After The Cold War The United States, Latin America Policy

After the Cold War, U.S. hegemony in Latin America was more solid than ever and its foreign policy towards Latin America has undergone great change ever since. This thesis tries to give an intensive description and a deep research about the evolution of U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America. At the same time, the paper intends to analyze this policy in a theoretical paradigm of idealism and realism in order to deepen the research in the future.The paper is divided into seven parts, including introduction, conclusion and five chapters. In introduction, it is told how and why this topic is chosen, what the main contents are, which new arguments the author will give. The research context and academic background would be given and analyzed in this part as well.The first chapter looks back to the history of U.S. policy towards Latin America before the Cold War, which is built on the foundation of Monroe Doctrine. In the author's view, Monroe Doctrine was against the interference of European powers in terms geopolitics on the one hand, and it defended the newly -born republican democracy of Latin America in terms of ideology on the other hand. The Manifest Destiny, which was the development of the Monroe Doctrine, was a kind of expansionist policy. In the period of Cold War, U.S. policy was centered mainly on defying former Soviet Union in Latin America with a realistic foreign policy of supporting Pro-America right-wing military dictatorship in Latin America. President Wilson's policy and President Carter's "Human Rights" policy were considered as more idealistic than realistic.The second chapter deals with the policy of Old Bush Administration and Post-Cold War policy towards Latin America. Like President Reagan, President Old Bush tried his best to solve the war and conflict peacefully in the hot spot of Central Latin America in order to combat former Soviet Union. His policy was successful with the combination of idealism and realism. President Old Bush launched the "American Initiatives" and started the process of FTAA, which was the main and central topics of Post -Cold war Policy towards Latin America .The third chapter deals with President Clinton's foreign policy towards Latin America, which like his predecessor's policy , was focused on Building FTAA and expanding freedom and democracy . President Clinton's policy is considered as losing many opportunities and as being not so successful with his opportunism policy and neglecting Latin American issues. President Clinton's expanding free trade policy in Latin America, with FTAA as the center failed. This chapter also deals with President Clinton's Policy of promoting freedom and democracy in Latin America, with the case study of Haiti and Cuba, and the challenges from drug-trafficking andother social problems in Latin America.The Fourth chapter discusses the Bush Administration's first term foreign policy towards Latin America, which has changed greatly after "9.11" incident. With the development of the new conservatism, which was characteristic of considering democratic ideals to be more important than national interests and security. President Bush was harder than his predecessor in the democratic issues and his policy was still focused on promoting FTAA. Bush Administration's policy was facing more and more new challenges from emerging Latin American leftist movements and China's increasing presence in Latin America. The United States is afraid that China's growing economic influence and ties with Latin America will result in negative political influence against U.S. National security in Latin America. Meanwhile, the United States also believes that China's presence in Latin America has not yet posed a threat to the United States, and will not make big policy adjustments for the time being.The fifth chapter deals with the trend of policy toward Latin America in Bush Administration's second term, which became more pragmatic and began to combine the ideals of promoting democracy with national interests. This chapter summarizes several changes of the policy towards Latin America in Bush Administration's second term, stressing that democratic governance is more important than democratic elections , slowing the pace of promoting FTAA, paying more attention to the Central American and Caribbean region. Latin America's position has begun to rise in the new national security strategy of Bush Administration's second term. In the fourth Summit of the Americas, President Bush's efforts to promote the FTAA negotiations were unsuccessful. But he succeeded in excluding Cuba from the summit and reaffirming the commitment of promoting democracy in the Western Hemisphere.Last, the conclusion part gives the contents and basic views of the paper. The evolution of the Post-Cold war U.S. policy towards Latin America is characteristic of a swing between idealism and realism. Along with the changes in the domestic and international situation, its policies sometimes are more idealistic, and sometimes are more realistic.