Questions Regarding American Foreign Policy What is the US place in the world? A hegemon, strong enough to impose its will on the world? A weakening power who must take into account the wishes of other nations and must depend on them in part for security and other goals?

Questions What should be the goals of American foreign policy? Purely promote national interests, narrowly or broadly construed? Moral considerations – cooperation, peace, democracy, freedom?

Questions How should it pursue its goals Unilaterally Multilaterally, through alliances and international organizations

Questions What should be our orientation towards the outside world? Activist in pursuing security, national interests, moral goals – outward orientation Isolationist – don ’ t become involved with the outside world unless it becomes absolutely necessary for our physical security

Contending Schools Neoconservatives Believe in a activist foreign policy, outward looking Believe in US strength, and particularly military strength Believe that US should not be encumbered by wishes of allies or strictures of international organizations when those collide with US interests Believe in aggressively promoting ideals of democracy and freedom

Schools Realists Outward looking, see engagement with world in defending interests as inescapable Focus on defending interests rather than ideals Believe that US not strong enough to be hegemonic – other countries will join to balance against US Should use allies and international structures to our advantage because necessary to accomplish our goals, but not be tied to them as a matter of principle. World of international relations one of competing interests – only interests, not friends, are permanent

Schools Idealists Believe that policy should be built around values and ideals, such as democracy, freedom, and human rights As such, see the constituency of policy as the world as a whole. May or may not see the US as exceptional in its adherence to ideals.

Schools Internationalists Outward looking, see engagement with world as good and necessary Pursue interests, ideals, or both Either see US as not strong enough to be hegemonic, or think that being a hegemon is morally wrong Allies and international organizations good for US in both short term (to get things done) and long term (to impose an institutional order on the world) and that working through them is a moral imperative, just as cooperating with state institutions that keep order is morally right.

Schools Isolationists See the goal of foreign policy the minimization of foreign entanglements. Reject the notion that the US should shoulder the burden of policing the world, helping allies, or spreading ideals. Tend to see outward looking orientations as harmful to the US – detracts from internal governance, from focus on internal interests, and from preserving our form of government. To be activist is to put at risk our way of life – create an empire rather than a republic.

Foreign Policy – A Definition A policy is "a settled or definite course or method adopted, and followed by a government" (Webster's New International Dictionary). This implies continuity, principle, and foresight, rather than change, expediency, and ad hoc arrangements. But that is the question. Has there been a U.S. "foreign policy" or "policies" that one can recognize? What has been the degree of stability in our approach to foreign relations, and should we expect stability there have been and still are wide divergences in how people approach the topic?

Sources Another question is the source of official foreign policy, in the sense that analyzing a source leads one to understand what a policy is, how it was adopted, why it was adopted, and what its goals are.

An Approach One way of approaching these questions, given the controversies surrounding them, is postulate that there is no set policy, and thus no single or stable source of policy. Rather there is a set of sources whose relative influence is set by context, and policies that are more or less coherent for specific lengths of time and which are also responsive to context.

Influence of Actors One can see this in examining the changing goals of important actors. One might argue that the same set of factors contribute both to the continuities and contradictions of American foreign policy. Indeed, the most basic continuity is the underlying contradictions of motivation, aims, and purposes exhibited over the years.

Influences and Actors 1. Public opinion: as a democracy, policymakers must account for public opinion, which, as in all countries, is changeable. Foreign affairs are particularly volatile, because often the most ideologically loaded. Interests are more distant, connections more abstract, and therefore interpretations of events more likely to become intellectually constructed and symbolically loaded.

Influence and Actors 2. Divisions among foreign policy elites: It is not just the public at large that is divided, but also the segment of the public (2-3% of the population) that is most influential in the creation of foreign policy. When Bush II favored neoconservatives over the realists who dominated the administration of Bush I, differences of policy emerged between these different groups, though both were Republicans and both identified themselves as conservatives.

Actors 3. Role of manufacturing and trading interests: despite idealism, interests always play a role in policy formulation, and the realist mantra is that friends and enemies are transitory, while interests are permanent. Thus through time there have been abrupt about- faces in our foreign policy. Early in country ’ s history, there was a debate between isolationist, protectionists interested in developing manufacturing capacity, and agricultural interests who wanted free trade. Debate goes on, but positions in many ways are now reversed.

Actors 4. Multiple Government Actors: because responsibility for making foreign policy does not rest in one set of hands, outcomes never entirely predictable, especially when the Presidency is in one party ’ s hands, Congress in another. This is balanced to a degree by an almost official stance of non-partisanship when it comes to foreign policy, but still can play an important role (Versailles Treaty, SALT II).