Nixon\'s Foriegn Policy

5 Pages 1311 Words

Nixon’s Foreign Policy


Richard Milhous Nixon was elected President of the United States in 1968.
In a low-key campaign, Nixon promised to bring peace with honor in Vietnam and to unite a nation deeply divided by the Vietnam War. Nixon defeated his two opponents, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace. Nixon entered office in the midst of one of the gravest foreign policy crisis in American history.

The Cold War was at its height, hundreds of thousands of American troops were in Vietnam, and the views of society were split down the middle. Nixon with the help of his National Security Advisor (and later became in 1973 Nixon’s Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger felt that it was crucial to change American foreign policy. Nixon and Kissinger felt it was vital to support our interest in the long run, Nixon and Kissinger considered it essential to have a balance of power throughout the world in order to ensure peace as well prosperity.


One has to take into consideration geopolitics when discussing balance of power. The main purpose is stability by using different political philosophies based on geography, and self interest. If the main powers pursued their self interest rationally and predictably, and equilibrium would emerge from the conflicting
interest (Cowan, par.1).



Nixon knew that a strong America was essential to a global balance, and counted on stability to create it. Nixon believed there were three key factors essential to keeping peace: partnership, strength and a willingness to negotiate. Nixon imagined a future in which more pleasant relations among the major powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Western Europe, and Japan—would allow for ventures profitable to all.

Through international cooperation these nations might reduce revenue-draining
Defense expenditures and prevent the occurrence of costly Third World conflicts
such as the Vietnam War (“Nixon”).

Nix...