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Conflicting Approaches to American Foreign Policy

CONFLICTING APPROACHES TO THE APPLICATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

In the 1940s and 1950s, George Frost Kennan, Reinhold Niebuhr, and William Appleman Williams presented differing assessments of the effectiveness of American foreign policy as it was applied, as well as differing contentions as to how it should be applied. The thought of these three individualspolitical theorist and policy maker in the case of Kennan, philosopher and theologian in the case of Niebuhr, and historian and insightful critic of the American political experience in the case of Williams, as that thought is relevant to the development and application of American foreign policy, is reviewed and critiqued in this paper.

The review and critique of the thought Kennan, Niebuhr, and Williams are based largely on three worksAmerican Diplomacy by Kennan, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness by Niebuhr, and The Tragedy of American Diplomacy by Williams. With respect to each of these three men, however, the review and critique of their thought demand consideration of some of their other works. Thus, additional works by each of the three men are cited as appropriate to accurately define and assess their thought.

A great deal of chronological overlap existed in the professional lives of Kennan, Niebuhr, and Williams. Niebuhr's earliest work, however, predated that of Kennan, and Kennan's earliest work predated that of Williams. Thus, the review and critique in this paper begins with Niebuhr's work, follows with Kennan's work, and closes with the work of Williams.

The reality of sin is a consistent theme in the philosophical writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. Further, Niebuhr decried the secular tendency to discount sin, because he thought that the "Christian doctrine of original sin . . . makes an important contribution to any adequate social and political theory."1 He thought that the absence of a consideration of the reality of sin "...

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Conflicting Approaches to American Foreign Policy. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:00, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691480.html