involved civilian volunteers surveying the skies for Soviet aircraft via watchtowers, alerting the Air Force if they suspected threatening aircraft. This thesis examines the 1950s response to the longstanding problem posed by the invention of any new weapon: how to adapt defensive technology to meet the potential threat. In the case of the early Cold War period, the GOC was the USAF’s best, albeit faulty, defense option against a weapon that did not discriminate between soldiers and citizens and rendered traditional ground troops useless. After the Korean War, Air Force officials promoted the GOC for its espousal of volunteerism and individualism. Encouraged to take ownership of the program, observers appropriated the GOC for their personal and community needs, comprised of social gatherings and policing activities, thus greatly expanding the USAF’s original objectives.

Both interventionist and anti-interventionist scholars have advanced the view that the 2011 Libyan conflict probes the need to establish an international organisation to settle disputes between nations with a view to maintaining international peace and security. Ironically, 67 years after the founding of the United Nations, post-colonial African states remain deeply troubled and affected by conflicts that are often exacerbated by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions. The 2011 Libyan conflict was not a war for democracy; rather, it represented and demonstrated clearly the asymmetrical relations between Africa and Europe. This study therefore, is anchored on the thesis that the Western Countries—especially Britain and France—within the UNSC ignore the values that are embodied in the Treaty of Westphalia which established state sovereignty. Some Permanent five (P5) members of the UN were typically insensitive to Libya’s sovereignty and to the creed of democracy and this inevitably undermined the national security of the state in favour of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ clause. The outsourcing of the UNSC’s mission, among other things, in Libya to ensure ‘international peace and security’ to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was a critical reason for the loss of human lives and values in the 2011 Libyan pogrom. The introduction of a no-fly zone over Libya and the use of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) contained in UNSC Resolution 1973 clearly stoked the conflict in Libya in order to further the political and pecuniary interests of some of the P5 members. The involvement of NATO and the attendant bombing campaign in Libya served to undermine the militarily weak continent of Africa in its effort to broker peace under the umbrella of the African Union (AU). In order to secure these political and economic interests, the NATO jet bombers declared war against a sovereign UN member state and openly participated in the eventual overthrow and death of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. In essence, this study underscores that the use of Responsibility to Protect in Libya was orchestrated at the highest level of international politics to justify external interference and ultimately, to secure regime change in Libya. The net effect of the outcome of the 2011 Libyan conflict is the post-war imperial control of Libya’s natural resources facilitated by the National Transition Committee established by these imperial forces. The extent of the damage caused by the UN-backed NATO intervention in Libya is also the result of the collective failure of the African Union to assert itself in the Libyan situation.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Previous research on post-conflict elections has found several criteria important in determining if an area is ready to hold elections and whether or not it is likely to succeed. Although rarely ranked in any determination of importance, several concepts are present in most post-conflict election research. Additionally, there is not an agreed set of standard criteria upon which success can be assumed. When researching the post-conflict election literature two questions arise: (1) is there a set of criteria established to determine if an area is ready to conduct post-conflict elections, and (2) do all criteria need to be present in order to ensure successful post-conflict elections? Most research agrees on common criteria but highlights or researches one dominant criterion, to which is then often attributed to the success of an election. This is found in Krishna Kumar’s focus on international assistance (Kumar, 1998), Staffan Lindberg’s attribution of success to repetition of the election process (Lindberg, 2006), Paul Collier’s focus on per capita income (Collier, 2009), and Marie-Soleil Frere’s research on post-conflict elections and the media (Frere, 2011). When reviewing multiple research sources, it is likely several factors at various times and in various elections will be credited with being the single source criterion for success. This kind of past research is well supported and conclusively argued, but still fails to provide a scope of understanding outside of a single event. In other words, it is case specific and not comparatively applicable across cases. Although this thesis does not intend to “McDonaldize” (Ritzer, 2009) the process of democratization, it does propose to define a common set of criteria necessary, even if in varying degrees, to conduct successful elections in post-conflict environments.