title: Peter Abelard

text: In 1128, Abbot Suger claimed that the convent at Argenteuil, where Héloïse was prioress, belonged to his abbey of St Denis. In 1129 he gained possession and he made no provision for the nuns. When Abelard heard, he transferred Paraclete and its lands to Héloïse and her remaining nuns, making her abbess. He provided the new community with a rule and with a justification of the nun's way of life; in this he emphasized the virtue of literary study. He also provided books of hymns he had composed, and in the early 1130s he and Héloïse composed a collection of their own love letters and religious correspondence containing, amongst other notable pieces, Abelard's most famous letter containing his autobiography, "Historia Calamitatum" ("The History of My Calamities"). This moved Héloïse to write her first Letter; the first being followed by the two other Letters, in which she finally accepted the part of resignation, which, now as a brother to a sister, Abelard commended to her. Sometime before 1140, Abelard published his masterpiece, "Ethica" or "Scito te ipsum" (Know Thyself), where he analyzes the idea of sin and that actions are not what a man will be judged for but intentions. During this period, he also wrote "Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum" (Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian), and also "Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos", a commentary on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, where he expands on the meaning of Christ's life.


title: Peter Abelard

text: After 1136, it is not clear whether Abelard had stopped teaching, or whether he perhaps continued with all except his lectures on logic until as late as 1141. Whatever the exact timing, a process was instigated by William of St-Thierry, who discovered what he considered to be heresies in some of Abelard's teaching. In spring 1140 he wrote to the Bishop of Chartres and to Bernard of Clairvaux, denouncing them. Another, less distinguished, theologian, Thomas of Morigny, also produced at the same time a list of Abelard's supposed heresies, perhaps at Bernard's instigation. Bernard's complaint mainly was that Abelard had applied logic where it is not applicable, and that is illogical.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Amid pressure from Bernard, Abelard challenged Bernard either to withdraw his accusations, or to make them publicly at the important church council at Sens planned for 2 June 1141. In so doing, Abelard put himself into the position of the wronged party and forced Bernard to defend himself from the accusation of slander. Bernard avoided this trap, however: on the eve of the council, he called a private meeting of the assembled bishops and persuaded them to condemn, one by one, each of the heretical propositions he attributed to Abelard. When Abelard appeared at the council the next day, he was presented with a list of condemned propositions imputed to him.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Unable to answer to these propositions, Abelard left the assembly, appealed to the Pope, and set off for Rome, hoping that the Pope would be more supportive. However, this hope was unfounded. On 16 July 1141, Pope Innocent II issued a bull excommunicating Abelard and his followers and imposing perpetual silence on him, and in a second document, he ordered Abelard to be confined in a monastery and his books to be burned. Abelard was saved from this sentence, however, by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny. Abelard had stopped there, on his way to Rome, before the papal condemnation had reached France. Peter persuaded Abelard, already old, to give up his journey and stay at the monastery. Peter managed to arrange a reconciliation with Bernard, to have the sentence of excommunication lifted, and to persuade Innocent that it was enough if Abelard remained under the aegis of Cluny.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard spent his final months at the priory of St. Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saône, before he died on 21 April 1142. He is said to have uttered the last words "I don't know", before expiring. He died from a fever while suffering from a skin disorder, possibly mange or scurvy. Heloise and Peter of Cluny arranged with the Pope, after Abelard's death, to clear his name of heresy charges.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard was first buried at St. Marcel, but his remains were soon carried off secretly to the Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Héloïse, who in time came herself to rest beside them in 1163.


title: Peter Abelard

text: The bones of the pair were moved more than once afterwards, but they were preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now are presumed to lie in the well-known tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in eastern Paris. The transfer of their remains there in 1817 is considered to have considerably contributed to the popularity of that cemetery, at the time still far outside the built-up area of Paris. By tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt, in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love.


title: Peter Abelard

text: This second burial remains disputed. The Oratory of the Paraclete claims Abelard and Héloïse are buried there and that what exists in Père-Lachaise is merely a monument, or cenotaph. According to Père-Lachaise, the remains of both lovers were transferred from the Oratory in the early 19th century and reburied in the famous crypt on their grounds. Others believe that while Abelard is buried in the tomb at Père-Lachaise, Heloïse's remains are elsewhere.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard suffered at least two nervous collapses, the first around 1104–5, cited as due to the stresses of too much study. In his words: "Not long afterward, though, my health broke down under the strain of too much study and I had to return home to Brittany. I was away from France for several years, bitterly missed..." His second documented collapse took place in 1141 at the Council of Sens, where he was accused of heresy and was unable to speak in reply. In the words of Geoffrey of Auxerre: his "memory became very confused, his reason blacked out and his interior sense forsook him."


title: Peter Abelard

text: Medieval understanding of mental health precedes development of modern psychiatric diagnosis. No diagnosis besides "ill health" was applied to Abelard at the time. His tendencies towards self-acclaim, grandiosity, paranoia and shame are suggestive of possible latent narcissism (despite his great talents and fame), or – recently conjectured – in keeping with his breakdowns, overwork, loquaciousness and belligerence – mood-related mental health issues such as mania related to bipolar disorder.


title: Peter Abelard

text: At the time, some of these characteristics were attributed disparagingly to his Breton heritage, his difficult "indomitable" personality and overwork.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard is considered one of the founders of the secular university and pre-Renaissance secular philosophical thought.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard argued for conceptualism in the theory of universals. (A universal is a quality or property which every individual member of a class of things must possess if the same word is to apply to all the things in that class. Blueness, for example, is an universal property possessed by all blue objects.) According to Abelard scholar David Luscombe, "Abelard logically elaborated an independent philosophy of language...[in which] he stressed that language itself is not able to demonstrate the truth of things (res) that lie in the domain of physics."


title: Peter Abelard

text: Writing with the influence of his wife Heloise, he stressed that subjective intention determines the moral value of human action. With Heloise, he is the first significant philosopher of the Middle Ages to push for intentionalist ethics before Thomas Aquinas.


title: Peter Abelard

text: He helped establish the philosophical authority of Aristotle, which became firmly established in the half-century after his death. It was at this time that Aristotle's "Organon" first became available, and gradually all of Aristotle's other surviving works. Before this, the works of Plato formed the basis of support for philosophical realism.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard is considered one of the greatest twelfth-century Catholic philosophers, arguing that God and the universe can and should be known via logic as well as via the emotions. He coined the term "theology" for the religious branch of philosophical tradition. He should not be read as a heretic, as his charges of heresy were dropped and rescinded by the Church after his death, but rather as a cutting-edge philosopher who pushed theology and philosophy to their limits. He is described as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th century" and as the greatest logician of the Middle Ages. "His genius was evident in all he did"; as the first to use 'theology' in its modern sense, he championed "reason in matters of faith", and "seemed larger than life to his contemporaries: his quick wit, sharp tongue, perfect memory, and boundless arrogance made him unbeatable in debate"--"the force of his personality impressed itself vividly on all with whom he came into contact."


title: Peter Abelard

text: Regarding the unbaptized who die in infancy, Abelard — in "Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos" — emphasized the goodness of God and interpreted Augustine's "mildest punishment" as the pain of loss at being denied the beatific vision ("carentia visionis Dei"), without hope of obtaining it, but with no additional punishments. His thought contributed to the forming of Limbo of Infants theory in the 12th–13th centuries.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard was concerned with the concept of intent and inner life, developing an elementary theory of cognition in his "Tractabus De Intellectibus", and later developing the concept that human beings "speak to God with their thoughts". He was one of the developers of the insanity defense, writing in "Scito te ipsum", "Of this [sin], small children and of course insane people are untouched...lack[ing] reason...nothing is counted as sin for them". He spearheaded the idea that mental illness was a natural condition and "debunked the idea that the devil caused insanity", a point of view which Thomas F. Graham argues Abelard was unable to separate himself from objectively to argue more subtly "because of his own mental health."


