what is foreign policy

• American foreign policy includes our national security policy

  • policy designed to protect the independence and the political and economic integrity of the united states

• foreign policy is a country’s external goals and the techniques/strategies used to achieve them

tools of foreign policy

• diplomacy

  • the process by which states carry on relations with each other

  • can also mean settling conflicts peacefully

• economic aid

  • assistance to other nations through grants, loans, or credits to buy the assisting nations products

• technical assistance

  • sending individuals with expertise In a agriculture, engineering or business to aid other nations

competing views of foreign policy

• moral idealism

  • views nations as willing’s to cooperate and agree on certain moral standards for conduct

• political realism

  • sees each nation acting principally in its own interest

  • its a dog eat dog world

current American challenges in world politics

• increasingly belligerent Russia under Putin

• Syrian civil war/ rise of ISIS/ chemical weapons

• Iran

• global economics issues/ trade

• aftermath of war in Iraq and Afghanistan/ al Qaeda

• environment/ climate change/ energy

• terrorism

• nuclear proliferation/ north Korea

• China as a rising power

• erosion of the EU/brexit

powers of the president in making foreign policy

• constitutional powers

  • swears to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the unites states

  • commander in chief

  • appoint ambassador

  • negotiates treaties (must be rarified by senate)

  • can enter into executive agreements

• informal powers

  • access to information (intelligence community)

  • legislative leader who can influence congress

  • can influence public opinion

  • can commit the nation morally to a course of action

other sources of foreign policy

• congress

• department of state

• national security council

• the intelligence community

• the department of defense

major foreign policy themes

• negative foreign policy during 1800s (also known as isolationism)

  • mistrust of Europe

  • US military weak during this period

  • shaped by the Monroe doctrine

• Spanish American war and world war 1

  • seen as temporary entanglements

  • lasted from 1898-1918

  • followed by a resurgence of isolation

• the era of internationalism

  • began with bombing of Peral harbor and US entry into world war 2

  • resulted in significant increases in defense spending

  • US emerged from world war 2 with a strengthened economy and became the leading global military and economic power

• the cold war: ideological political and economic impasse between the US and the society union following WW1

  • US foreign policy dominated by containment or stopping communist expansion

  • Cuban missile crisis was the closet the superpowers came to direct confrontation

  • detente between the US and the soviet union occurred in the late 1960 and early 1970

  • during the 1980 Reagan lobbied for the development of the strategic defense initiative (SDI or star wars)

    • rapidly increases nuclear stockpiles only to later negotiate arms control

  • disintegration of Ussr made negotiating arms control more difficult nuclear weapons are now help by more sovereign nations

  • tensions with Russia today the highest since the cold war