Let's now discuss the different ways in which presidents through the years have had to approach American national security and foreign policy.

What are the challenges and advantages for modern presidents?

It is important to underline that every decision concerning foreign policy and national security that a president takes is determined by: the relation he has with Congress; foreign policy bureaucracy; public opinion; media; and interest groups.

US foreign policy has been approached by presidents in 2 different ways:
-School of ‘Realism’ (nations’ behaviour is based on its economic, security and geopolitical self-interest).
- School of ‘Idealism’ (nations act in bases of values whether or not these values coincide with the self-interest policies).

The US took realism as approach to Foreign Policy at the beginning (only 13 states: avoidance of wars, interference or even treaties with great powers), but also ‘idealistic’ (the US and the role model for the future development of other nations: ‘a city upon a hill’).

1823- The Monroe Doctrine: President Monroe says that America (as a whole) is no longer a land for colonisation. It allows expansionism by conquest and diplomacy to the west (allows war against Mexico and Native Americans).

1898- The Spanish-American War: expansionism under President William McKinley(R) as part of the Monroe Doctrine and the Manifest Destiny (superiority of American values). Philippines and Hawaii annexed and Cuba becomes a protectorate (granting a 99-year lease on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base).

1914-1918-WWI: In the outbreak of the Great War President Woodrow Wilson (D) was convinced of staying neutral (realism and idealism). Later, because of the attacks on the US merchant ships, Wilson obtained the declaration of war from Congress in 1917.

1939-1945-WWII: President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) tried to convince Congress to enter war, but isolationism dominated the society. America was forced into war after being attacked in Pearl Harbour on December 1941. President Harry (D) Truman had to take the difficult decision of dropping 2 nuclear weapons over Japan in order to end the war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The end of the war saw the US as the unique leading economic and military superpower in a bipolar world dominated by capitalism and communism. The American president saw its powers reinforced in matters of foreign policy and national security (not by the constitution).

The Cold War (from the late 1940s to the late 1980s): George Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, advised President Truman about the necessity to ‘contain’ the communist-Soviet threat. As a result, in 1947, Truman created the Department of Defense, the National Security Council and the CIA. He got funds from Congress by ’scaring the hell out of the American people’ (Rep. Senator Vanderberg). A few years later, an armament race was launched after the NSC 68 resolution and McCarthyism. Truman approached the relations with URRS in an aggressive way and won control of a much higher budget for defence.

The Cuban Missile Crises (October 1962): President John Kennedy had to deal with the most important nuclear threat in the American history. After 13 days of pulling and hauling negotiations with the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Missils in Cuba were taken back to the Soviet Union; in exchange Kennedy guaranteed that the missil deploiment in Turkey was going to be dismantelled.

The War in Vietnam (1965-1973) : before his assassination Kennedy, who resisted military intervention, thought that ‘containtment’ of communism in Vietnam had to be done by matters of economic and military assistance to the South Vietnamese government.
Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had to deal for the first time with television in a war. Thus, Congress had to put pressure on the executive to find a way out of the war.

The Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979): President Jimmy Carter had to manage the crisis. Student proxies to the new Iranian regime held hostage 63 diplomats and three other United States citizens inside the American embassy in Tehran. They were finally released 444 days afterward when Carter left the presidency.

1991-The Gulf War: the US, with President George H. W. Bush as commander-in-chief, lead a multinational army in war against Iraq. After victory over Saddam Hussein and the freeing of Kuwait, Bush clearly set his foreign policy announcing ‘the arrived of a new world order, founded under the universal values of capitalism, liberal democracy, free trade and the renunciation of aggression as an instrument of foreign policy.’

After the end of the Cold War, we distinguish 3 schools of thought for foreign policy in the United States: American primacy, neo-isolationism and the new-internationalism.

William Clinton: President Clinton believed in the new-internationalism ideology. He failed to convince Congress to intervene in Rwanda, media raised some awareness but Congress and the Pentagon felt apathy to commit troops. Clinton succeeded when leading war in the Balkans aside the European governments in the mid 1990s.

George W. Bush: he was part of the neo-isolationist stream in the first year of his presidency, but September 11th, 2001 drastically changed his foreign policy. Bush reinforced his image and determination to act since people rallied around him looking for leadership. The same day of the terrorist attacks he called a meeting with the NSC and an informal ‘cabinet war’ composed of leading advisors. The following day he met with Congress leaders, got support from both parties, and like in every major crisis since the end of WWII, he took the lead and Congress followed. Bush created the Department of Homeland security which was approved by an overwhelmingly majority in both houses (without a serious consultation of Congress) and passed the ‘US Patriot Act’ (which enabled the FBI and the CIA to monitor individuals’ private communications). Furthermore, he vastly increased the defence budget.

2002-War in Afghanistan: Bush received support form all NATO members and the US lead the war against the Taliban who sympathised with Al Qaeda and were sheltering Osama Bin Laden.

The war in Iraq (2003-?): the Gulf War II made clear the change in ideology from neo-isolationism to unilateralism and preventive war. The Bush administration claimed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and that his regime represented a danger for the region and the world in general. Unlike the war in Afghanistan it divided positions in NATO, in the United Nations and in the American Nation (Senate 77-23 and House 296-133).

A major challenge for modern presidents would be to really develop the U.N. by transforming it into an institution that enables diplomacy to solve major problems. Developing and poor countries need to have an institution in which to have confidence and where to be represented with a real voice in international matters. Unilateral war or sanctions can no longer exist if there is a true will of peace reinforcement and development in regions with conflict. The American president has the advantage that whatever change he proposes will be taking into consideration. Of course, positive changes do not only depend on the American presidency, but the US executive should take a first step that enables negotiations and talks with nations. Global warming is becoming a national security threat for America, and can be a first step, the executive unilaterally decided not to ratify the Kyoto protocol, the most powerful president in the world should here lead by example.