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard stressed that subjective intention determines the moral value of human action and therefore that the legal consequence of an action is related to the person that commits it and not merely to the action. With this doctrine, Abelard created in the Middle Ages the idea of the individual subject central to modern law. This gave to School of Notre-Dame de Paris (later the University of Paris) a recognition for its expertise in the area of Law, even before the faculty of law existed and the school even recognized as an "universitas" and even if Abelard was a logician and a theologian.


title: Peter Abelard

text: The story of Abelard and Héloïse has proved immensely popular in modern European culture. This story is known almost entirely from a few sources: first, the "Historia Calamitatum; "secondly, the seven letters between Abelard and Héloïse which survive (three written by Abelard, and four by Héloïse), and always follow the "Historia Calamitatum" in the manuscript tradition; thirdly, four letters between Peter the Venerable and Héloïse (three by Peter, one by Héloïse). They are, in modern times, the best known and most widely translated parts of Abelard's work.


title: Peter Abelard

text: It is unclear quite how the letters of Abelard and Héloïse came to be preserved. There are brief and factual references to their relationship by 12th-century writers including William Godel and Walter Map. While the letters were most likely exchanged by horseman in a public (open letter) fashion readable by others at stops along the way (and thus explaining Heloise's interception of the Historia), it seems unlikely that the letters were widely known outside of their original travel range during the period. Rather, the earliest manuscripts of the letters are dated to the late 13th century. It therefore seems likely that the letters sent between Abelard and Héloïse were kept by Héloïse at the Paraclete along with the 'Letters of Direction', and that more than a century after her death they were brought to Paris and copied.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Shortly after the deaths of Abelard and Heloise, Chrétien de Troyes appears influenced by Heloise's letters and Abelard's castration in his depiction of the fisher king in his grail tales. In the fourteenth century, the story of their love affair was summarised by Jean de Meun in the "Le Roman de la Rose".


title: Peter Abelard

text: Chaucer makes a brief reference in the Wife of Bath's Prologue (lines 677–8) and may base his character of the wife partially on Heloise. Petrarch owned an early 14th-century manuscript of the couple's letters (and wrote detailed approving notes in the margins).


title: Peter Abelard

text: The first Latin publication of the letters was in Paris in 1616, simultaneously in two editions. These editions gave rise to numerous translations of the letters into European languages – and consequent 18th- and 19th-century interest in the story of the medieval lovers. In the 18th century, the couple were revered as tragic lovers, who endured adversity in life but were united in death. With this reputation, they were the only individuals from the pre-Revolutionary period whose remains were given a place of honour at the newly founded cemetery of Père Lachaise in Paris. At this time, they were effectively revered as romantic saints; for some, they were forerunners of modernity, at odds with the ecclesiastical and monastic structures of their day and to be celebrated more for rejecting the traditions of the past than for any particular intellectual achievement.


title: Peter Abelard

text: The "Historia" was first published in 1841 by John Caspar Orelli of Turici. Then, in 1849, Victor Cousin published "Petri Abaelardi opera", in part based on the two Paris editions of 1616 but also based on the reading of four manuscripts; this became the standard edition of the letters. Soon after, in 1855, Migne printed an expanded version of the 1616 edition under the title "Opera Petri Abaelardi", without the name of Héloïse on the title page.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Critical editions of the "Historia Calamitatum" and the letters were subsequently published in the 1950s and 1960s. The most well-established documents, and correspondingly those whose authenticity has been disputed the longest, are the series of letters that begin with the Historia Calamitatum (counted as letter 1) and encompass four "personal letters" (numbered 2–5) and "letters of direction" (numbers 6–8).


title: Peter Abelard

text: Most scholars today accept these works as having been written by Héloïse and Abelard themselves. John Benton is the most prominent modern skeptic of these documents. Etienne Gilson, Peter Dronke, Constant Mews, and Mary Ellen Waithe maintain the mainstream view that the letters are genuine, arguing that the skeptical viewpoint is fueled in large part by its advocates' pre-conceived notions.


title: Peter Abelard

text: More recently, it has been argued that an anonymous series of letters, the "Epistolae Duorum Amantium", were in fact written by Héloïse and Abelard during their initial romance (and, thus, before the later and more broadly known series of letters). This argument has been advanced by Constant J. Mews, based on earlier work by Ewad Könsgen. If genuine, these letters represent a significant expansion to the corpus of surviving writing by Héloïse, and thus open several new directions for further scholarship. However, because the attribution "is of necessity based on circumstantial rather than on absolute evidence," it is not accepted by all scholars.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Novelist and Abelard scholar George Moore referred to Abelard as the "first protestant" prior to Martin Luther. While Abelard conflicted with the Church to point of (later cleared) heresy charges, he never denied his Catholic faith.


title: Peter Abelard

text: During his general audience on 4 November 2009, Pope Benedict XVI talked about Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard to illustrate differences in the monastic and scholastic approaches to theology in the 12th century. The Pope recalled that theology is the search for a rational understanding (if possible) of the mysteries of Christian revelation, which is believed through faith — faith that seeks intelligibility ("fides quaerens intellectum"). But St. Bernard, a representative of monastic theology, emphasized "faith" whereas Abelard, who is a scholastic, stressed "understanding through reason".


title: Peter Abelard

text: For Bernard of Clairvaux, faith is based on the testimony of Scripture and on the teaching of the Fathers of the Church. Thus, Bernard found it difficult to agree with Abelard and, in a more general way, with those who would subject the truths of faith to the critical examination of reason — an examination which, in his opinion, posed a grave danger: intellectualism, the relativizing of truth, and the questioning of the truths of faith themselves. Theology for Bernard could be nourished only in contemplative prayer, by the affective union of the heart and mind with God, with only one purpose: to promote the living, intimate experience of God; an aid to loving God ever more and ever better.


title: Peter Abelard

text: According to Pope Benedict XVI, an excessive use of philosophy rendered Abelard's doctrine of the Trinity fragile and, thus, his idea of God. In the field of morals, his teaching was vague, as he insisted on considering the intention of the subject as the only basis for describing the goodness or evil of moral acts, thereby ignoring the objective meaning and moral value of the acts, resulting in a dangerous subjectivism. But the Pope recognized the great achievements of Abelard, who made a decisive contribution to the development of scholastic theology, which eventually expressed itself in a more mature and fruitful way during the following century. And some of Abelard's insights should not be underestimated, for example, his affirmation that non-Christian religious traditions already contain some form of preparation for welcoming Christ.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Pope Benedict XVI concluded that Bernard's "theology of the heart" and Abelard's "theology of reason" represent the importance of healthy theological discussion and humble obedience to the authority of the Church, especially when the questions being debated have not been defined by the magisterium. St. Bernard, and even Abelard himself, always recognized without any hesitation the authority of the magisterium. Abelard showed humility in acknowledging his errors, and Bernard exercised great benevolence. The Pope emphasized, in the field of theology, there should be a balance between architectonic principles, which are given through Revelation and which always maintain their primary importance, and the interpretative principles proposed by philosophy (that is, by reason), which have an important function, but only as a tool. When the balance breaks down, theological reflection runs the risk of becoming marred by error; it is then up to the magisterium to exercise the needed service to truth, for which it is responsible.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard was also long known as an important poet and composer. He composed some celebrated love songs for Héloïse that are now lost, and which have not been identified in the anonymous repertoire. (One known romantic poem / possible lyric remains, "Dull is the Star".) Héloïse praised these songs in a letter: "The great charm and sweetness in language and music, and a soft attractiveness of the melody obliged even the unlettered". His education in music was based in his childhood learning of the traditional quadrivium studied at the time by almost all aspiring medieval scholars.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Abelard composed a hymnbook for the religious community that Héloïse joined. This hymnbook, written after 1130, differed from contemporary hymnals, such as that of Bernard of Clairvaux, in that Abelard used completely new and homogeneous material. The songs were grouped by metre, which meant that it was possible to use comparatively few melodies. Only one melody from this hymnal survives, "O quanta qualia".


title: Peter Abelard

text: In surviving manuscripts, these pieces have been notated in diastematic neumes which resist reliable transcription. Only Planctus VI was fixed in square notation. Planctus as genre influenced the subsequent development of the lai, a song form that flourished in northern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries.


title: Peter Abelard

text: Melodies that have survived have been praised as "flexible, expressive melodies [that] show an elegance and technical adroitness that are very similar to the qualities that have been long admired in Abelard's poetry."


