Understanding Presidential Doctrines: U.S. National Security from George Washington to Joe Biden

Table of Contents:
Acronyms Introduction 1 Non-Entangling Alliances 2 Securing the Region 3 The Seeds of Democracy Promotion 4 The New Terrain: Containing the “Outside” 5 Maintaining the “Outside” 6 Variations and Continuities in Cold War Approaches 7 Prevention for the 21st Century 8 Pragmatic Realism and the Use of Force 9 From “America First” to “Build Back Better” Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Authors

About the Author :
Aiden Warren is associate professor in RMIT University’s School of Global, Urban, and Social Studies in Melbourne, Australia. Joseph M. Siracusa is professor of political history and international diplomacy at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and president emeritus of Australia’s Council of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

Review :
The authors, Aiden Warren and Joseph Siracusa, sketch an all-encompassing overview of the development and variation of US foreign policy through a generous historical analysis of presidential administrations. Warren and Siracusa have positively contributed to this highly emotive debate with finesse and precision through a broad overview of what US foreign policy has embodied since the Washington era. Understanding Presidential Doctrines presents a comprehensive, insightful, and balanced review of how each of the presidents of the United States approached foreign policy. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to make sense of the evolution of U.S. international power and understand that presidents do not enter office working from a clean slate. Past commitments and approaches bind presidents to past policies as they attempt to forge new directions in a changing and dangerous world. I learned a great deal from this book. This excellent overview of the development of key presidential doctrines, from Washington’s time to the present, effectively demonstrates how policymakers adapted these essential doctrines to new eras and circumstances in pursuing the national interest. Warren and Siracusa have done a notable service by placing the foreign policies of both the Trump and the fledgling Biden administrations into the larger context of American foreign policy development. Their book provides insightful and instructive reading not only for those who study U.S. foreign policy but also for those who seek to shape it in the present and the future. Warren and Siracusa—two highly established experts in the field of U.S. foreign policy—have written a critical, fascinating, and necessary study on the issue of doctrine. Bringing together a comprehensive historical analysis, their study makes a major contribution to the debate and gives a much-needed overview of what U.S. foreign policy doctrine is and has meant since Washington. The analysis not only considers the key concepts underpinning doctrine in valuable depth but also explores how these have been applied and developed over time. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone working on U.S. foreign policy and doctrine—academics, students, and practitioners alike. This essential book traces the themes that have shaped American foreign policy through the lens of presidential administrations. It balances the agency of the presidents themselves with their historic contexts by clearly explaining how U.S. foreign policy is shaped and what role presidents can and cannot play in forming a coherent doctrine. An essential book for contextualizing and historicizing the presidential doctrines of Obama, Trump, and now Biden.