#Foreign Policy

76 entries

People (8)

George H.W. Bush

41st President of the United States, 1989–1993

43rd President of the United States, 2001–2009

5th President of the United States and the last of the Founding Fathers to hold the office

39th President of the United States, whose post-presidency eclipsed his time in office

The 37th President who opened China, ended the draft — and became the only president to resign

The Marquis de Lafayette

The young French aristocrat who became a hero of the American Revolution

Theodore Roosevelt

26th President who broke trusts, conserved millions of acres, and remade American power

Progressive reformer, World War I president, and architect of the modern international order

Places (4)

Hawaii Territory

The Pacific kingdom annexed after a planter-led coup against Queen Liliuokalani

Oregon Territory

The Pacific Northwest land secured by treaty with Britain in 1846

The 51-mile waterway that united two oceans and announced American power to the world

The headquarters of American military power — and a symbol of it

Eras (4)

The 28 years that turned a coastal experiment into a continental power, 1800–1828

The post–Cold War decades — and the unraveling of their assumptions, 1991–present

The ideological standoff between the United States and Soviet Union, 1945–1991

The global conflict that made America a superpower and reshaped the world order, 1941–1945

Events (26)

The CIA's Failed Invasion of Cuba and Kennedy's Defining Early Crisis, April 1961

The 11-Month Mission That Defied the Soviet Blockade, 1948–1949

Boston Marathon Bombing

The 2013 terror attack and the manhunt that gripped a city

Cuban Missile Crisis

Thirteen days in 1962 when nuclear war became a real possibility

Death of Osama bin Laden

The 2011 raid that ended a decade-long manhunt

Fall of the Berlin Wall

The 1989 night that signaled the end of the Cold War

Iran Hostage Crisis

The 444-Day Captivity That Ended the Carter Presidency, 1979–1981

Iran-Contra Affair

The Reagan administration's secret arms deal that illegally funded Nicaraguan rebels

The 1794 agreement that kept peace with Britain — and nearly tore the republic apart

The "Forgotten War" that established the Cold War's logic of limited conflict, 1950–1953

The 1994 trade pact that bound North America together

September 11 Attacks

The deadliest terrorist attack on American soil, 2001

Spanish-American War

The 1898 war that made America an empire in four months

The 1957 Soviet satellite that started the Space Race

The Adams-Onís Treaty

The 1819 treaty that gave the United States Florida and a line to the Pacific

The Gadsden Purchase

The 1854 land deal that finished the map of the lower 48

The Paris Climate Agreement

The 2015 global pact to limit climate change — and America's wavering role

The undeclared naval war that nearly broke the Franco-American alliance

The Rosenberg Case

The Cold War espionage trial that ended in the electric chair

The Cold War competition between the United States and Soviet Union to conquer space

The U-2 Incident

The 1960 spy-plane shootdown that wrecked a superpower summit

The Zimmermann Telegram

The intercepted 1917 message that helped push America into World War I

U.S.–Iran Military Strikes

From the killing of Soleimani in 2020 to direct strikes on Iran's nuclear sites in 2025–2026

The European catastrophe that pulled America in, remade the world order, and produced the next war

America's 1941–1945 war that defeated the Axis and made it a superpower

The French bribery scandal that nearly dragged the young republic into another war

Documents (11)

Day of Infamy Speech

FDR asks Congress for war, December 1941

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The 1964 Congressional Authorization That Escalated the Vietnam War

The American Program That Rebuilt Western Europe After World War II

Monroe Doctrine

The 1823 declaration that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further European colonization

National Security Act of 1947

The law that created the CIA, NSC, and Joint Chiefs — and built the permanent architecture of the Cold War

Neutrality Acts of the 1930s

The Congressional Attempt to Legislate America Out of Another World War

North Atlantic Treaty

The 1949 alliance document that reversed 150 years of American foreign policy

Tear Down This Wall

Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, 1987

The Lend-Lease Act

The law that made America the Arsenal of Democracy before it entered World War II

The USA PATRIOT Act

The 2001 law that expanded surveillance after September 11

Washington's Farewell Address

The 1796 letter in which the first president warned against the dangers that would define American history

Concepts (23)

American Exceptionalism

The conviction that the United States occupies a unique and exemplary place in world history

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

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

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

The foreign policy doctrine that kept America out of two world wars — until it didn't

The alliance that deterred a war for 40 years — and redefined itself when that war never came

America's foreign spy agency — intelligence, covert action, and controversy

The Domino Theory

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

The federal police and domestic security agency — guardian and, at times, overreacher

The secret agency that listens — codebreaking, signals, and mass surveillance

The Open Door Policy

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

The United States Armed Forces

From a citizen militia to the most powerful military on earth

Truman Doctrine

The Cold War Policy That Committed America to Containing Communism

U.S. Intelligence

The secret agencies built to spy, protect, and sometimes overreach

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

The institution America built, funds, defies, and cannot replace

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