In Pursuit of Primacy
Year: 2014
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Facing internal and external constraints, including fiscal crises and resurgent isolationism, the Nixon administration worked in its first term to stabilize America’s leading position in the international system. This chapter shows how Nixon orchestrated a purposeful recalibration of US international commitments-a tactical retrenchment that became known as the Nixon Doctrine. To achieve leverage vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, Nixon opened diplomatic relations with China, initiating a strategy of détente in which diplomatic maneuvering would substitute for America’s waning material capabilities. Overall, Nixon’s purpose was not to transcend the Cold War dynamics but to buttress American primacy within a stable conception of Cold War international politics, to sustain and bolster a Pax Americana that by the late 1960s was tangibly faltering.
Source: Oxford University Press eBooks
Author: Daniel J Sargent
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2493661708