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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos
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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: Moral Diplomacy 108 Views
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Description:
Personally, we're big fans of Moral Diplomacy. We haven't read about it yet...but something about it just feels right. And moral. A lot more moral than waving around a big stick at least.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak dealing with foreign policy almost always
- 00:06
takes a major place on every presidents to do list
- 00:09
unless they're just kind of phoning in the whole you
- 00:12
know being president thing if a particular president does something
- 00:15
really bold or game changing they even get a nifty
Full Transcript
- 00:19
name to go along with it like teddy roosevelt's big
- 00:22
stick policy through which he expanded american influence and kept
- 00:25
european powers out of the americas with the threat of
- 00:29
the american military The big stick represents the military in
- 00:32
case anybody out there miss that And then there was
- 00:36
taft dollar diplomacy which used the military to try to
- 00:40
create political stability in latin america that would allow american
- 00:43
business interests to thrive if a leader of another country
- 00:46
didn't do what we wanted No worries We just toppled
- 00:50
their government and plunk in a guy who uh you
- 00:52
know do what we say easiest changing a flat tire
- 00:55
only with a lot more death on the sidelines of
- 00:58
all of this was woodrow wilson a democrat who marched
- 01:01
to the beat of his own drum He didn't want
- 01:03
to use the military to threaten europe or to install
- 01:06
Probusiness governments abroad wilson thought there was a better route
- 01:10
one without all the invading in economic subjugation Wilson was
- 01:15
all about democracy like creepily for he wanted to get
- 01:18
away from the imperial economic and material focuses of his
- 01:21
predecessors and instead inspire democracy and countries under america's sphere
- 01:26
of influence The idea was that america's interests would best
- 01:29
be served not by getting all imperial ist iq on
- 01:31
everybody but by creating democratic countries just like america Supposedly
- 01:36
these little americas would get along great with us What
- 01:39
he dubbed his policy with the righteous name of moral
- 01:42
diplomacy sounds like a decent strategy right Encourage countries to
- 01:46
be just like you and they will be easier to
- 01:48
deal with and what's so bad about fostering freedom But
- 01:51
critics would say that underneath all that glossy humanitarianism was
- 01:55
a thick vein of american exceptionalism You know that idea
- 01:59
that america has the the best kind of government that
- 02:01
it's the greatest country in the world and everybody else
- 02:04
should strive to be just like us Well it also
- 02:07
means that it's america's duty to impose democracy on other
- 02:10
countries to these ideas sound familiar while they ought to
- 02:13
Plenty of administration since wilson's have felt pretty much the
- 02:16
same way Some say it's Just america being full of
- 02:19
itself and bossing everyone else around while others say it
- 02:22
seriously is our duty to plant democracy everywhere we go
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