WHY DOES OUR FOREIGN POLICY SUFFER FROM LACK OF CONSISTENCY? ARE WE REALLY SO IRRATIONAL?
The making of a sound American foreign policy involves a number of players and an endless number of influencers. Foreign policy initiatives can come from the President, the State Department, or Congress. The President retains command of the military and the ability to make appointments and handle treaties. The President is also the person who receives foreign representatives and works with them to achieve accord.
The best arrangement is where the President works cordially with Congress on all major foreign policy initiatives. Here is where the trouble starts. Congressional members come from two parties who have quite different views on what our foreign policy should be overall and what it should be toward particular countries such as China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Iraq and other hotspots. The President represents the views largely of the Party that got him or her elected. The President must rely on supplying facts and arguments to members of the other party to justify positions taken on any major foreign policy initiative. Compromises are inevitable.
WORTH READING:
- The Obama Doctrine [The Atlantic]
- Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America [Psychology Today]
- Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy [Global Research]
- What’s Wrong With U.S. Foreign Policy? [Huffpost Politics]
- The Things We Don’t Talk About on Foreign Policy [Democracy Arsenal]
- Identifying the major challenges as America navigates a new world [Time]
- US foreign policy in Latin America leaves an open door for China [The Guardian]
- The Goldberg Prelidictions [Wide Asleep in America]
- Failures of U.S. Foreign Policy – 1946 to 2015 [Alternative Insight]
- The Globalization of Politics: American Foreign Policy for a New Century [CFR Council on Foreign Policy]
- The Challenges to a Shared Problems Approach to Foreign Policy [Carnegie Council]
- The foreign policy issues the candidates should be talking about [Brookings]
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