Pardee Faculty Reflect on 250 Years of American Diplomacy and Global Engagement

In 1776, the newly declared United States faced a daunting challenge: survival. Military victories alone would not be enough to secure independence from Great Britain. The young nation needed allies, recognition, and financial support. According to Mark Storella, Pardee Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and former American Ambassador to Zambia, the Republic’s early leaders understood this reality from the start, saying, “The Founders knew 250 years ago that diplomacy was vital to securing our independence, freedom and prosperity.” Storella continued,

One fifth of the signers of the Declaration of Independence played significant diplomatic roles—most notably Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

Even amid the Revolutionary War, these aspiring leaders were dispatched abroad to cultivate relationships that would prove crucial to the American cause. Their efforts established a tradition of diplomacy that would become inseparable from the nation’s development.

The decades that followed saw American diplomacy evolve alongside the country’s growing ambitions. As the U.S. expanded westward and emerged as a continental power, its diplomats negotiated treaties, managed crises, and defined the country’s place in the Western Hemisphere.

Storella points to the career of John Quincy Adams as one of diplomacy’s great success stories. Beginning diplomatic service at a young age, Adams later helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, and as Secretary of State crafted the Monroe Doctrine, a statement of American engagement in the hemisphere that remains relevant in contemporary debate.

“Diplomacy was key to success in the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War II and the Cold War,” Storella noted, emphasizing that America’s most consequential achievements have often come not only through military power but through negotiation and relationship-building.

By the twentieth century, the U.S. had moved from a nation focused largely on its own survival to one deeply engaged in global affairs. Joseph Wippl, Professor of the Practice of International Relations and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, notes that the country’s foreign relations evolved alongside its remarkable growth. “Foreign relations 250 years ago were focused on survival as a country,” Wippl said.

Over time, the expansion of territory, population, and economic strength transformed the U.S. into a global power. Following two world wars, isolationist impulses gave way to international engagement, with the U.S. assuming leadership of the non-communist world and helping to shape the institutions and alliances that defined the postwar era. Diplomats such as Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Henry Kissinger helped build the post-WWII international system and played central roles in designing strategies that guided the U.S. through the Cold War and beyond.

Today, however, diplomacy faces new tests. The end of the Cold War ushered in a more complicated and multipolar international environment, one that has challenged policymakers and raised questions about how the U.S. should define its role in the world.

“The U.S. has had difficulty adjusting to the new complicated international environment and has had difficulty articulating policies to confront the messier post-Cold War world,” Wippl argues. Storella likewise warns that in recent decades the U.S. has sometimes relied less on diplomacy and more on coercive tools of power.

As we celebrate our 250th anniversary, we should also not forget that American diplomats and diplomacy have been essential in securing our independence throughout our history, Storella said. As we confront the challenges of today and the next century, we would do well to remember the vital impact of diplomats and diplomacy.

The semiquincentennial also offers an opportunity to recognize the relationships that diplomacy has fostered over generations, including some that might have seemed unimaginable in 1776. Master lecturer Paul Hare, a former British diplomat and now a U.S. citizen, points to the symbolic irony of the anniversary year itself.

“Two hundred and fifty years since Independence, I find it interesting—and amusing—that the major state visit in 2026 has been from King Charles of the United Kingdom,” Hare observed. He notes that one of the biggest sporting events surrounding the Fourth of July is the FIFA World Cup, was built around a sport invented in England. “And who would have thought that the President of United States 250 years later would be half British. President Trump’s mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. She emigrated to the U.S when she was 18. And, as Trump himself has said, his mother was a passionate admirer of the British Monarchy,” Hare went on to say.

Such moments illustrate how former adversaries can become enduring partners. Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of American diplomacy has been its role in transforming relationships once defined by conflict into relationships grounded in cooperation, shared interests, and mutual respect.

Looking ahead, Pardee faculty suggest that the central challenge for American foreign policy is not whether the U.S. will lead, but how. In a world marked by geopolitical competition, technological disruption, climate challenges, and shifting alliances, diplomacy remains indispensable. The story of the United States at 250 is, in many ways, the story of its engagement with the world—through dialogue as much as force, through partnerships as much as power.

As Americans celebrate the nation’s founding, the anniversary serves as a reminder that diplomats have long been among the architects of the country’s security, prosperity, and global influence. The next chapter of American diplomacy, Pardee scholars argue, will depend on whether the nation continues to value the skill, patience, and relationship-building that helped shape the first 250 years.