Foreign Policy Doctrines

The grand strategies — Monroe Doctrine, containment, détente, manifest destiny — that have framed America's engagement with the world.

American Imperialism

The expansion of U.S. power, territory, and influence beyond its continental borders

Big Stick Diplomacy

Roosevelt's doctrine of speaking softly while projecting American power across the hemisphere

Containment

America's Cold War strategy to halt the spread of Soviet communism

Détente

Nixon and Kissinger's strategy of easing Cold War tensions through direct diplomacy

Dollar Diplomacy

Taft's strategy of substituting American investment for military force — with mixed results

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century belief that American expansion across the continent was fated and righteous

Military-Industrial Complex

Eisenhower's Warning About the Alliance Between Defense Industry and Government Power

The Domino Theory

The Cold War premise that communist takeover in one country would trigger a regional chain reaction

The Open Door Policy

America's turn-of-the-century bid for equal access to China

Truman Doctrine

The Cold War Policy That Committed America to Containing Communism

U.S.–Britain Relations

From the empire America rebelled against to its closest ally — two centuries from war to the "special relationship"

U.S.–China Relations

From Open Door to trade war — the relationship that will define the 21st century

U.S.–France Relations

The ally that won America its independence, sold it a third of a continent, and gave it the Statue of Liberty

U.S.–Mexico Relations

A 1,954-mile border, a war that one side calls an invasion, and two centuries of inseparable entanglement

U.S.–Soviet Relations

Allies for four years, adversaries for 46 — the rivalry that defined the 20th century

U.S.–Spain Relations

From the empire that colonized half the continent to the war that ended its American reach