20th Century Us Foreign Policy

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The United States is a major world power and strongly influences other countries in many ways. The United States has been involved in foreign affairs since the birth of its existence. They have been involved in all sorts of things such as helping with financial support, to helping rebels take over the country to establish a new form of government. There have been periods of time where the United States has completely altered the way a country is today. The foreign policy of the United States is the way in which it interacts with foreign nations and sets standards of interaction for its organizations, corporations and system citizens of the United States. It is designed to succeed certain goals that the United States wants to accomplish. It …show more content…

The Americans main focus was to maintain their independence and protect their borders and people from other countries wanting to expand their land in the new world. According to the Monroe Doctrine, its major foreign policy was to limit European attempts of further colonization of the Western Hemisphere. In the nineteenth century, the United States focused on expanding their land to the west of the Mississippi and other parts of the continent. They strongly avoided entanglements because they wanted to focus on building their economy and becoming more industrialized. Once the United States became stronger and flourished in the western hemisphere, they began to look towards foreign areas of interest to help better the United States. By the turn of the 20th century, the United States had become a minor imperial power, fighting a war with Spain for Cuba and the Philippines and annexing Hawaii and several other territories. World War One brought the United States into European affairs, but after the war, many people were not happy with how many troops were lost and how much money we spent. Many people started to believe in isolationism and people wanted to stay out of foreign affairs. That is why the United States didn’t want to join the League of Nations because it would have brought them into European affairs even more. The United States seemed to only focus …show more content…

During the Cold War, the United States and NATO competed with the Soviet Union and The Warsaw Pact militarily, economically, and ideologically to prove which country was the true world power. Both sides created massive military forces and huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Although the two world powers never went to war, the policy of containment led the United States into the vicious and merciless Korean and Vietnam wars. In both wars the United States invested billions of dollars and thousands of troops. The United states also invested a lot into dozens of third world countries in Africa and South America that were at risk of falling to communism and tried to push them toward a more democratic form of

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