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: Fascinated by the stories of Niké, a witch who traveled around the world, Elaina aspires to take the same course. Her determination of studying books and magic leads to her becoming the youngest apprentice witch to pass the sorcery exam. However, when Elaina attempts to receive training in order to become a full-fledged witch, she is rejected due to her extraordinary talents until she finds Fran, the "Stardust Witch", who accepts her. After earning her title, the "Ashen Witch", Elaina begins her exploration around the world, visiting and facing all kinds of people and places.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: At one point, Jougi Shiraishi was disappointed at the prospect that he would not become a professional writer. It was around this time when he discovered that it was possible to self-publish books on Amazon's Kindle service. As such, the series debuted as an e-book in 2014. Shiraishi professes that in terms of inspiration, he comes across various stories and material from other genres and formats. He also cites "National Geographic" and the ecology of animals and plants as the inspiration for the various countries and creatures featured in the series. When he thinks about the story, Shiraishi states that he focuses on the setting and world first.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: Shiraishi requested the production staff of the anime adaptation, as the only major request to them, not to show any panties, in order to broaden the age range of the audience.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: The series was acquired by SB Creative, who began publishing the series in light novel format through its GA Novel imprint with illustrations by Azure on April 15, 2016. Nineteen volumes have been released as of September 14, 2022. Yen Press has licensed the series in North America and the first volume was published on January 28, 2020.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: A manga adaptation by Itsuki Nanao began serialization on November 29, 2018 on the smartphone app and website "Manga UP!" from the publisher Square Enix, which published the first volume of the series on April 12, 2019; it has been compiled into four volumes as of March 7, 2022. The manga is published in English by Square Enix.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: An anime television series adaptation was announced during a livestream for the "GA Fes 2019" event on October 19, 2019. The series was animated by C2C and directed by Toshiyuki Kubooka, with Kazuyuki Fudeyasu handling series composition, and Takeshi Oda adapting Azure's character designs. AstroNotes composed the soundtrack for the anime, which was later released in an album on January 27, 2021. The series ran for 12 episodes from October 2 to December 18, 2020 on AT-X and other channels. The opening theme is performed by Reina Ueda, while the ending theme is performed by ChouCho.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: Funimation acquired the series and streamed it on its website in North America and the British Isles. AnimeLab simulcasted the series in Australia and New Zealand. Wakanim streamed the series in select European territories. On December 3, 2020, Funimation announced that the series would receive an English dub, which premiered the following day. Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the series was moved to Crunchyroll. Muse Communication has licensed the series in Southeast Asia and South Asia and they streamed it on their Muse Asia YouTube channel.


title: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

text: The light novel series ranked ninth in 2018 in Takarajimasha's annual light novel guide book "Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi!", in the "tankōbon" category. It ranked sixth in 2019 and sixth again in 2020.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the "Foreign Policy Agenda" of the Department of State, are "to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community". The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs states as some of its jurisdictional goals: "export controls, including nonproliferation of nuclear technology and nuclear hardware; measures to foster commercial interaction with foreign nations and to safeguard American business abroad; international commodity agreements; international education; protection of American citizens abroad; and expulsion". U.S. foreign policy and foreign aid have been the subject of much debate, praise, and criticism, both domestically and abroad.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Article Two of the United States Constitution grants power of foreign policy to the President of the United States, including powers to command the military, negotiate treaties, and appoint ambassadors. The Department of State carries out the president's diplomatic policy while the Department of Defense carries out the president's military policy. The Central Intelligence Agency is an independent agency responsible for gathering intelligence on foreign activity. Some checks and balances are applied to the president's powers of foreign policy. Treaties negotiated by the president require ratification by the Senate to take force as United States law. The president's ambassadorial nominations also require Senate approval before taking office. Military actions must first be approved by both chambers of Congress.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Constitution grants Congress the power to approve the president's picks for ambassadors and the power to declare war. The president is commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. He appoints a secretary of state and ambassadors with the advice and consent of the Senate. The secretary acts similarly to a foreign minister, the primary conductor of state-to-state diplomacy.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Much of American foreign policy consists of international agreements made with other countries. Treaties are governed by the Treaty Clause of the United States Constitution. This clause dictates that the president negotiates treaties with other countries or political entities, and signs them. For a treaty to be ratified, it must be approved by the Committee on Foreign Relations and then be approved by at least two-thirds of the United States Senate in a floor vote. If approved, the United States exchanges the instruments of ratification with the relevant foreign states. In "Missouri v. Holland", the Supreme Court ruled that the power to make treaties under the U.S. Constitution is a power separate from the other enumerated powers of the federal government, and hence the federal government can use treaties to legislate in areas which would otherwise fall within the exclusive authority of the states. Between 1789 and 1990, the Senate approved more than 1,500 treaties, rejected 21 and withdrew 85 without further action. As of 2019, 37 treaties were pending Senate approval.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In addition to treaties, the president can also make executive agreements. These agreements are made under the president's power of setting foreign policy, but they are not ratified by the Senate and as a result are not legally binding. In contrast to most other nations, the United States regards treaties and executive agreements as legally distinct. Congress may pass a resolution to enshrine an executive agreement into law, but the constitutionality of this action has been questioned.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The State Department has taken the position that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties represents established law. Following ratification, the United States incorporates treaty law into the body of U.S. federal law. As a result, Congress can modify or repeal treaties after they are ratified. This can overrule an agreed-upon treaty obligation even if that is seen as a violation of the treaty under international law. Several U.S. court rulings confirmed this understanding, including Supreme Court decisions in "Paquete Habana v. the United States" (1900), and "Reid v. Covert" (1957), as well as a lower court ruling in "Garcia-Mir v. Meese" (1986). As a result of the "Reid v. Covert" decision, the United States adds a reservation to the text of every treaty that says in effect that the United States intends to abide by the treaty but that if the treaty is found to be in violation of the Constitution, the United States legally is then unable to abide by the treaty since the American signature would be "ultra vires".


