History Podcast FINAL DRAFT?

Throughout history, America has had different approaches to its role in the world. Some believed in protecting American values and growing power, while others believed in spreading their values through intervention. However, the underlying motive was always to defend their values and liberty. As time went on, America's approach shifted from self-involvement to heavier involvement in international affairs. The level of involvement varied and depended on America's perceived threat to national security and economic interests. Different individuals had different beliefs on how involved America should be, with some supporting isolation and others advocating for more involvement. The spread of American values, particularly democracy, drove America's involvement in foreign affairs. America sought to spread its influence and be seen as a global leader. Expansion was also a part of America's involvement, with a focus on expanding American civilization westward. However, it's important to note t Hello, everyone, and thank you for tuning into the Blue Sky podcast. I'll be your host, Mia Tagares, and today I'll be introducing how America has interpreted its role in the world throughout history. I'm joined with expert Naima Fango and Tony Meng. Hey. We're hoping you listeners walk away with a better understanding of not only how America has engaged with the world, but the motive and development of doing so. So, Naima and Tony, with the transition between internal power and international power, America has seen various methods of determining their place in the world. You know, some believe protecting America and its values is how they grew their power, while others believed intervening would spread their values and therefore their power. But even with all that, we see that America's underlying motive to defend their values and liberty remained. How do we see America's approach differ as time went on? So, Americans have many different beliefs over what their approach should be. There's a clear transition from them staying self-involved, like concerning about their own nation, to them becoming more heavily involved. But what did this mean in more detail? In more detail, it means that as we see that America got more involved, we notice that the levels of involvement also vary. A core point of their involvement revolves around the following question. What did America believe about being involved in the affairs of other countries? How much involvement did America believe was to cease? Good question. So, there are some supports of isolation in the United States, and the majority of them believe that avoiding international conflict and staying out of their country's affairs is preferable. However, this view is not universal. As many individuals believe, the United States should be more involved in international affairs. They believe that the United States should allow the spread of American principles while also pursuing economic growth. When the United States perceives a direct threat to its national security or economic interests, as it did after the 9-11 attacks, it becomes heavily involved in international affairs. When participation in an activity is not in the United States' best interest, or when it will result in a loss, the United States will choose isolation. Exactly, right. As time progressed, there was an upward trend in the desire of the U.S. to involve themselves internationally. Charles Lindbergh, for example, was centered towards the idea of self-improvement. He believed that America had its own problems to take care of. He doesn't mean this to say that America should become reclusive or not care about other countries or only care about itself, but in his speech he emphasizes the need for America to support itself first and he claims that the best way to do this is to remain neutral to foreign affairs. Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, believed that the U.S. could be involved sparingly. In his speech, he states that the U.S. should not involve themselves militarily, but that they should instead involve themselves by spreading their influence. He believes that this is the best way to involve themselves because it minimizes the chance for unproductive interactions. Okay, so we've established that there was, in fact, different degrees of involvement. But in addition to what you guys said, in George Washington's farewell address, he was also very wary of foreign affairs, right? He believed that once you choose a side, you have a commitment to said side and then you're cut off from the advantages of the other side. He took a stance of neutrality, which I thought was very interesting to see. Yeah, exactly. That's true. Yeah. Okay, so with all that being said, what really drove that involvement, would you say? You know, it's quite simple. The spread of America's values became the prevalent factor. It was essentially what would benefit us, America, in the long run. And that really drove the decision of whether or not to engage. You know, where and who did we believe would not only benefit from the American way, but project it into the world. Former U.S. Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick took a very bold stance when she suggested America engage and support all autocratic regimes. She was looking at it in a way that democracy has to reach these regimes before communism does. Because once a country turns to communism, there's no possibility of it becoming democratic anymore. She really noticed that if America wanted to spread democracy, whether it was a comfortable decision or not, supporting those countries was how they pushed the democratic way of life forward. And in the end, she was right. I mean, we did start supporting these countries. Right. I will much agree. And I add that democracy was definitely the major factor, but it was really all of American value. And what they pride themselves on that drove their want for involvement. So democracy wasn't the only factor that drove involvement, is what you're saying. Uh-huh. So if that's true, how did they integrate their spread of influence with their involvement in foreign affairs? It seems extremely complex. It is widely held in the United States that the country plays an important role in global affairs. The faith in free markets and representative governments is part of what strikes global presence. The term U.S. influence refers to United States' cultural, economic, and political impact on other countries. Getting other countries to buy American goods, promoting the American political system, and talking about the economic, as we can see in 1941, the American century. This was a watershed moment for the United States. And Henry Luce believed that it was critical to expand trade through economic and political involvement, as well as to spread American culture and value support. Henry Luce believed that the United States should participate in the international market in order to become a country with global influence and to drive economic development in the United States. Essentially, this means America sees foreign interaction as a way to spread their influence with other countries, ultimately to be seen as good or to be like a mother or a caretaker for the rest of the world. The