Bs 374 American Foreign Policy (America and the Cold War)



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American Foreign Policy

BS 374 Spring 2016

Tuesday - Thursday, 12:30 – 2:00

Brian Kennedy

bpk@econ.tu.ac.th

01-442-7426 (cell phone)



BS 374 American Foreign Policy

(America and the Cold War)

The course provides a comprehensive account and critical analysis of American foreign policy since World War II, concentrating on how the machinery of foreign policy works a t the highest levels. It will trace the evolution of U.S. foreign policy from the start of the cold war to the present concerns, challenges and threats facing the U.S. in the 21st century.


Course objectives:

  1. To learn the significant events in U.S. foreign policy during the period from 1943-1991, and to be able to place them in a historic overview

  2. To learn the underlying structure of the cold war system, so that students know why events transpired as they did.

  3. To learn the differences, and similarities, between the U.S. and Soviet decision making systems.

  4. To enable students to understand the interplay between policy and events, learning how they shape and influence each other.


Prerequisites:

A certain degree of familiarity with America and Britain is assumed. The course BS 463 Introduction to International Relations would be helpful in analyzing certain things, but is not required; all the international relations concepts that are needed will be taught in class.


Grading:

The course grade will depend upon 2 exams


Midterm Exam 30%

Final Exam 40 %

Quizzes (6 of 8) 30%
Quizzes will not be announced in advance, and each student’s lowest quiz score will be dropped. Quizzes are designed to ensure class attendance and readings, and to test basic knowledge of facts; they will not test knowledge of concepts or the ability to analyze. As such, the quizzes are quite easy. If you attend class, understand English, and take notes, and do the readings before class, you should be able to score very well on the quizzes. Quizzes on the readings will be given before I go over the readings in class; so read the required readings before class. A sample quiz (based on the lecture from class one) will be passed out in the first week of class.
The midterm and final exams will also test basic knowledge, but additionally will test how well students understand important concepts, and how well they can analyze the data given. They will explore class concepts in more depth, and will test that knowledge in greater depth, and will also ask students to analyze problems. As such, they will be more difficult then quizzes. A sample exam will be passed out before the midterm.

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Required Text:


The Cold War: A New History; Gaddis, John Lewis, Penguin Press, New York, 2006
A useful secondary text is
America, Russia and the Cold War 1945 -2000 (ninth edition); Walter LaFeber: McGraw Hill (2002); you can link to many of the primary documents mentioned in the text at www.mhhe.com/lafeber .
Other Texts: (all available from the BAS Library, or my personal Library)
General Texts

A Hard and Bitter Peace: A global History of the Cold War (Judge and Longdon)

The Cold War: A History (Martin Walker)

The Cold War: 1945-1991 (John Mason)

The International History of the Cold War 1947 – 1991 (S.J. Ball)

The Longman Companion to America, Russian and the Cold War 1941 – 1998

Specialized Texts



Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Daniel Yergin) – The definitive study of American decision making from 1943-1948

Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (Paul Johnson) A contrarian view of modern history, stressing differences, rather then similarities, between societies

The Decline and Fall of the Great Powers (Anthony Kennedy) -- An economic thesis about imperial overstretch, topical to today’s issues

Modern International Relations, Edited by H. Morgenthau – A graduate-level collection of articles from leading international relations journals, collected during the cold war. Shows the logic and thought patterns of leading theorists during the time period in question.
Class Notes:
All lecture notes for this class are available online, at http://www.ajarnkennedy.com/website/BAS/ColdWar/America%20and%20the%20Cold%20War.html.
Students are encouraged to print out the notes ahead of time, and to bring them to class with them. I will provide the first set of notes to students on the first day of class, it is the students responsibility to print them out subsequently if they want a copy of them to follow during class.
I DO NOT use PowerPoint, or much any other multi-media, just a whiteboard and my voice. The notes are not a substitute for the lectures; they are a supplement to them. I use them to guide my lecture, and to remind myself of my structure and the points I want to make, but they do not explain the material themselves
Tentative Course Outline:
Week 1 Introduction; the world at the end of WWII

Week 2-4 Chapter I The Return of Fear

Supplemental Reading – Kennan, The Long Telegram

Week 5-6 Chapter II Deathboats and Lifeboats

Supplemental Reading – The Cuban Missile Crises

Week 7-8 Chapter III Command vs. Spontaneity

Week 9-10 Chapter IV The Emergence of Autonomy

Week 11-12 Chapter V The Recovery of Equity

Supplemental Reading – Havel, “The Power of the Powerless”

Week 13-14 Chapter VI Actors

Supplemental Reading – Reagan, “The Evil Empire Speech”

Week 15-16 Chapter VII The Triumph of Hope



Supplemental Readings – Hayek, “Who, Whom?” from the Road to Serfdom

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