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The main trend regarding the history of U.S. foreign policy since the American Revolution is the shift from non-interventionism before and after World War I, to its growth as a world power and global hegemony during and since World War II and the end of the Cold War in the 20th century. Since the 19th century, U.S. foreign policy also has been characterized by a shift from the realist school to the idealistic or Wilsonian school of international relations. Over time, other themes, key goals, attitudes, or stances have been variously expressed by Presidential 'doctrines', named for them. Initially these were uncommon events, but since WWII, these have been made by most presidents.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Foreign policy themes were expressed considerably in George Washington's farewell address; these included, among other things, observing good faith and justice towards all nations and cultivating peace and harmony with all, excluding both "inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others", "steer[ing] clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world", and advocating trade with all nations. Foreign policy in the first years of American independence constituted the balancing of relations with Great Britain and France. The Federalist Party supported Washington's foreign policy and sought close ties with Britain, but the Democratic-Republican Party favored France. Under the Federalist government of John Adams, the United States engaged in conflict with France in the Quasi-War, but the rival Jeffersonians feared Britain and favored France in the 1790s, declaring the War of 1812 on Britain. After the 1778 alliance with France, the U.S. did not sign another permanent treaty until the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. Jeffersonians vigorously opposed a large standing army and any navy until attacks against American shipping by Barbary corsairs spurred the country into developing a naval force projection capability, resulting in the First Barbary War in 1801.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: American foreign policy was mostly peaceful and marked by steady expansion of its foreign trade during the 19th century. As the Jeffersonians took power in the 1800s, they opposed a large standing army and any navy until attacks against American shipping by Barbary corsairs spurred the country into developing a naval force projection capability, resulting in the First Barbary War in 1801. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the nation's geographical area. The American policy of neutrality had caused tensions to rise with Britain in the Atlantic and with Native American nations in the frontier. This led to the War of 1812 and helped cement American foreign policy as independent of Europe.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In the 1820s, the Monroe Doctrine was established as the primary foreign policy doctrine of the United States, establishing Latin America as an American sphere of influence and rejecting European colonization in the region. The 1830s and 1840s were marked by increasing conflict with Mexico, exacerbated by the Texas annexation and culminating in the Mexican–American War in 1846. Following the war, the United States claimed much of what is now the Southwestern United States, and the Gadsden Purchase further expanded this territory. Relations with Britain continued to be strained as a result of border conflicts until they were resolved by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty in 1842. The Perry Expedition of 1853 led to Japan establishing relations with the United States.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Diplomacy of the American Civil War emphasized preventing European involvement in the war. During the Civil War, Spain and France defied the Monroe Doctrine and expanded their colonial influence in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, respectively. The Alaska Purchase was negotiated with Russia in 1867 and the Newlands Resolution annexed Hawaii in 1898. The Spanish–American War took place during 1898, resulting in the United States claiming Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Following the Spanish–American War, the United States entered the 20th century as an emerging great power with colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Under Theodore Roosevelt, the United States adopted the Roosevelt Corollary, which indicated American willingness to use its military strength to end conflicts and wrongdoings in Latin America. Following the independence of Panama, the United States and Panama negotiated the construction of the Panama Canal, during which time the Panama Canal Zone was placed under American jurisdiction. The United States established the Open Door Policy with China during this time as well. The 20th century was marked by two world wars in which Allied powers, along with the United States, defeated their enemies, and through this participation the United States increased its international reputation.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: President Wilson's Fourteen Points was developed from his idealistic Wilsonianism program of spreading democracy and fighting militarism to prevent future wars. It became the basis of the German Armistice (which amounted to a military surrender) and the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The resulting Treaty of Versailles, due to European allies' punitive and territorial designs, showed insufficient conformity with these points, and the U.S. signed separate treaties with each of its adversaries; due to Senate objections also, the U.S. never joined the League of Nations, which was established as a result of Wilson's initiative. In the 1920s, the United States followed an independent course, and succeeded in a program of naval disarmament, and refunding the German economy. Operating outside the League it became a dominant player in diplomatic affairs. New York became the financial capital of the world, but the Wall Street Crash of 1929 hurled the Western industrialized world into the Great Depression. American trade policy relied on high tariffs under the Republicans, and reciprocal trade agreements under the Democrats, but in any case exports were at very low levels in the 1930s.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States adopted a non-interventionist foreign policy from 1932 to 1938, but this position was challenged by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Franklin D. Roosevelt advocated strong support of the allies, establishing the United States as the Arsenal of Democracy by providing military equipment without entering the war. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States joined the allies as combatants in World War II.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Roosevelt mentioned four fundamental freedoms, which ought to be enjoyed by people "everywhere in the world"; these included the freedom of speech and religion, as well as freedom from want and fear. Roosevelt helped establish terms for a post-war world among potential allies at the Atlantic Conference; specific points were included to correct earlier failures, which became a step toward the United Nations. American policy was to threaten Japan, to force it out of China, and to prevent its attacking the Soviet Union. Japan reacted with an attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the United States was at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy. Instead of the loans given to allies in World War I, the United States provided Lend-Lease grants of $50,000,000,000. Working closely with Winston Churchill of Britain, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, Roosevelt sent his forces into the Pacific against Japan, then into North Africa against Italy and Germany, and finally into Europe starting with France and Italy in 1944 against the Germans. The American economy roared forward, doubling industrial production, and building vast quantities of airplanes, ships, tanks, munitions, and, finally, the atomic bomb. Much of the American war effort went to strategic bombers, which flattened the cities of Japan and Germany.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: After the war, the U.S. rose to become the dominant economic power with broad influence in much of the world, with the key policies of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. Almost immediately, two broad camps formed during the Cold War; one side was led by the U.S. and the other by the Soviet Union, but this situation also led to the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement. This period lasted until almost the end of the 20th century and is thought to be both an ideological and power struggle between the two superpowers. The United States extended its influence in the years after World War II, enacting the Marshall Plan to support the reconstruction process in European countries and seeking to combat Communism through containment. This strategy of containment resulted in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War in particular was highly controversial, and its perceived failures reduced popularity for foreign intervention in the United States. In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved into separate nations, and the Cold War formally ended as the United States gave separate diplomatic recognition to the Russian Federation and other former Soviet states.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In domestic politics, foreign policy was not usually a central issue. In 1945–1970, the Democratic Party took a strong anti-Communist line and supported wars in Korea and Vietnam. Then the party split with a strong, "dovish", pacifist element (typified by 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern). Many "hawks", advocates for war, joined the neoconservative movement and started supporting the Republicans—especially Reagan—based on foreign policy. Meanwhile, down to 1952 the Republican Party was split between an isolationist wing, based in the Midwest and led by Senator Robert A. Taft, and an internationalist wing based in the East and led by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower defeated Taft for the 1952 nomination largely on foreign policy grounds. Since then the Republicans have been characterized by a hawkish and intense American nationalism, strong opposition to Communism, and strong support for Israel.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Following the end of the Cold War, the United States entered the 21st century as the sole superpower, though this status has been challenged by China, India, Russia, and the European Union. Substantial problems remain, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, and the specter of nuclear terrorism.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The September 11 attacks in 2001 caused a shift in American policy, resulting in the war on terror. The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and invaded Iraq in 2003, emphasizing nation-building and the neutralization of terrorist threats in the Middle East. During the war on terror, the United States significantly expanded its military and intelligence capacities while also pursuing economic methods of targeting opposing governments. In 2014, the Islamic State emerged as a major hostile power in the Middle East, and the United States led a military intervention in Iraq and Syria to combat it. The extended nature of American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted in support for isolationism and reduced involvement in foreign conflicts.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In 2011, the United States led a NATO intervention in Libya. In 2013, disclosures of American surveillance programs revealed that United States intelligence policy included extensive global surveillance activities against foreign governments and citizens.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In 2017, diplomats from other countries developed new tactics to engage with President Donald Trump's brand of American nationalism. Peter Baker of "The New York Times" reported on the eve of his first foreign trip as president that the global diplomatic community had devised a strategy of keeping interactions brief, complimenting him, and giving him something he can consider a victory. Before the Trump presidency, foreign policy in the U.S. was the result of bipartisan consensus on an agenda of strengthening its position as the number one power. That consensus has since fractured, with Republican and Democratic politicians increasingly calling for a more restrained approach. Foreign policy under the Trump administration involved heightened tensions with Iran, a trade war through increased tariffs, and a reduce role in international organizations.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States ended its wars in the Middle East with the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. American foreign policy shifted to an increased focus on Russia following Russian election interference in 2016 and developments in the Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The diplomatic policy of the United States is created by the president and carried out by the Department of State. The department's stated mission is to "protect and promote U.S. security, prosperity, and democratic values and shape an international environment in which all Americans can thrive." Its objectives during the 2022-2026 period include renewing U.S. leadership, promoting global prosperity, strengthening democratic institutions, revitalizing the diplomatic workforce and institutions, and serving U.S. citizens abroad. As of 2022, the United States has bilateral relations with all but four United Nations members.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States government emphasizes human rights in foreign policy. Annual reports produced by the Department of State, such as "Advancing Freedom and Democracy" and the "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices", track the status of human rights around the world. The National Endowment for Democracy provides financial aid to promote democracy internationally.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States is party to thousands of international agreements with other countries, territories, and international organizations. These include arms control agreements, human rights treaties, environmental protocols, and free trade agreements. Under the Compact of Free Association, the United States also maintains a relationship of free association with the countries of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, grants the United States military access to the countries in exchange for military protection, foreign aid, and access domestic American agencies.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States is a member of many international organizations. It is a founding member of the United Nations and holds a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The United States is also a member of other global organizations, including the World Trade Organization. Regional organizations in which the United States is a member include NATO, Organization of American States, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. As the largest economy in the world, the United States is also a member of organizations for the most developed nations, including the OECD, the Group of Seven, and the G20.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States notably does not participate in various international agreements adhered to by almost all other industrialized countries, by almost all the countries of the Americas, or by almost all other countries in the world. With a large population and economy, on a practical level this can undermine the effect of certain agreements, or give other countries a precedent to cite for non-participation in various agreements.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In some cases the arguments against participation include that the United States should maximize its sovereignty and freedom of action, or that ratification would create a basis for lawsuits that would treat American citizens unfairly. In other cases, the debate became involved in domestic political issues, such as gun control, climate change, and the death penalty.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Foreign assistance is a core component of the State Department's international affairs budget, and aid is considered an essential instrument of U.S. foreign policy. There are four major categories of non-military foreign assistance: bilateral development aid, economic assistance supporting U.S. political and security goals, humanitarian aid, and multilateral economic contributions (for example, contributions to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund). In absolute dollar terms, the United States government is the largest international aid donor. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) manages the bulk of bilateral economic assistance, while the Treasury Department handles most multilateral aid. Foreign aid is a highly partisan issue in the United States, with liberals, on average, supporting foreign aid much more than conservatives do.