TexasScholarWorks
    • Login
    • Submit
    View Item 
    •   Repository Home
    • Conference Proceedings and Journals
    • Texas National Security Review
    • View Item
    • Repository Home
    • Conference Proceedings and Journals
    • Texas National Security Review
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Too Much History: American Policy and East Asia in the Shadow of the Past (November 2017)

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Vol-1-Issue-1-Steinberg.pdf (207.5Kb)
    Date
    2017-11
    Author
    Steinberg, James B.
    Share
     Facebook
     Twitter
     LinkedIn
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Department
    LBJ School of Public Affairs
    Description
    The great genius but also the Achilles’ heel of American diplomacy is an irrepressible “can do” optimism — a conviction that every problem has a solution, that no conflict is too wicked or too intractable to defy resolution. De Tocqueville observed that Americans “have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man. ... They all consider society as a body in a state of improvement.”1 That view has propelled America to great achievement in forging an era of peace and prosperity for nearly three-quarters of a century after World War II, ending wars and brokering peace among apparently implacable foes, and building institutions to tame economic cycles and interstate rivalries. Much of that optimism stems from our “eyes forward” approach to contemporary challenges, a conviction that the past is not prologue and that past performance is not indicative of future results. This optimism is rooted in our earliest experiences as a nation, a belief that the New World could and should forge a fresh approach to foreign policy, one not snared in the ancient quarrels of the Old World, but springing from an enlightened vision of harmonious relations among free peoples. It was an approach fitting for a nation whose very founding was an attempt to escape from the past. As Thomas Paine noted, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”2 The founders were not ignorant of history — they simply were determined not to be shackled by it.
    Subject
    American Policy
    East Asia
    Steinberg
    rival nations
    TNSR Vol. 1, Iss. 1
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/2152/63938
    Collections
    • Texas National Security Review

    University of Texas at Austin Libraries
    • facebook
    • twitter
    • instagram
    • youtube
    • CONTACT US
    • MAPS & DIRECTIONS
    • JOB OPPORTUNITIES
    • UT Austin Home
    • Emergency Information
    • Site Policies
    • Web Accessibility Policy
    • Web Privacy Policy
    • Adobe Reader
    Subscribe to our NewsletterGive to the Libraries

    © The University of Texas at Austin

     

     

    Browse

    Entire RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsDate IssuedAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartmentsThis CollectionDate IssuedAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartments

    My Account

    Login

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Information

    About Contact Policies Getting Started Glossary Help FAQs

    University of Texas at Austin Libraries
    • facebook
    • twitter
    • instagram
    • youtube
    • CONTACT US
    • MAPS & DIRECTIONS
    • JOB OPPORTUNITIES
    • UT Austin Home
    • Emergency Information
    • Site Policies
    • Web Accessibility Policy
    • Web Privacy Policy
    • Adobe Reader
    Subscribe to our NewsletterGive to the Libraries

    © The University of Texas at Austin