Date of Graduation

12-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Alessandro Brogi

Committee Member

Randall Woods

Second Committee Member

Laurence Hare

Third Committee Member

Kathy Sloan

Keywords

Cold War, Falkland Islands, Foreign Policy, Great Britain, Latin America, National Security, United States

Abstract

From 1969–82, the United States and Great Britain redefined national security in a distinctive way, separating the notion of national security from its traditional foundations in realist thought. The way the two powers come to define national security was the result of more than a century of historical interaction with Latin America and their own historical experience with ideology, imperialism, and colonialism. As such, the way the United States and Great Britain perceived their respective special relationships influenced the way they chose to intervene in matters of national security, particularly in Latin America’s Southern Cone countries of Chile and Argentina. Furthermore, ideology came to play a more pronounced role in the United States’ foreign policy, which belies an ideological focus and fear that is theoretically absent from traditional realist conceptions of international relations. For the British, there was more ideological flexibility in the conduct of foreign affairs that inherently led to a more nuanced, amoral approach. In both countries, the result of such redefinition was that the notion of national security was reduced to an amorphous term that can justify any number of foreign policy interventions regardless of the geostrategic threat to traditional national security. Thus, Latin America becomes an important case study in Anglo-American relations and transatlantic understandings of Cold War foreign policy

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