US Foreign Policy in the Post-9/11 World In previous chapters, eight American foreign policy traditions have been discussed in depth. However, in relation to contemporary US foreign policies – excluding, of course, our new Cheeto in Chief – McDougall's work predates what is now called the "post-9/11 period", and ends with a very brief discussion about Clinton's foreign policy failures. In the post-9/11 period, U.S. foreign relations and policies have changed dramatically. However, it can be said that three of McDougall's eight foreign policy traditions: Freedom or Exceptionalism (so-called); Unilateralism, or Isolationism (so-called); and Global Migliorism – are still relevant in today's foreign policy discussions and debates. McDougall's traditions fall into five rough categories relating to (relatively) current foreign affairs of the United States. Without the eloquence of McDougall's category names, the five crude and terribly named categories of issues that will be proposed for American foreign affairs after 9/11 are humanitarianism, Islamophobia, democracy building, war preemptive, non-preemptive, and the War on Terror. For the purposes of this document, the above categorizations will be defined as follows: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Humanitarianism will be defined as the promotion of human well-being. Islamophobia will be defined according to the classical definition, that is, an aversion or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force. For the purposes of this article, it will also be used to refer to the general and growing global trend of persecuting Muslims, Muslim-majority countries and Islamic countries. The War on Terror will be defined as the actions taken by the United States government during the World War. The Bush era and, consequently, the post-9/11 period that advocates a global military, political, legal and conceptual struggle against both terrorist organizations and the regimes accused of supporting them. Democracy building shall be defined as efforts undertaken by the United States (and the company) to promote the formation of democracies abroad, including (c) explicit efforts to overthrow the targeted government and subsequently install a positive leader for the West. Finally, pre-emptive, non-preemptive warfare, which is also known as part of the Bush Doctrine, will be defined as the shift from engaging in pre-emptive strikes (in which the imminent outbreak of violence or expectation of conflict is inevitable) to a preventative approach. Using McDougall's terms, the Freedom at Home tradition is the oldest of all traditions because the idea of freedom is at the heart of American independence. In this first chapter, McDougall explains that “…for the generation that founded the United States, designed its government, and established its policies, the exceptional vocation of the American people was not to do anything special in foreign affairs, but to be a light to illuminate the world” (p. 20). Another part of the construction of this tradition is the justification of American exceptionalism which is rooted in religion, particularly Protestant Christian, and in the sense of the divine intervention of Providence, “the Deity [sic], not some human agent, as the author of freedom" (p.15) continuing to argue that "Americans were a chosen people freed from slavery to a land.
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