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States first began distributing regular foreign aid in the aftermath of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. Foreign aid has been used to foster closer relations with foreign nations, strengthen countries that could potentially become future allies and trading partners, and provide assistance for people of countries most in need. American foreign aid contributed to the Green Revolution in the 1960s and the democratization of Taiwan and Colombia. Since the 1970s, issues of human rights have become increasingly important in American foreign policy, and several acts of Congress served to restrict foreign aid from governments that "engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights". In 2011, President Obama instructed agencies to consider LGBT rights when issuing financial aid to foreign countries. In the 2019 fiscal year, the United States spent $39.2 billion in foreign aid, constituting less than one percent of the federal budget.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: United States foreign policy is influenced by the efforts of the U.S. government to control imports of illicit drugs, including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and cannabis. This is especially true in Latin America, a focus for the U.S. War on Drugs. Those efforts date back to at least 1880, when the U.S. and China completed an agreement that prohibited the shipment of opium between the two countries.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Over a century later, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act requires the President to identify the major drug transit or major illicit drug-producing countries. In September 2005, the following countries were identified: Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. Two of these, Burma and Venezuela are countries that the U.S. considers to have failed to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements during the previous 12 months. Notably absent from the 2005 list were Afghanistan, the People's Republic of China and Vietnam; Canada was also omitted in spite of evidence that criminal groups there are increasingly involved in the production of MDMA destined for the United States and that large-scale cross-border trafficking of Canadian-grown cannabis continues. The U.S. believes that the Netherlands are successfully countering the production and flow of MDMA to the U.S.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: American involvement with Africa has historically been limited. During the war on terror, the United States increased its activities in Africa to fight terrorism in conjunction with African countries as well as to support democracy in Africa through the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Africa has also been the subject of competition between American and Chinese investment strategies. In 2007 the U.S. was Sub-Saharan Africa's largest single export market accounting for 28% of exports (second in total to the EU at 31%). 81% of U.S. imports from this region were petroleum products.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: America's relations with Asia have tended to be based on a "hub and spoke" model instead of multilateral relations, using a series of bilateral relationships where states coordinate with the United States instead of through a unified bloc. On May 30, 2009, at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged the nations of Asia to build on this hub and spoke model as they established and grew multilateral institutions such as ASEAN, APEC and the ad hoc arrangements in the area. In 2011, Gates said the United States must serve as the "indispensable nation", for building multilateral cooperation. As of 2022, the Department of Defense considers China to be the greatest threat to the policy goals of the United States.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Canada has historically been a close ally to the United States, and their foreign policies often work in conjunction. The armed forces of Canada and the United States have a high level of interoperability, and domestic air force operations have been fully integrated between the two countries through NORAD. Almost all of Canada's energy exports go to the United States, making it the largest foreign source of U.S. energy imports; Canada is consistently among the top sources for U.S. oil imports, and it is the largest source of U.S. natural gas and electricity imports. Trade between the United States and Canada as well as Mexico is facilitated through the USMCA.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States has close ties with the European Union, and it is a member of NATO along with several European countries. The United States has close relations with most countries of Europe. Much of American foreign policy has involved combating the Soviet Union in the 20th century and Russia in the 21st century.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Monroe Doctrine has historically made up the foreign policy of the United States in regard to Latin America. Under this policy, the United States would consider Latin America to be under its sphere of influence and defend Latin American countries from European hostilities. The United States was heavily involved in the politics of Panama during the early-20th century in order to construct the Panama Canal. Cuba was an ally of the United States following its independence, but it was identified as a major national security threat following the Cuban Revolution; Cuba–United States relations remain poor.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Middle East region was first proclaimed to be of national interest to the United States during World War II, and relations were secured with Saudi Arabia to secure additional oil supplies. The Middle East continued to be regarded as an area of vital importance to the United States during the Cold War, and American containment policy emphasized preventing Soviet influence from taking hold in the Middle East. The Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, and the Nixon Doctrine all played roles in the formulation of the Carter Doctrine, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region. Carter's successor, President Ronald Reagan, extended the policy in October 1981 with the Reagan Doctrine, which proclaimed that the United States would intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, whose security was threatened after the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War. During the war on terror, the United States increased its involvement in the region; some analysts have argued that the implementation of the Carter Doctrine and the Reagan Doctrine also played a role in the outbreak of the 2003 Iraq War.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves are estimated to be found in the Persian Gulf, and the United States imports oil from several Middle Eastern countries. While its imports have exceeded domestic production since the early 1990s, new hydraulic fracturing techniques and discovery of shale oil deposits in Canada and the American Dakotas offer the potential for increased energy independence from oil exporting countries such as OPEC.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Australia and New Zealand are close allies of the United States. Together, the three countries compose the ANZUS collective security agreement. The United States and the United Kingdom also have a separate agreement, AUKUS, with Australia. After it captured the islands from Japan during World War II, the United States administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands from 1947 to 1986 (1994 for Palau). The Northern Mariana Islands became a U.S. territory (part of the United States), while Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau became independent countries. Each has signed a Compact of Free Association that gives the United States exclusive military access in return for U.S. defense protection and conduct of military foreign affairs (except the declaration of war) and a few billion dollars of aid. These agreements also generally allow citizens of these countries to live and work in the United States with their spouses (and vice versa), and provide for largely free trade. The federal government also grants access to services from domestic agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Weather Service, the United States Postal Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and U.S. representation to the International Frequency Registration Board of the International Telecommunication Union.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Defense policy of the United States is established by the president under the role of commander-in-chief, and it is carried out by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. As of 2022, the stated objective of the Department of Defense is to deter attacks against the United States and its allies in order to protect the American people, expand America's prosperity, and defend democratic values. The department recognizes China as the greatest foreign threat to the United States, with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations recognized as other major foreign threats. Most American troops stationed in foreign countries operate in non-combat roles. As of 2021, about 173,000 troops are deployed in 159 countries. Japan, Germany, and South Korea are host to the largest numbers of American troops due to continued military cooperation following World War II and the Korean War. The United States has not been involved in a major war since the conclusion of the War in Afghanistan in 2021, though American forces continue to operate against terrorist groups in the Middle East and Africa through the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001. The United States also provides billions of dollars of military aid to allied countries each year.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Constitution of the United States requires that Congress authorize any military conflict initiated by the president. This has been carried out through formal declarations of war, Congressional authorizations without formal declaration, and through United Nations Security Council Resolutions that are legally recognized by Congress. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 limited the ability of the president to use the military without Congressional authorization. Prior to 2001, 125 instances of American presidents using military force without Congressional authorization had been identified. Since 2001, the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 (AUMF) has granted the president the power to engage in military conflict with any country, organization, or person that was involved in carrying out the September 11 attacks. American presidents have since interpreted the AUMF to authorize military campaigns against terrorist groups associated with Al-Qaeda in several countries.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Department of Defense considers cooperation with American allies and partners to be "critical" to achieving American defense objectives. The department makes a distinction between alliances, which are formal military agreements between countries through a treaty, and strategic partnerships, which are military cooperation agreements that aren't bound by specific terms. The United States military works in cooperation with many national governments, and the United States has approximately 750 military bases in at least 80 different countries. In addition to military agreements, the United States is a member of multiple international disarmament organizations, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States is a founding member of NATO, an alliance of 29 North American and European nations formed to defend Western Europe against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Under the NATO charter, the United States legally recognizes any attack on a NATO member as an attack on all NATO members. The United States is also a founding member of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, an alliance of 19 North and South American nations. The United States is one of the three members of ANZUS, along with Australia and New Zealand, and it also has military alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. Under the Compact of Free Association, the United States is responsible for the defense of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. The United States has also designated several countries as major non-NATO allies. These are countries that are not members of NATO but are granted certain privileges in regard to defense trade and security cooperation, including eligibility for certain trade deals and research collaboration. The president is empowered to designate additional foreign countries as major non-NATO allies.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Since it became a superpower in the mid-20th century, the United States has primarily carried out defense operations by leading and participating in multilateral coalitions. These coalitions may be constructed around existing defensive alliances, such as NATO, or through separate coalitions constructed through diplomatic negotiations and acting in a common interest. The United States has not engaged in unilateral military action since the invasion of Panama in 1989. United States military action may take place in accordance with or in opposition to the wishes of the United Nations. The United States has opposed the expansion of United Nations peacekeeping beyond its previous scope, instead supporting the use of multilateral coalitions in hostile countries and territories.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The U.S. provides military aid through many channels, including direct funding, support for training, or distribution of military equipment. Military aid spending has varied over time, with spending reaching as high as $35 billion in 1952, adjusted for inflation. The United States established a cohesive military aid policy during World War II, when the Lend-Lease program was implemented to support the Allied powers. After the war, the United States continued to provide military aid in line with other foreign aid programs to support American allies. Programs such as Foreign Military Financing and Foreign Military Sales oversee distribution of military aid.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: According to a 2016 report by the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. topped the market in global weapon sales for 2015, with $40 billion sold. The largest buyers were Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Pakistan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. In 2020, the United States distributed $11.6 billion in military aid, the lowest since 2004. Military aid is one of the main forms of foreign aid, with 23% of American foreign aid in 2020 taking the form of military aid. Afghanistan was the primary recipient of American military aid in the 2010s. In 2022, military aid policy in the United States shifted from Afghanistan to Ukraine following the end of the War in Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of 2021, the United States has military bases in at least 80 countries.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The table below outlines the ten largest recipients of United States military aid in 2020 and their estimated aid in billions.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles, later dubbed ""Star Wars"". The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Though it was never fully developed or deployed, the research and technologies of SDI paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In February 2007, the U.S. started formal negotiations with Poland and Czech Republic concerning construction of missile shield installations in those countries for a Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system (in April 2007, 57% of Poles opposed the plan). According to press reports, the government of the Czech Republic agreed (while 67% Czechs disagree) to host a missile defense radar on its territory while a base of missile interceptors is supposed to be built in Poland.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Russia threatened to place short-range nuclear missiles on the Russia's border with NATO if the United States refuses to abandon plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic. In April 2007, Putin warned of a new Cold War if the Americans deployed the shield in Central Europe. Putin also said that Russia is prepared to abandon its obligations under an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 with the United States.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: On August 14, 2008, the United States and Poland announced a deal to implement the missile defense system in Polish territory, with a tracking system placed in the Czech Republic. "The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defense system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia", Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's NATO envoy, said.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, argue in Foreign Affairs that U.S. missile defenses are designed to secure Washington's nuclear primacy and are chiefly directed at potential rivals, such as Russia and China. The authors note that Washington continues to eschew nuclear first strike and contend that deploying missile defenses "would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one; as an adjunct to a US First Strike capability, not as a stand-alone shield":