idea of America needing to involve themselves to free the democracy as one American value of other nations can be seen heavily. Notably, in his speech, Karl Schurz emphasizes the notion that imperialism is not necessary to interact with other countries or other territories. This emphasis serves to protect the freedom. A large American value for non-Americans, non-U.S. populations. Schurz backbones his point by stating that each region should have its own way to run the nation. While this is true, Bill Clinton suggests in his radio address that they should step in when treatment deemed as unfair is being imposed upon citizens of other nations, meaning that they should help when possible. Every place is deserving of peace, not just the U.S. He believes in resisting warfighting because it will not ensure peace for everyone. In short, he wants Americans to understand their responsibility and to be a world leader. Yeah, I think another noticeable mention of emphasis on being a world leader is Bill Clinton's radio address of his speech, which was a speech in the situation in Bosnia. Bill Clinton emphasized the necessity for America to establish their role of leadership by supporting and protecting people in need. His definition of reasonable involvement was centered around sending medical supplies and food, not too much conquering those areas of expanding into them. He also mentioned that they should protect what they can because not everything can be protected, which including avoiding war. This is an American value that he is eager to share with the rest of the world. His perspective is comparable to Walter Wilkinson as they share the same belief about limiting how much they interact with other countries or regions. Right, so that was focusing a lot on international relations, but America, how does their expansion relate to their involvement in those foreign affairs? To be honest, Americans did not focus on expanding their territories internationally, but they did focus on expanding American civilization westward. You know, with America, the Manifest Destiny, written by either John O'Sullivan or Jane McManus-Caznell, is a great example of this. The Manifest Destiny's goal was to bring civilization to all of America, filling coast to coast with school, road, liberty, freedom. Not only did they see it as time that America expanded, but by creating a solid society structure, such as Mexico, would be less likely to attack. This idea wasn't all breakthrough because in expanding westward, the Anglo-Saxons were kicked out as they did not fit this image of society. When you really think about it, America wasn't pushing forward a development of civilization, it was pushing forward white civilization. Even with that, this was a heavily influential document that introduced what America considers expansion and the motivators behind it. Like you said, America didn't really focus on expanding territorially, which is right, but they did push for Pacific expansion because some people believed that being involved in foreign affairs also included expansion. Albert Beveridge, to name one, explained in his speech that being involved in foreign affairs is essential in terms of expansion. You know, in this scenario, Pacific expansion was a notable occurrence because the U.S. had gained access to the Pacific coast and the Pacific Ocean after the Civil War and after the 1850s. During this period of Pacific expansion, America claimed many territories, many of which are still in the U.S. possession today, to have access to a natural resource called guano, which made an excellent fertilizer. They also used these islands as naval bases to store coal. Beveridge points out this advantage, the advantage of expansion, and concludes that foreign or overseas involvement can be necessary for said reasons as an opportunity for economic and political growth above all. Okay, so let me shift the conversation a bit, I mean, if I may, with one last question. How did America approach national security and how do we see that change over time? That's a great question, Mia. So America approached national security in any way they needed in order to protect their freedom and values. In 1823, John Quincy Adams wrote a document directed mainly at Great Britain and France, reminding them that any outreach to the United States would be taken as a threat and dealt with accordingly. By doing this, not only did he establish America's motives at the time, but also America's grasp of the Western Hemisphere. Adams saw that there was a possibility of a threat, especially because the U.S. was newly independent and not politically or militarily sound. But he acted preemptively. A common trend we see throughout American history is getting ahead of any dangers. It's the same tactics that the Bush administration used after 9-11. They realized that they could not let any risk of any threat gain headway because America as a whole could not risk that type of uncertainty. It jeopardizes their people, their liberty, and their freedom. So we can definitely see trends relating to national security. But one big difference was the severity, which makes sense. The severity of external threats in the 19th century in no way matched up to the 21st century. That's right. That reminds me of another document named NSC-68, which was created secretly by U.S. government. It was revealed in the 2000s, showing how the U.S. would carry out its containment strategy concerning the USSR. The containment plan was implemented in terms of self-protection. They aimed to contain the Soviet Union from spreading the break it down from the inside. So at least in this document, it's proved necessary to implement forward interaction in order for the U.S. to protect itself and help form a perfect war. Another goal mentioned in this document is stopping the power of the USSR. They were a very strong military and were threatening nuclearly. Again, this was another thing the U.S. had anticipated, prepared, and possibly acted preemptively for. Even today, we are witnessing the debate on how to deal with foreign engagement. Take the Russian-Ukraine war. Biden chose to not directly deploy troops, but not sit back and watch. He found a way to support Ukraine, fight for freedom and democracy, while keeping the U.S. people safe. There are many other factors now, but if you take 200 years ago and compare it to today, where Biden is taking more of a dynamic stance, it shows the development and how history has been applied throughout the years. As we can see throughout this podcast, America truly did go through a process of finding what works in order to separate themselves from other nations. We saw how America's actions differed from leader to leader and the different paths that they put the nation on. I believe, and I think you guys would agree with me, that even though some decisive actions taken throughout America's history have been iffy, they all helped shape what we consider America today. Its values, its cultures, its politics, and especially its government. The only question left is, what path will we see America take in the future? Anyway, thank you guys so much for tuning into the Blue Sky Podcast. As always, we appreciate your continued support. Thanks again, until next time. Bye! Bye!