U.S. Foreign Policy 1918-1940 and 1945-current?

Question

The question is, How did U.S. foreign policy differ from the era after the First World War to the era after the Second World War? I know that I can talk about isolationism and imperialism, but where else can I take this paper?

Answer 1

Isolationism/neutrality really is the answer for the era between WWI and WWII. The Kellogg-Briand Pact was created "providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy." Four Neutrality Acts were passed in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939, which basically prevented any form of aid to countries involved in wars. Neutrality was ended with the passing of the Lend-Lease Act providing aid to the Allied nations.

Foreign policy after WWII was dominated by the Cold War and reconstruction, but that was more to prevent Communism from spreading to nations devastated by WWII than for charity. The Truman Doctrine was created to "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures," free peoples specifically being Greece and Turkey and outside pressures being the USSR.

The Marshall Plan, or "European Recovery Program", provisioned for aid for reconstruction as stated above, initially for Greece and Turkey. GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was created to help rebuild the economies of nations after WWII.

NATO and the UN were created to help prevent the US from becoming the world's police, although we later embraced that role. SALT I and II and other treaties tried to limit the possibility that the US or USSR would destroy the world.

Until we made the Middle East our sandbox, our military was devoted largely to preventing Communist from spreading in SE Asia and Latin America. The Eisenhower Doctrine concerned oil and communism in the Middle East (and coined the term "Middle East"). Oil has replaced Communism as the main impetus of foregin policy decisions.

I think I've used my ten links, so I'll end it at that.