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with only a tiny surviving arsenal, if any at all. At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: This analysis is corroborated by the Pentagon's 1992 Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), prepared by then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and his deputies. The DPG declares that the United States should use its power to "prevent the reemergence of a new rival" either on former Soviet territory or elsewhere. The authors of the Guidance determined that the United States had to "Field a missile defense system as a shield against accidental missile launches or limited missile strikes by 'international outlaws'" and also must "Find ways to integrate the 'new democracies' of the former Soviet bloc into the U.S.-led system". The National Archive notes that Document 10 of the DPG includes wording about "disarming capabilities to destroy" which is followed by several blacked out words. "This suggests that some of the heavily excised pages in the still-classified DPG drafts may include some discussion of preventive action against threatening nuclear and other WMD programs."


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Robert David English, writing in "Foreign Affairs", observes that the DPG's second recommendation has also been proceeding on course. "Washington has pursued policies that have ignored Russian interests (and sometimes international law as well) in order to encircle Moscow with military alliances and trade blocs conducive to U.S. interests."


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Studies have been devoted to the historical success rate of the U.S. in exporting democracy abroad. Some studies of American intervention have been pessimistic about the overall effectiveness of U.S. efforts to encourage democracy in foreign nations. Until recently, scholars have generally agreed with international relations professor Abraham Lowenthal that U.S. attempts to export democracy have been "negligible, often counterproductive, and only occasionally positive". Other studies find U.S. intervention has had mixed results, and another by Hermann and Kegley has found that military interventions have improved democracy in other countries.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Intelligence policy is developed by the president and carried out by the United States Intelligence Community, led by the Director of National Intelligence. The Intelligence Community includes 17 offices and bureaus within various executive departments as well as the Central Intelligence Agency. Its stated purpose is to utilize insights, protected information, and understanding of adversaries to advance national security, economic strength, and technological superiority.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Intelligence Community provides support for all diplomatic and military action undertaken by the United States and serves to inform government and military decision-making, as well as collecting and analyzing global economic and environmental information. The primary functions of the Intelligence Community are the collection and analysis of information, and it is responsible for collecting information on foreign subjects that is not available publicly or through diplomatic channels. Collection of information typically takes the form of signals intelligence, imagery intelligence, and human intelligence. Information collected by American intelligence is used to counter foreign intelligence, terrorism, narcotics trafficking, WMD proliferation, and international organized crime.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The Intelligence Community is responsible for counterintelligence to protect the United States from foreign intelligence services. The Central Intelligence Agency is responsible for counterintelligence activities abroad, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation is responsible for combating foreign intelligence operations in the United States. The goal of American counterintelligence is to protect classified government information as well as trade secrets of American industry. Offensive counterintelligence operations undertaken by the United States include recruiting foreign intelligence agents, monitoring suspected foreign agents, and collecting information on the intentions of foreign intelligence services, while defensive counterintelligence operations include investigating suspected cases of espionage and producing analyses of foreign intelligence threats.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Counterintelligence operations in the United States began when the Espionage Act of 1917 was used to prosecute German infiltrators and saboteurs during World War I. Today, counterintelligence is applied in the United States as a tool of national security. Due to its global influence, the United States is considered to be the world's greatest target for intelligence operations. Terrorists, tyrants, foreign adversaries, and economic competitors have all been found to engage in "a range of intelligence activities" directed against the United States. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda have been found to employ intelligence practices similar to those of foreign powers, and American counterintelligence operations play a significant role in counterterrorism.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In addition to intelligence gathering, the Central Intelligence Agency is authorized by the National Security Act of 1947 to engage in covert action. Covert action is undertaken to influence conditions in foreign countries without evidence of American involvement. This may include enacting propaganda campaigns, offering support to factions within a country, providing logistical assistance to foreign governments, or disrupting illegal activities. The use of covert action is controversial within the Intelligence Community due to the potential harm to foreign relations and public image, but most individuals involved in American intelligence cite it as an "essential" option to prevent terrorism, drug trafficking, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: United States foreign policy also includes covert actions to topple foreign governments that have been opposed to the United States. According to J. Dana Stuster, writing in "Foreign Policy", there are seven "confirmed cases" where the U.S.—acting principally through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but sometimes with the support of other parts of the U.S. government, including the Navy and State Department—covertly assisted in the overthrow of a foreign government: Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Congo in 1960, the Dominican Republic in 1961, South Vietnam in 1963, Brazil in 1964, and Chile in 1973. Stuster states that this list excludes "U.S.-supported insurgencies and failed assassination attempts" such as those directed against Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as instances where U.S. involvement has been alleged but not proven (such as Syria in 1949).


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In 1953 the CIA, working with the British government, initiated "Operation Ajax" against the Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalize Iran's oil, threatening the interests of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. This had the effect of restoring and strengthening the authoritarian monarchical reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1957, the CIA and Israeli Mossad aided the Iranian government in establishing its intelligence service, SAVAK, later blamed for the torture and execution of the regime's opponents.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: A year later, in "Operation PBSuccess", the CIA assisted the local military in toppling the democratically elected left-wing government of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala and installing the military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas. The United Fruit Company lobbied for Árbenz's overthrow as his land reforms jeopardized their land holdings in Guatemala, and painted these reforms as a communist threat. The coup triggered a decades long civil war which claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people (42,275 individual cases have been documented), mostly through 626 massacres against the Maya population perpetrated by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan military. An independent Historical Clarification Commission found that U.S. corporations and government officials "exercised pressure to maintain the country's archaic and unjust socio-economic structure", and that U.S. military assistance had a "significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation".


