VALUES AND TRADITIONS BASE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Abstract

Specialists in the foreign policy of the United States believe that the foreign policy of the White House and Congress is based on several original doctrines that are a product of American specificity and historical momentum. These doctrines are in constant evolution and generation. Among the several classical scientific approaches to the interpretation of this type of issue, the comparative scientific work of Walter Russell Mead, realized in the classic study Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (2001), stands out. This work elaborates one of the most significant classifications of US foreign policy, which deals with the contemporary and traditional values of American diplomacy and its strategic goals. The author also identifies the following four values of the American tradition: the idealism of President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), Secretary of the Economy Alexander Hamilton 1789-1795, and President Andrew Jackson 1829 to 1837. In the multitude of state strategies of American presidents, the evolution of doctrines that are in an existing dynamic is visible, starting from the doctrines of isolationism of Jefferson and Monroe, to those of liberal internationalism developed after World War II. Their forms were marked by the various paradigms that manifested themselves during the Cold War, such as the doctrines of Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan. Then followed the doctrine of the war on terror of George W. Bush, the doctrine of the "return of the United States to Europe" and finally the affirmation of nationalism and strategic competition developed by Donald Trump. Common to all these doctrines is the ambition to protect strategic national interests, to protect and promote democracy and global international stability and to face all geopolitical challenges