Consensus Lost, Consensus Found: U.S. Foreign Policy from Vietnam to Globalization

Ori Tamir, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
David McCourt, University of California, Davis

Between the 1970s through the 1990s, American foreign policy shifted from managing ‘interdependence’ through a cooperative multilateral, approach to deepening globalization, through an assertive agenda of democracy promotion. In the 1970s, the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations sought to manage global economic and political complexities through cooperation with allies, arms control with the Soviet Union, and engagement with developing nations—regardless of their political systems. This cautious, stability-oriented approach was heavily influenced by the Trilateral Commission and foreign policy experts outside the traditional bipartisan "Establishment," which had lost credibility after the Vietnam War. By contrast, the Clinton administration pursued a more confident and expansive strategy in the post–Cold War era. Guided by the principle of ‘Enlarging’ the circle of democracies, it aimed to deepen globalization through free trade agreements, the establishment of the World Trade Organization, and the normalization of relations with China, while promoting liberal democratic values via military interventions and NATO expansion. This approach reflected an effort to rebuild bipartisan consensus around democracy promotion, partially facilitated by organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy. This evolution was driven by changes in the relationship between foreign policy expertise and domestic politics. While the Vietnam War polarized American foreign policy along partisan lines, turning the democratic party against a confrontational approach to the Soviet Union, the agenda of democracy promotion pursued by the Clinton administration in the 1990s temporarily established a novel bipartisan basis for American foreign policy. However, the failures of subsequent interventions and the rise of geopolitical competition with China have eroded this consensus. Today’s foreign policy debates, characterized by renewed ideological fractures, mirror the uncertainty of the post-Vietnam years more than the post–Cold War confidence.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 191. Beyond the Iron Curtain: Reassessing the Cold War's Global Impact