ABSTRACT
The past serves as a reference point for the present, but it is never a precise prologue for the future. 1 No place is this more evident than in the elucidation of American foreign policy goals and selection of means. With respect to goals, each generation has articulated goals suitable to its time and place, ranging from splendid isolationism of the founding years to containment during the Cold War era. Generally, those goals prioritized security of territory and defense of state sovereignty. With respect to means, the United States has displayed a shifting mix between acting unilaterally and acting multilaterally in concert with friends and allies. As David Malone, an astute Canadian scholar, observes, “U.S. impulses have been paradoxical, even when not strictly contradictory: On the one hand, throughout the twentieth century the United States sought to shape (when not actually creating) multilateral architecture on a broad range of issues; on the other, it often either stayed out of the ensuring organizations or worked, intentionally or unwittingly, to undermine them.” 2 In this chapter, I examine continuities and discontinuities of American security policy over time and suggest how 9/11 dramatically changed U.S. security goals, while the means continued to be “mixed messages.” 3
