Unilateralism And U.S. Foreign Policy After The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War, especially George W. Bush's inauguration of the America's 43rd President, unilateralism has become an obvious feature of the U.S. foreign policy, and the Iraqi War in 2003 was widely considered as the"peak"of U.S. unilateralism. The United States is the solely super power in the world and its foreign policies impose significant impact on China and the whole international community. Therefore, it is quite necessary for us to understand the unilateralism in U.S. foreign policy. In doing so, it will greatly help us to comprehend and predict U.S. foreign policies and acts in order to serve the peaceful rise of Chinese nation.At present, most of the research on the U.S. unilateralism at home and abroad is limited in the surface analysis on some special events that occurred after the cold war, such as the Iraqi War and the Korean Nuclear Crisis. Then the scholars do not pay enough attention to studying the U.S. unilateralism comprehensively, and the papers and reports in this field are not quite fertile. This paper will adopt the reach methods of comparative analysis, historical analysis, logical analysis and case studies in order to provide a proper panorama of the U.S. unilateralism.In this paper, Chapter One reveals the nature of unilateralism by dividing it into two levels: the ideology level and the tool level. Chapter Two introduces the historical development of the U.S. unilateralism from the founding of the U.S. to the end of the Cold War. Chapter Three is divided into three parts. In the first part, it introduces the performance of the revival of the U.S. unilateralism in the tool level respectively in the aspects of international laws and regulations, world peace and security, world economy and different regions. In the second part, it analyzes the motivations of such revival respectively in the aspects of national strength, ideology and external factors. In the third part, it analyzes the influence of such revival on the world pattern and the United States itself. Chapter Four is the last chapter, which offers the prediction of the future trends of the U.S. unilateralism.