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The 10 Best U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions Ever
From securing
America’s sovereignty to expanding its continental reach to creating the
post-World War II institutions that ushered in unprecedented peace and
prosperity, discover which U.S. foreign policy decisions left the most
positive legacies.
#9 Best
Monroe Doctrine
A political cartoon touting the Monroe Doctrine. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe delivered in writing his seventh annual address to Congress—the equivalent of today’s State of the Union address. In the middle of an otherwise forgettable summary of national issues, Monroe presented what would become a classic statement of U.S. foreign policy—the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe asserted that the Western Hemisphere was off limits to further European colonization and claimed the right for the United States to protect the sovereignty of the independent republics in the Western Hemisphere. Both claims were bold statements that the country had no way of backing up. But these bluffs were based on a shrewd diplomatic analysis that signaled to the world the far-reaching ambitions of the young country. SHAFR historians ranked the Monroe Doctrine as the ninth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#8 Best
Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves
An enslaved women being auctioned in Richmond, Virginia, 1856. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The question of slavery’s future figured prominently when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Some delegates from Northern states hoped to banish the practice. They ultimately abandoned their fight in the face of the reality that the Southern states would rather bolt the convention, thereby dooming the effort to create a more effective national government, than agree to abolish slavery. The opponents of slavery, however, won one concession. The Constitution provided that after a twenty-year wait, Congress could ban the importation of enslaved people. In March 1807, at President Thomas Jefferson’s request, Congress did just that. On January 1, 1808, the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves went into effect. It was the first U.S. law that broke with the transatlantic slave system, and it curtailed U.S. participation in the international slave trade. SHAFR historians ranked the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves as the eighth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#7 Best
Creation of the Bretton Woods System
Mount Washington hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Carol M. Highsmith.
As the United States fought World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was looking to lay the foundation for the world that would follow the fighting. He believed that the war had started in part because countries had pursued wrong-headed trade and monetary policies in the 1930s that intensified the Great Depression and fueled nationalism. FDR also knew that American firms and farmers would want to export to foreign markets once the war ended. Intent on correcting the mistakes of the past and hoping to spur future prosperity, Roosevelt convened a meeting of forty-four countries in July 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. For three weeks, the delegates to the conference—known formally as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference—hammered out the rules for a new international monetary system. At its heart lay two new multilateral institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (most commonly known as the World Bank), which became the pillars of the postwar global economic order. SHAFR historians ranked the creation of the Bretton Woods System as the seventh-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#6 Best
Creation of NATO
President Harry S. Truman signs the North Atlantic Treaty proclamation. Courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum/National Park Service/Abbie Rowe.
For much of its history, the United States shunned what Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address called “entangling alliances” with other countries. This meant, above all, standing apart from the political affairs of Europe. The United States broke with that tradition when it entered World War I, though President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the United States fought beside France and Great Britain as an “associated power” and not an allied one. After the war ended, the United States again turned its back on Europe. That pattern looked set to repeat when Germany surrendered at the end of World War II. However, Soviet efforts to dominate Europe changed U.S. calculations. Rather than returning home, the United States committed itself to the defense of Europe with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It became the most successful military alliance in history, deterring the Soviet Union and ushering in what has been called the “Long Peace” in Europe. SHAFR historians ranked the creation of NATO as the sixth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#5 Best
Lend-Lease Act
Members of the English Auxiliary Territorial Service with boxes of rifles provided by the United States under the Lend-Lease Act. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum.
In December 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt with chilling news: Britain was on the verge of bankruptcy. The war with Germany, which had begun in earnest in the spring of 1940, had drained the British treasury. London would soon be unable to pay for the supplies and weapons it was buying from the United States. That might doom Britain’s effort to hold off the Nazi onslaught. Churchill’s news put FDR in a bind. A month earlier, he had won an unprecedented third term as president after promising Americans worried about the conflict in Europe that their “boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” But FDR also believed that a German victory would be disastrous for the United States. Knowing he had to act, he used the next three months to build congressional and public support for a plan to lend supplies to Britain and other countries fighting the Axis powers. The resulting Lend-Lease Act, which Churchill called “the most unsordid act,” provided more than $50 billion in aid to fifty nations and helped win World War II. SHAFR historians ranked the Lend-Lease Act as the fifth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#4 Best
Louisiana Purchase
“Cession of Louisiana” by Constantino Brumidi, depicting the signing of the Louisiana Purchase, 1875. Courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol.
