American Foreign Policy and Relationship to Israel in the Light of Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program: 1961-1974
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The subject of the conference paper is U.S. foreign policy during the presidential administrations of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. The main research objective was to analyze U.S. relationship to Israel in the light of its nuclear weapons program and in connection to U.S. Cold War foreign policy. The aim of the presentation is to compare and contrast three case studies – the individual presidential administrations – and to show how the U.S. foreign policy and relationship to Israel changed from lukewarm ties, through “special” relationship, to “strategic” relationship, regardless of the fact that Israel was not a signatory of the NPT. This is especially important in the context of U.S. Cold War politics, as the Middle East was another area where the two superpowers competed for the proxy spheres of influence. In context of the U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, it is common to talk about the area of Southeast Asia or Europe, while the Middle East is usually discussed in connection to U.S. politics of the 1990s and onward. The aim of this work, thus, is to show that the Middle East was equally important for the U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War in terms of finding another proxy area and that the relationship that the U.S. has with Israel now was built during the administrations in question, especially since the U.S. pursued the ties regardless of the conflict of interest over the nuclear weapons program. |
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