22: Triangular Diplomacy

After a look at the Johnson administration’s intervention in the Dominican Republic and the post-Watergate changes in the presidency, the central purpose of our twenty-second class, lecture and readings, is to explore three mileposts of the Nixon/ Kissinger years as the top U.S. foreign policymakers: (i) the concept of triangular diplomacy (U.S., China, and Soviet Union); (ii) the relaxation of tension between the superpowers known as détente; and (iii) the October War in the Middle East. Students should use the materials to appraise détente and the Nixon Administration’s opening to the People’s Republic of China? Then, the class should focus on how the U.S. handled this phase of Middle Eastern conflict, in particular the October War. What was the importance of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as foreign policymakers? What are they remembered for? Did they have foreign policy triumphs? Flaws?