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: During the massacre of at least 500,000 alleged communists in 1960s Indonesia, U.S. government officials encouraged and applauded the mass killings while providing covert assistance to the Indonesian military which helped facilitate them. This included the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta supplying Indonesian forces with lists of up to 5,000 names of suspected members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), who were subsequently killed in the massacres. In 2001, the CIA attempted to prevent the publication of the State Department volume "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968", which documents the U.S. role in providing covert assistance to the Indonesian military for the express purpose of the extirpation of the PKI. In July 2016, an international panel of judges ruled the killings constitute crimes against humanity, and that the US, along with other Western governments, were complicit in these crimes.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In 1970, the CIA worked with coup-plotters in Chile in the attempted kidnapping of General René Schneider, who was targeted for refusing to participate in a military coup upon the election of Salvador Allende. Schneider was shot in the botched attempt and died three days later. The CIA later paid the group $35,000 for the failed kidnapping.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: According to one peer-reviewed study, the U.S. intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The failed 1961 CIA Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba was an attempt by the U.S. government to overthrow a regime. Not only did this cause a diplomatic embarrassment, it also damaged the CIA’s credibility internationally.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: United States foreign policy has been the subject of debate, receiving praise and criticism domestically and abroad. As of 2019, public opinion in the United States is closely divided on American involvement in world affairs. 53% of Americans wish for the United States to be active in world affairs, while 46% of Americans wish for less involvement overseas. American involvement in the global economy is received more positively by the American people, with 73% considering it to be a "good thing".


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Overall, the United States is viewed positively by the rest of the world. The Eurasia Group Foundation reported that as of 2021, 85% of respondents from 10 countries have a favorable opinion of the United States and 81% favor American hegemony over Chinese hegemony. Those with an unfavorable view of the United States most commonly cited interventionism, and in particular the War in Afghanistan, as their reason. It was also found that the exercise of soft power increased favorable opinions while the exercise of hard power decreased favorable opinions. Citizens of Brazil, Nigeria, and India were found to have more favorable opinions of the United States, while citizens of China and Germany were found to have less favorable opinions of the United States.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: International opinion about the US has often changed with different executive administrations. For example, in 2009, the French public favored the United States when President Barack Obama (75% favorable) replaced President George W. Bush (42%). After President Donald Trump took the helm in 2017, French public opinion about the US fell from 63% to 46%. These trends were also seen in other European countries.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Many democracies have voluntary military ties with the United States. See NATO, ANZUS, U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Mutual Defense Treaty with South Korea, and Major non-NATO ally. Those nations with military alliances with the U.S. can spend less on the military since they can count on U.S. protection. This may give a false impression that the U.S. is less peaceful than those nations. A 2013 global poll in 65 countries found that the United States is perceived as the biggest threat to world peace, with 24% of respondents identifying it as such. A majority of Russian respondents named the United States as the greatest threat, as well as significant minorities in China, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Argentina, Greece, Turkey, and Pakistan.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Empirical studies (see democide) have found that democracies, including the United States, have killed much fewer civilians than dictatorships. Media may be biased against the U.S. regarding reporting human rights violations. Studies have found that "The New York Times" coverage of worldwide human rights violations predominantly focuses on the human rights violations in nations where there is clear U.S. involvement, while having relatively little coverage of the human rights violations in other nations. For example, the bloodiest war in recent time, involving eight nations and killing millions of civilians, was the Second Congo War, which was almost completely ignored by the media.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Journalists and human rights organizations have been critical of US-led airstrikes and targeted killings by drones which have in some cases resulted in collateral damage of civilian populations. In early 2017, the U.S. faced criticism from some scholars, activists and media outlets for dropping 26,171 bombs on seven countries throughout 2016: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Research on the democratic peace theory has generally found that democracies, including the United States, have not made war on one another. There have been U.S. support for coups against some democracies, but for example Spencer R. Weart argues that part of the explanation was the perception, correct or not, that these states were turning into Communist dictatorships. Also important was the role of rarely transparent United States government agencies, who sometimes mislead or did not fully implement the decisions of elected civilian leaders.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Critics from the left cite episodes that undercut leftist governments or showed support for Israel. Others cite human rights abuses and violations of international law. Critics have charged that the U.S. presidents have used democracy to justify military intervention abroad. Critics also point to declassified records which indicate that the CIA under Allen Dulles and the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover aggressively recruited more than 1,000 Nazis, including those responsible for war crimes, to use as spies and informants against the Soviet Union in the Cold War.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Studies have been devoted to the historical success rate of the U.S. in exporting democracy abroad. Some studies of American intervention have been pessimistic about the overall effectiveness of U.S. efforts to encourage democracy in foreign nations. Some scholars have generally agreed with international relations professor Abraham Lowenthal that U.S. attempts to export democracy have been "negligible, often counterproductive, and only occasionally positive". Other studies find U.S. intervention has had mixed results, and another by Hermann and Kegley has found that military interventions have improved democracy in other countries.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: America's history of non-intervention has been criticized as well. In his World Policy Journal review of Bill Kauffman's 1995 book "America First! Its History, Culture, and Politics", Benjamin Schwartz described America's history of isolationism as a "tragedy" and being rooted in Puritan thinking.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Today the U.S. states that democratic nations best support U.S. national interests. According to the U.S. State Department, "Democracy is the one national interest that helps to secure all the others. Democratically governed nations are more likely to secure the peace, deter aggression, expand open markets, promote economic development, protect American citizens, combat international terrorism and crime, uphold human and worker rights, avoid humanitarian crises and refugee flows, improve the global environment, and protect human health." According to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other." In one view mentioned by the U.S. State Department, democracy is also good for business. Countries that embrace political reforms are also more likely to pursue economic reforms that improve the productivity of businesses. Accordingly, since the mid-1980s, under President Ronald Reagan, there has been an increase in levels of foreign direct investment going to emerging market democracies relative to countries that have not undertaken political reforms. Leaked cables in 2010 suggested that the "dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States' relations with the world".


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The United States officially maintains that it supports democracy and human rights through several tools. Examples of these tools are as follows:


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The U.S. has faced criticism for backing right-wing dictators that systematically violated human rights, such as Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, Efraín Ríos Montt of Guatemala, Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina, Hissène Habré of Chad Yahya Khan of Pakistan and Suharto of Indonesia. Critics have also accused the United States of facilitating and supporting state terrorism in the Global South during the Cold War, such as Operation Condor, an international campaign of political assassination and state terror organized by right-wing military dictatorships in the Southern Cone of South America.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Regarding support for certain anti-Communist dictatorships during the Cold War, a response is that they were seen as a necessary evil, with the alternatives even worse Communist or fundamentalist dictatorships. David Schmitz says this policy did not serve U.S. interests. Friendly tyrants resisted necessary reforms and destroyed the political center (though not in South Korea), while the 'realist' policy of coddling dictators brought a backlash among foreign populations with long memories.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: The U.S. has been accused of complicity in war crimes for backing the Saudi Arabian-led intervention into the Yemeni Civil War, which has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe, including a cholera outbreak and millions facing starvation.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Niall Ferguson argues that the U.S. is incorrectly blamed for all of the human rights violations perpetrated by U.S.-supported governments. Ferguson writes that there is general agreement that Guatemala was the worst of the U.S.-backed regimes during the Cold War, but the U.S. cannot be credibly blamed for all of the estimated 200,000 deaths during the long Guatemalan Civil War. The U.S. Intelligence Oversight Board writes that military aid was cut for long periods because of such violations, that the U.S. helped stop a coup in 1993, and that efforts were made to improve the conduct of the security services.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: Since the 1970s, issues of human rights have become increasingly important in American foreign policy. Congress took the lead in the 1970s. Following the Vietnam War, the feeling that U.S. foreign policy had grown apart from traditional American values was seized upon by Representative Donald M. Fraser (D, MN), leading the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements, in criticizing Republican Foreign Policy under the Nixon administration. In the early 1970s, Congress concluded the Vietnam War and passed the War Powers Act. As "part of a growing assertiveness by Congress about many aspects of Foreign Policy", human rights concerns became a battleground between the Legislative and the Executive branches in the formulation of foreign policy. David Forsythe points to three specific, early examples of Congress interjecting its own thoughts on foreign policy:


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: These measures were repeatedly used by Congress, with varying success, to affect U.S. foreign policy towards the inclusion of Human Rights concerns. Specific examples include El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and South Africa. The Executive (from Nixon to Reagan) argued that the Cold War required placing regional security in favor of U.S. interests over any behavioral concerns of national allies. Congress argued the opposite, in favor of distancing the United States from oppressive regimes. Nevertheless, according to historian Daniel Goldhagen, during the last two decades of the Cold War, the number of American client states practicing mass murder outnumbered those of the Soviet Union. John Henry Coatsworth, a historian of Latin America and the provost of Columbia University, suggests the number of repression victims in Latin America alone far surpassed that of the USSR and its East European satellites during the period 1960 to 1990. W. John Green contends that the United States was an "essential enabler" of "Latin America's political murder habit, bringing out and allowing to flourish some of the region's worst tendencies".


