Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Hard Line: The Republican Party and US Foreign Policy Since World War II

Hard Line: The Republican Party and US Foreign Policy Since World War II

  • September 22, 2011
Colin Dueck

Associate Professor, George Mason University


Hard Line traces the history of Republican Party foreign policy since World War II by focusing on the conservative leaders who shaped it. Colin Dueck closely examines the political careers and foreign-policy legacies of Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Rea¬gan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Dueck argues that conservative foreign policy has been characterized by a hawkish and intense American nationalism, and presidential leadership has been the driving force behind it. In this talk, Dueck will put into historical perspective the current debate among Republican presidential contenders.

Colin Dueck is associate professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University. He is the author of Reluc¬tant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton).

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