HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: International Relations

Semester: Yearly

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Noam Kochavi

Coordinator Email: nkochavi@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Tuesday 1400-1500

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Noam Kochavi

Course/Module description:
Analysing the Dynamics of American Foreign Relations

Course/Module aims:
This course introduces the student to American foreign policy since 1945. The first part highlights key episodes in the course of American foreign relations. Partly on this empirical basis, the second part juxtaposes the explanations currently prominent in this research field.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Identify the factors underlying Foreign policymaking in the US; Point out the historical background as well as the psychological and bureaucratic dimensions affecting foreign policymaking in the US; Explain and present how a key foreign policymaking decision in the US was made.

Attendance requirements(%):
80%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Lecture, discussion and student presentations

Course/Module Content:
Topics

A) Introduction and Foundations
1) American Foreign Policy: Current Research Opportunities and Trends
2) The American Foreign Relations Ideology
3) Congress and Public Opinion
B) Major Explanations
4) The Systemic-Structural Approach (and the rise and fall of the Cold War)
5) The Economic Approach
6) The Bureaucratic Approach and the President's Management Style: Bush senior and the First Gulf War
7) Groupthink and Analogies: Bush junior and Iraq
8) The Foreign Policy Community: The State Department and the National Security Council
9) The Intelligence Process and its Failings
10) Emotional Pathologies – and Cultural Approaches

C) Global Case Studies in the Cold War Era
11) Franklin Roosevelt and plans for a Post-World War 2 World Order
12) Cold War Grand Strategy: Truman, Kennan and Containment
13) An Opportunity Lost? Eisenhower, Kennedy and China
14) Kissinger and his critics – Left and Right
D) The United States as a Middle Eastern Actor during the Cold War

15) Patterns of American Involvement Prior to 1967
16) Nixon-Kissinger, the Yom Kippur War and Shuttle Diplomacy
17) Carter, Human Rights and Camp David
E) The Current Era
18) Clinton's World: "The Crisis of Opporunity"
19) Student Presentations
20) Student Presentations
21) Student Presentations
22) Student Presentations
23) Student Presentations
24) Student Presentations
25) The Western European Challenge
26) The Chinese Challenge
27) Is American Hegemony Waning?

Required Reading:
Topics and Reading List

A) Introduction and Foundations
1) American Foreign Policy: Current Research Opportunities and Trends
Robert J. McMahon, “Toward a Pluralist Vision: The Study of American Foreign Relations as International History and National History,” in Hogan and Paterson, Explaining the History, 2nd ed., 35-50. (M)
2) The American Foreign Relations Ideology
Michael Hunt, "Ideology," in Hogan and Paterson, Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2004). (M)
3) Congress and Public Opinion
Melvin Small, “Public Opinion,” in Hogan, Explaining the History, 1st edition, 165-176. (M)
John Tower, “Congress versus the President: The Formulation and Implementation of U.S. Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs (Winter 1987-8) (M)

B) Major Explanations
4) The Systemic-Structural Approach (and the rise and fall of the Cold War)
John L. Gaddis, “The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System,” in Gaddis, The Long Peace: Enquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987). (M)

5) The Economic-Revisionist Approach
Thomas McCormick, “Hegemony and the World System,” in Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, 4th edition, 25-36. (M)
Emily S. Rosenberg, “Economic Interest and United States Foreign Policy,” in Gordon Martel (ed.), American Foreign Relations Reconsidered, 43-48. (M)

6) The Bureaucratic Approach and the President's Management Style: Bush senior and the First Gulf War
J. Garry Clifford, Bureaucratic Politics, in Hogan, Explaining, 1st edition, 41-50. (M)
7) Groupthink and Analogies: Bush junior and Iraq
Irving L. Janis, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), introduction. (M)
Garthoff, Raymond L. “On Estimating and Imputing Intentions.” International Security 2:3 (Winter 1978): 22-32. (M)
Text: Charles Krauthammer, "The Imperial Era," in Andrew U. Bacevich, ed., The Imperial Tense: Prospects and Problems of American Empire (Chicago, 2003), pp. 47-65.
Text: G. John Ikenberry, "Imperial Ambitions," in Bacevich, ed., The Imperial Tense, pp. 183-202.
8) The Foreign Policy Community: The State Department and the National Security Council
I.M. Destler, “The Rise of The National Security Assistant, 1961-1981,” in Kegley and Witkopf, Perspectives on American Foreign Policy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 260-281. (M)
Leslie H. Gelb, “Why Not the State Department?” in Ibid., 282-299. (M)

9) The Intelligence Process and its Failings
Robert Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Ithaca, 2010), chap. 4. (M)

10) Emotional Pathologies – and Cultural Approaches
Richard H. Immerman, “Psychology,” in Hogan, Explaining the History.
Gerald Horne, "Race to Insight: the U.S. and the World, White Supremacy, and Foreign Affairs," in Hogan and Paterson, Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2004). (M)
C) Global Case Studies in the Cold War Era
11) Franklin Roosevelt and plans for a Post-World War 2 World Order
Gerhard L. Weinberg, Visions of Victory: the Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 177-210. (M)
Text: Henry Luce, "The American Century," in Michael Hunt, The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present, a Documentary Reader (Boston, 2004), pp. 10-13. (M)

12) Cold War Grand Strategy: Truman, Kennan and Containment
Melvyn P. Leffler, "The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy," The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2010). (M)

13) An Opportunity Lost? Eisenhower, Kennedy and China
Noam Kochavi, A Conflict Perpetuated (Westport, 2002), chap. 1. (M)

14) Kissinger and his critics – Left and Right
Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Boston, 2007), chap. 5.

D) The United States as a Middle Eastern Actor during the Cold War

15) Patterns of American Involvement Prior to 1967
Douglas Little, American Orientalism, Chapel Hill, 2002, 267-284. (M)

16) Nixon-Kissinger, the Yom Kippur War and Shuttle Diplomacy
*Text: "The US and the October War" (National Security Archive internet resource)

17) Carter, Human Rights and Camp David
אברהם בן-צבי, מטרומן ועד אובמה: עלייתם וראשית שקיעתם של יחסי ארצות הברית-ישראל (תל-אביב, 2011), פרק 11.

E) The Current Era
18) Clinton's World: "The Crisis of Opporunity"
Text: U.S. National Security Review 12, March 1989, in Westad and Hanhimaki, The Cold War, pp. 595-597.
"Navigating the Unknown," Introduction to In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy after the Berlin Wall and 9/11, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffery W. Legro (Ithaca, 2011), pp. 1-11.

19) Student Presentations
20) Student Presentations
21) Student Presentations
22) Student Presentations
23) Student Presentations
24) Student Presentations
25) The Western European Challenge
Donald Puchala, "The Atlantic Community in the Age of International Terrorism," Journal of Transatlantic Studies 3:1 (Spring 2005), 89-104. (J)

26) The Chinese Challenge
*Aaron Friedberg, Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: Norton, 2010), pp. 1-8, 264-284.

27) What Next? Is American Hegemony Waning?
Text: *Joseph Lieber, "Can the US Retain Primacy," Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 3 (2011), pp. 23-36. (M)
Text: *Bruce Jentleson and Steven Weber, "America's Hard Sell," Foreign Policy (Nov./Dec. 2008), pp. 43-49. (גישת אינטרנט)
Text: *Robert Kagan, "End of Dreams, Return of History," Policy Review (Aug./Sept.2007). ((גישת אינטרנט

Additional Reading Material:
None

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 20 %
Participation in Tutorials 5 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 25 %
Research project 50 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
None