Confronting the Limit to American Power

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Confronting the Limit to American Power
In the 1950’s America’s foreign policy mainly focused on stopping the spread of communism through out the world, and anti communism was a major theme that defined American politics during this decade up to the early years of the 1960’s. The 1960’s were characterized with more calls for civil rights recognition, but beginning with 1965, the Vietnam had a big impact on U.S. foreign policy. Thus, from 1964, the United States was faced with numerous limits of its power in the international stage beginning with the Vietnam War. This paper explores the strategies used to confront America’s limit of its powers for the period covering 1964-2001.
Since the end of WWII, the Vietnam War became a rallying call for America to exert its influence on the world stage. At the time, the rationale for the Vietnam War was that it was essential to halt the spread of communism, but the war supporters mostly felt that US expansionism would protect the interests of America (Goldfield 850). Faced with the threat of a prolonged war and its repercussions, the Vietnam War showed that there were limits to the powers of the US back at home and in the international stage. In America, there were growing protests from Anti War activists, who stated that the war was unjustified, but this group grew more vocal as the war progressed. However, the war showed that America was willing to exert her influence, and engagement in the war was an effort to confront limits to America’s power (Goldfield 853).
The limits of American power were apparent upon the adoption of the Nixon doctrine, whish sought to reduce the number of American troops in Vietnam from 1968. In essence, US allies would continue with war efforts in Vietnam, but America would offer help in defense when need arose through supplying arms (Goldfield 853). However, the adoption of this doctrine was merely an indication that President Nixon recognized that most Americans were in support of withdrawal, after spending four years in Vietnam with increasing troops casualties. The Nixon doctrine precipitated the signing of a truce deal with North Vietnamese forces, but the forces would later taker power and unite the country. Nonetheless, the Vietnamese war showed that the US was willing to confront the limits on its power through negotiations.
Even though, the U.S. was a major world player in the international scene, the economic crisis and stagflation of the 1970’s showed that the country was vulnerable under economic shocks. This era showed that economic power influenced, the power yielded by nations as they had more negotiating power and could influence allies. Nonetheless...