American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future
MIT OpenCourseWare presents this political science course examining why the United States entered its major wars and interventions and what followed from those decisions. Lectures and readings trace policy from World War I and World War II through the Korean and Indochina wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and on to the post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the campaign against Al Qaeda. The course weighs the stated reasons for each intervention against its actual consequences for the United States and for the countries involved, building a framework for judging when force serves American interests and when it backfires. Materials include the full syllabus, lecture notes, and readings as published by MIT, free to access with no certificate attached. It suits anyone wanting a historical grounding for current debates over American military engagement abroad.