History Paper on U.S Foreign Policy

The responsibility of a world power is that it sustains peace, protects the weak, and maintains as many allies as possible. The United States has both kept to their promises and failed as well. President Kennedy’s foreign policy was thought to be a great success because he followed Eisenhower’s foreign policy except he focused more on non-nuclear military than anything. President Carter’s loose defenseless foreign policy failed and furthermore weakened the country overall. President Reagan’s foreign policy was a great success, because he fixed Carter’s problems and led our nation to greater prosperity.

President Kennedy went through many communism conflicts during his term. Firstly, Kennedy held part in the final plan to overthrow Castro which he sent 1,500 exiles to the Bay of Pigs where it turned into disaster. The execution turned into a massacre, 300 invaders killed and the rest captured. This was frowned upon by many Americans. This horrifying event was looked at as another failed attempt to stop communism.

Next, Kennedy sent 1,500 U.S troops to West Berlin to support the cities there. This was not seen as a failure nor was it seen as a success because the Berlin Wall stayed intact till the Cold War was over! Finally, a great accomplishment during Kennedy’s term was the Cuban Missile Crisis because the two leaders (Kennedy and Khrushchev) signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August 1963 as well as the hot line.

This affected many countries, driving them towards signing treaties similar to the U.S and the Soviet Union. Kennedy sustained peace in the U.S during his entire term. He attempted to protect the weak and failed, and he maintained all possible allies such as West Berlin during the Missile Crisis.

President Carter’s actions against Communism haven’t been successful, except for the Camp David Accords. Carter sought to strengthen the relations between the U.S and Latin America by giving Panama back the Panama Canal by the year 2000. Carter thought this would lessen the chances that Panama would become a communist country, but many Americans disagreed with Carter about giving the Canal back to Panama because of how greatly it increased the United States of America’s economy.

Next, by far the greatest accomplishment for Carter was the Camp David Accords. For the first time an Arab country has had peaceful relations with Israel when the two leaders of those nations met at Camp David and signed a peace treaty between both countries. He was hoping to calm the tensions between the Middle East and the U.S to prevent them from siding with the Soviet Union. Lastly, Carter’s most horrifying failure was the Iran Hostage Crisis. Fifty four hostages were taken when Iranian terrorists seized the U.S Embassy in Iran; 1 hostage was released. Carter failed to rescue those hostages until 400 days later when President Reagan took office and fixed everything.