HIS 636 - America and the World: Reagan through Obama

3 credits

Course covers American foreign relations from 1980 until 2016, through President Obama. Covers President Reagan’s reassessment of detente policy, arms-reduction negotiations with Soviet Union, U.S. response to Iran’s Islamic revolution; Iran-Contra scandal; revolutions and CIA involvement in Central America; military intervention in Grenada and Panama; end of Cold War and fall of Soviet Union; relations with China in wake of Tiananmen Square crisis; Persian Gulf War; crises in Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans; Arab-Israeli negotiations; Islamic terrorism; 9/11 attack and aftermath; “pivot to Asia”; nuclear containment with Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea; challenge of U.S. strategic relationship with China and Russia, and the ongoing debate over America’s role in the world in this century.