The United States emerged from the Revolutionary War with its independence, but the young nation remained vulnerable to foreign powers. Both France and Spain claimed territory west of the original thirteen states. Much of the trade of what was then the western United States flowed down the Mississippi River. First Spain and then France controlled the port of New Orleans, posing the threat that either could cripple the U.S. economy by cutting off access to the sea. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent envoys to Paris with instructions to pay up to $10 million to acquire New Orleans and as much of the territory east of the city as possible. However, French leader Napoleon Bonaparte made the Americans a surprise offer: he would sell the entire Louisiana Territory for $15 million. Jefferson worried that nothing in the Constitution authorized such an acquisition. However, he swallowed his objections and jumped at the deal. The purchase more than doubled the size of the United States, secured control of the Mississippi River, and put the country on the path to becoming a continental power. SHAFR historians ranked the Louisiana Purchase as the fourth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#3 Best
Treaty of Alliance With France
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection
When the thirteen colonies declared independence in 1776, they turned to Great Britain’s rival France for aid. At first, France provided only clandestine support. It feared that publicly siding with rebels who were likely to lose would risk a war with Great Britain that had few benefits. But adept U.S. diplomacy and a critical American battlefield victory changed that calculation. On February 6, 1778, France recognized the independence of the thirteen American colonies and pledged to support their war with Great Britain. The agreement, which was codified in two separate treaties, was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War. France subsequently provided the colonies not only with military supplies and financial support, but also with land and naval forces. France’s entry into the war also forced Great Britain to divide its forces to guard against threats to its interests in Europe and the Caribbean as well as in the thirteen colonies. A war that the colonists seemed destined to lose became a war that they won—and that changed the course of history. SHAFR historians ranked the Treaty of Alliance with France as the third-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#2 Best
Creation of the United Nations
UNGA_picture
On October 24, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations came into force, establishing the United Nation’s structure, principles, and purpose. The new organization was the culmination of a yearslong effort led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died six months earlier. The objective had been to address the failures of the League of Nations, which was created after World War I, by developing a new international institution that could formalize common efforts to maintain global peace and security, develop friendly international relations, and tackle economic, social, cultural, humanitarian, and public health problems worldwide. Although the United Nations has fallen short of fulfilling Roosevelt’s lofty goals, its role as a forum of international debate, its many peacekeeping operations, and its wide-ranging humanitarian activities nonetheless mark its founding as a major triumph for the United States. SHAFR historians ranked the creation of the United Nations as the second-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
#1 Best
Marshall Plan
Library of Congress
On April 3, 1948, President Harry Truman signed into law the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948, better known as the Marshall Plan. Named after its main proponent, Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the law authorized one of the largest foreign aid programs in history. From 1948 to 1951, the United States provided sixteen countries in Western Europe $13.2 billion in assistance—equivalent to roughly $180 billion today—to buy food and goods and to invest in their infrastructure and industry. The Marshall Plan revitalized postwar Europe, blunted Soviet influence in Western Europe, encouraged intra-European cooperation, and cemented the United States’ leadership of the transatlantic alliance. SHAFR Historians ranked the Marshall Plan as the best U.S. foreign-policy decision.
#10 Best
Handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis
A U-2 plane used during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Courtesy of the Dino A. Brugioni Collection at The National Security Archive.
A U.S. Air Force surveillance flight over Cuba in October 1962 turned up evidence of what U.S. officials had feared: the Soviet Union was installing nuclear-armed missiles on the island. The discovery triggered a thirteen-day crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. President John F. Kennedy initially favored air strikes to take out the missile sites before they became operational. As a first step, he ordered a naval quarantine, or blockade, of Cuba. But worried about escalation to the unthinkable, he pursued backchannel communications with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that ended the crisis. Alarmed by how close they had come to nuclear Armageddon, Kennedy and Khrushchev subsequently negotiated several agreements that lowered tensions between their two capitals and opened the door to the arms-control era. SHAFR historians ranked JFK’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis as the tenth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.
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