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: On December 6, 2011, Obama instructed agencies to consider LGBT rights when issuing financial aid to foreign countries. He also criticized Russia's law discriminating against gays, joining other western leaders in the boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia.


title: Foreign policy of the United States

text: In June 2014, a Chilean court ruled that the United States played a key role in the murders of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, both American citizens, shortly after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II (c. 972 – 20 July 1031), called the Pious () or the Wise (), was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second from the Capetian dynasty.


title: Robert II of France

text: Crowned Junior King in 987, he assisted his father on military matters (notably during the two sieges of Laon, in 988 and 991). His solid education, provided by Gerbert of Aurillac (the future Pope Sylvester II) in Reims, allowed him to deal with religious questions of which he quickly became the guarantor (he headed the Council of Saint-Basle de Verzy in 991 and that of Chelles in 994). Continuing the political work of his father, after becoming sole ruler in 996, he managed to maintain the alliance with the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou and thus was able to contain the ambitions of Count Odo II of Blois.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II distinguished himself with an extraordinarily long reign for the time. His 35-year-long reign was marked by his attempts to expand the royal domain by any means, especially by his long struggle to gain the Duchy of Burgundy (which ended in 1014 with his victory) after the death in 1002 without male descendants of his paternal uncle Duke Henry I, after a war against Otto-William of Ivrea, Henry I's stepson and adopted by him as his heir. His policies earned him many enemies, including three of his sons.


title: Robert II of France

text: The marital setbacks of Robert II (he married three times, annulling two of these and attempting to annul the third, prevented only by the Pope's refusal to accept a third annulment), strangely contrasted with the pious aura, bordering on the holiness, which his biographer Helgaud of Fleury was willing to lend him in his work "Life of King Robert the Pious" ("Epitoma vitæ regis Roberti pii"). His life was then presented as a model to follow, made of innumerable pious donations to various religious establishments, of charity towards the poor and, above all, of gestures considered sacred, such as the healing of certain lepers. Robert II was the first sovereign considered to be a "miracle worker". The end of his reign revealed the relative weakness of the sovereign, who had to face the revolt of his third wife Constance and then of his own sons (Henri and Robert) between 1025 and 1031.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II's exact date and birthplace are unknown, although historians have advocated for the year 972 and the city of Orléans (the capital of the Robertians from the 9th century onward). The only son of Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine, he was named after his heroic ancestor Robert the Strong, who had died fighting the Vikings in 866. His parents' marriage produced at least two other daughters: Hedwig (wife of Reginar IV, Count of Hainaut) and Gisela (wife of Hugh I, Count of Ponthieu).


title: Robert II of France

text: In the 10th century, the Robertians were the most powerful aristocratic family in the Kingdom of France. In previous decades, two of its members, Odo (888) and Robert I (922), had ascended to the throne, displacing the ruling Carolingian dynasty. The principality of Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks and Robert II's paternal grandfather, marked the apogee of the Robertians until his death in 956. In the middle of the 10th century, Hugh Capet succeeded as the head of the family.


title: Robert II of France

text: Robert II's youth was especially marked by the incessant fights of King Lothair of France to recover Lorraine, the "cradle of the Carolingian family", at the expense of Emperor Otto II:


title: Robert II of France

text: In August 978, King Lothair unexpectedly launched a general assault on Aix-la-Chapelle where the imperial family resided, which narrowly escaped capture. After having looted the imperial palace and the surroundings, he returned to France carrying the insignia of the Empire. In the following October, to take revenge, Otto II assembled an army of 60,000 men and invaded Lothair's domains. The latter, with only a few troops around him, was forced to take refuge with Hugh Capet, who was then said to be the savior of the Carolingian kingship. The Robertian dynasty then took a turn that changed the fate of young Robert II. Bishop Adalbero of Reims, originally a man of King Lothair, turns more and more towards the Ottonian court for which he feels a great sympathy.


title: Robert II of France

text: Hugh Capet quickly understood that his ascent could not be attained without the support of Archbishop Adalbero of Reims. Illiterate himself, not mastering Latin, he decided around 984 to send his son, not with the scholar Abbo of Fleury, near Orléans, but to Archbishop Adalbero so he could train him in the basics of knowledge. Indeed, at the end of 10th century, Reims had a reputation as the most prestigious school of all of West Christianity. The prelate willingly welcomed Robert, who was confided to his secretary, the famous Gerbert of Aurillac, one of the most educated men of his time.


title: Robert II of France

text: It is assumed that to follow Gerbert's teaching, the young Robert II had to acquire the basics of Latin. He thus enriched his knowledge by studying the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) and the "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy). Robert II is one of the few laypeople of his time to enjoy the same worldview as contemporary clergy. After about two years of study in Reims, he returned to Orléans. His intellectual level had also developed in the musical field, as recognized by another great scholar of his time, Richer de Reims. According to Helgaud de Fleury, at an age unknown in his adolescence, the young Robert II fell seriously ill, to such an extent that his parents feared for his life. It was then when they went to pray at the Sainte-Croix church in Orleans and offered a golden crucifix and a sumptuous 60-pound (30 kg) vase as an votive offering. Robert II miraculously recovered.


title: Robert II of France

text: Immediately after his own coronation, Hugh Capet began to push for the coronation of his son. "The essential means by which the early Capetians were seen to have kept the throne in their family was through the association of the eldest surviving son in the royalty during the father's lifetime," Andrew W. Lewis has observed, in tracing the phenomenon in this line of kings who lacked dynastic legitimacy. Hugh Capet's claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Count Borrell II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, and that the stability of the country necessitated a Junior King, should he die while on expedition. Rodulfus Glaber, however, attributes Hugh Capet's request to his old age and inability to control the nobility. Modern scholarship has largely imputed to Hugh Capet the motive of establishing a dynasty against the claims of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this is not the typical view of contemporaries and even some modern scholars have been less sceptical of his "plan" to campaign in Spain.


title: Robert II of France

text: Once Hugh Capet proposed the association of Robert to the throne, Archbishop Adalbero of Reims was reportedly hostile to this and, according to Richer of Reims, he replied to the king: "we do not have the right to create two kings in the same year" ("on n’a pas le droit de créer deux rois la même année"). It is believed that Gerbert of Aurillac (who was himself close to Borrell II, for a time his protector), would then have come to the aid of Hugh Capet to convince the Archbishop that the co-kinship was needed due to the purposed expedition to assist the Count of Barcelona, and to secure a stable transition of power. Under duress, Archbishop Adalbero finally consented.


title: Robert II of France

text: Unlike that of Hugh Capet, the coronation of Robert was precisely detailed by Richer of Reims — even the day and place were clearly identified. Dressed in purple woven with gold threads, as tradition dictated, the 15-year-old boy was acclaimed, crowned and then consecrated by the Archbishop of Reims on 25 December 987 at the Sainte-Croix Cathedral in Orléans.


title: Robert II of France

text: Richer of Reims also underlines that Robert II is only "King of the peoples of the West, from the Meuse to the Ocean" and not "King of the Gauls, Aquitaine, Danes, Goths, Spaniards and Gascons" as his father.


title: Robert II of France

text: Crowned as Junior King, Robert II had begun to take on active royal duties with his father, as evidenced by his "signum" at the bottom of certain acts of Hugh Capet. From 990, all the acts have its inscription. In the written acts: "Robert, very glorious king" as underlined by a charter for Corbie (April 988) or even ""filii nostri Rotberti regis ac consortis regni nostri"" in a charter for Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (June 989). On the strength of his instruction received from Gerbert of Aurillac, his task, initially, was to preside over episcopal synods: