O legado conceitual do liberalismo e da democracia na política externa dos Estados Unidos da América no imediato Pós-Guerra Fria (1989-1993)

Abstract

The fundamental relationship between liberal ideals and the American foreign policy is crucial to understand the country’s positioning in the international post-Cold War scenario. Since the construction of the U.S. state, features such as democracy, individual freedoms, rule of law, popular participation and human rights, were strongly related to the international position that the country was seeking to occupy. To achieve these goals, the United States of America (USA) engages in a struggle for the expansion of democratic values throughout the world, this movement will gain strength in the early twentieth century, with President Roosevelt. Soon after, following Roosevelt’s same line of action of, Woodrow Wilson guided the US to the World War I, thus consolidating the main features of modern liberalism, which will be vital benchmarks of US policy in the post-Cold War. The collapse of real socialism, represented by the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), generated a wave of expansion of Western values, represented by the multilateral movement with liberal bias around the globe, represented by George H. W. Bush's foreign policy auspices. These liberal characteristics will be highlighted in Bush's foreign policy during the Gulf War, the first conflict that demands an international positioning in the post-Cold War period, in which Bush is able to meet the international demand, highlighting the American prominence, but following Wilson’s prerrogativs of multilateralism and in an attempt to expand the American ideals as Roosevelt did.