This book argues that domestic politics and political pressures determine the extent of the U.S. role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from the emergence of containment strategy against the Soviet Union to the Russian war in Ukraine. NATO has evolved in the domestic politics of U.S. foreign policy from a conventional military alliance to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War to an important instrument in the competition against China and Russia. This book examines American domestic political implications of U.S. security commitments to NATO. It adopts a historical approach and places the U.S. foreign policy toward NATO on the domestic level of analysis by highlighting domestic political determinants in the foreign policymaking process. It also highlights the connections between the Biden Administration’s definition of a struggle between democracy and autocracy and the state of American democracy following the January 6th insurrection by far-right Trump extremists. U.S. These include the evolution of American attitudes towards NATO, societal and economic factors, and entrenched bureaucratic interests shaping U.S. foreign policy. The book incorporates the contributions of major theoretical works on the domestic political factors that shape foreign policy preferences and behavior to understand the extent to which domestic politics influences the historical evolution of the U.S. role in NATO and American foreign policy toward Europe.
Author(s): Chris J. Dolan
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 217
City: Cham
Contents
1 Continuity and Change in U.S. Foreign Policy Toward NATO
America’s Domestic Political Headwinds
Organization of the Book
References
2 Public Perceptions and U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Europe
Foreign Policy Preferences and Behavior
Economic Inequality and the Decline of the American Middle Class
How Americans View the World
American Public Support for NATO and Ukraine
References
3 Foreign Policy Elites and the National Security State
The Political Emergence of Containment
NSC 68 and Militarization of Containment
Pushback, Ruptures, and Divisions in the U.S. and NATO
From the Beginning of the End to the End of the Cold War
References
4 Democracy Promotion and Euro-Atlantic Integration
Clinton and Integrating Post-communist Governments
The Clinton Administration’s Fight to Maintain Alliance Credibility: NATO Intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo
The Freedom Agenda, 9/11, and Iraq
References
5 Nation-Building at Home and America First
Europe, NATO, and the Rebalance to Asia
Trump and America First
References
6 A Foreign Policy for the Middle Class?
The January 6th Insurrection and American Credibility
In the Shadow of Afghanistan
A New Atlantic Charter, the 2022 Strategic Concept, and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
The China Challenge
The Protect Agenda: U.S. Industrial Policy and Technological Competition with China
U.S. Military Spending and the Defense Industrial Base
Domestic Consequences and Transatlantic Credibility
References
7 Conclusions
Foreign Policy Is Domestic Politics
Domestic Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
American Politics and NATO
References
Index
