American Foreign Policy and National Security A Documentary Record

We bring together in this volume a select few of the many documents that inform the making and implementation of American foreign and national security policy. The choice of which documents include in a single volume and which to set aside is by no means easy. How much to include of those documents that make the short list is another difficult editorial challenge. Although historical documents from previous centuries are included, this collection is not intended to be a comprehensive diplomatic history. Because of the single-volume constraint, our purpose is to provide only a selective documentary record on which to base an understanding of the factors that influence American foreign and national security policy processes, decisions, and actions. To assist the reader, we have taken the liberty to italicize those parts of the documents that we have identified either as keys to understanding American foreign policy and national security in general or as the main points of the document. Although space limitations preclude reprinting most of the documents in their entirety (except those of particular significance such as the U.S. Constitution and the United Nations Charter), readers may find reading the original, full-text versions of many of these and other documents worthwhile. Indeed, many of these documents also address important matters beyond the scope of this volume's focus on matters of foreign policy and national security interest. Brief introductions before each document as well as an index facilitate use of this volume. Organized by topic, we have grouped the documents categorically into flue parts and eighteen chapters. We begin in Part 1 with foreign policy and national security aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents related to constituting the American republic. Constitutional interpretations on the actual conduct of American foreign and national security policy are the focus of Part 2-the federal role in relation to states on such matters, separation of powers and treaties, executive-legislative understandings on war powers, and civil liberties in wartime. In Part 3 we turn to actual foreign and national security policy "statements" of lasting or present-day importance, grouped chronologically in five separate chapters (viz., pre-World War II, World War II and its settlement, the onset of cold war, the cold war itself, and the post-cold war period to date). Part 4 takes up a substantial number of arms control agreements in three chapters organized categorically--controlling armaments themselves by institutionalizing qualitative and quantitative measures, establishing geographic (or spatial) prohibitions or limitations, and routinizing various functional measures. Finally, in Part 5 we look at American foreign policy and national security institutions and processes in two last chapters cast separately at domestic and international levels of analysis--one on the National Security Council and the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security and the other on a select few of the international organizations to which the United States has joined or was instrumental in forming--the League of Nations, United Nations, Organization of American States, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and North American Free Trade Agreement. The editor deeply appreciates the assistance others have given him in this project. This began with Michelle Viotti s early help with identifying those parts of the Federalist Papers that deal with foreign policy and national security. Organization assistance and discussions with Radia d'Aoussi and other students in the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, helped in the difficult process of identifying and then narrowing the list of documents that should be included in this single volume. The editor also acknowledges beneficial discussions with Paul ViottiViotti, Paul R. is the author of 'American Foreign Policy and National Security A Documentary Record', published 2004 under ISBN 9780130400277 and ISBN 0130400270.