Post-Cold War US Foreign Policy - 1417 Words

Post-Cold War US Foreign Relations The Cold War and its ending with the dismantling of the Soviet Union and a great reduction in the threat of communism as a competing system to capitalism and democratic governance changed the focus of US foreign policy. The change did not happen overnight and has ebbed and flowed significantly across time, often associated with the nature of foreign conflicts and US involvement in them but change it did (Saull, 2007, p. 180). The reduction of the size, might and influence of the US military and many institutions associated with foreign relations was almost directly in response to the reduction in the obvious large and cohesive threat of the Soviet Union. Once that cohesive threat, a sort of outside check and balance with which the US had to meet toe to toe created a public and internal government demand for reduction of spending and investment in the US armed forces and also a point of access that changed the manner in which the US attempted to influence and redirect foreign nations (Saull, 2007, p. 180). According to Saul: The collapse of Soviet communism and disintegration of the USSR ushered in a systemic transformation in the structure and political character of the international system. The socio-economic and ideological challenge to capitalism and the capitalist great powers that had originated in 1917, and the geopolitical and strategic arrangements that had emerged after 1945, were replaced with the termination of the USSRsShow MoreRelatedAmerican Strategy For U.s. 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