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US Foreign Policy Essay

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The terrorist attacks on the 11th of September 2001 were infamous moment for the US. it has defined a generation of US actions in the international arena and catalysed the modern “War on terror”. Global Politics refers to foreign policy as ‘attempts by governments to influence or manage events outside the state’s border, […], through their relations with foreign governments’ (Heywood, 2011, p. 129). The US can be seen to be the premier foreign policy heavyweight on the international stage. Commanding both the world’s largest economy and most powerful military the US has the greatest opportunity out of any nation for a truly global foreign policy(Gould & Bender, 2015). The US in some way will impact almost every government globally, it is how American uses this …show more content…

(Zinn, 2003). the unfortunate events that occurred on September 11th, 2001 are the largest catalyst for a change in US foreign policy since Pearl Harbour in 1941 both of these events have been permanently ‘etched on the nation’s psyche’ (Wittkopf, et al., 2008, p. 3). The involvement of non-American perpetrators such as the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda, much like the involvement of the Japanese meant that this these attacks provided a enemy for the US people to rally behind not dissimilar to Carl Schmitt’s “friend and enemies” (Schmitt, 1929) concept where the state unifies against an external enemy in order to survive. The events of September 11th, 2001 mark a change in the urgency of the application of US foreign policy, increasing the intent and intensity of overseas interventions. Yet It is important to bear in mind that 9/11 is not the only event that has brought analysis on US foreign policy after the end of the Cold War, notably the emergence of economic challenges to the US hegemony from China and the re-emergence of Russia as an economic power as a hegemonic

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