US In The World | America's Role In the World | What Our Foreign Policy Should Look Like

Messaging Recommendations, Helpful Arguments & Facts

Why Our Foreign Policy Matters So Much

What Our Foreign Policy Should Look Like

Common Critiques & Effective Responses

We spend too much abroad. Domestic needs come first.

Soft issues are nice, but security/survival issues come first.

No country is perfect. America is a benign superpower.

There is no such thing as an 'international community.'

Peace is best achieved through strength.

You see the world the way you want it to be, not how it really is.

We can't rely on the old strategies anymore.

Representative Quotes

Farsighted

We're at our best as a nation when we see the world as it is and respond with farsighted leadership to prepare for tomorrow's challenges today.

Farsighted policies connect the dots, recognizing how one issue is linked to others we care about -- for example, how fighting terrorism is linked to money laundering, collapsed governments, and regional conflicts.

A smart foreign policy will be ready to use force when it's the right thing to do but will build up every tool we have -- diplomacy, trade and economic support, cultural ties -- so that we aren't asking our military to do it all.
A pragmatic foreign policy will use prevention to identify and deal with problems before they become so serious that they threaten our safety or way of life:
- As the Cold War was ending, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with Congress, began using U.S. resources to secure or remove nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union. Today, with terrorists on the hunt for nuclear weapons, every dollar spent to make those weapons safe looks like a terrific investment.
- President Reagan joined other governments in recognizing the need to do something about the ozone hole that was destroying the atmosphere and threatening the world's health. Now, thanks to the treaty he signed with 182 other governments, chemicals that harm the ozone layer have been largely phased out, and scientists believe that our atmosphere is making a slow recovery.
Farsighted leadership also means wisely managing our resources here at home, so that we can afford to maintain our military and civilian engagement in the world.

American Way

The U.S. will do best in the international arena when we unite with others around shared values, and when we honor the same values we cherish and try to promote at home -- justice, opportunity, and fairness for all; respect for people's rights and tolerance for the diversity of others; creating strong communities that give everyone a voice.

Our goals abroad are not fundamentally different from what we strive for at home -- a world in which common sense and common decency prevail.

Our foreign policy should strive to match our aspirations for ourselves -- what our country's Founders described as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In a world where borders are breaking down, we can only secure those blessings for ourselves by helping extend them to others.
Throughout our history, when we've put forward a vision in which those values were paramount -- whether helping to found the UN, NATO, and other international organizations, helping to lead the global fight against smallpox and other diseases, or proposing rules to limit the threat from dangerous weapons, teams have sprung into existence to work with us, and the results have worked for us and others alike.

Interconnected World

We're inevitably going to need others to achieve many of our goals. We're at our best in the world when our actions demonstrate that we understand this.

From Korea in the 1950s to Iraq in 2003, from our successful fight against smallpox to today's struggle with HIV/AIDS, and from the creation of economic institutions that helped us grow strong in the 20th century to the uncertainty about how to promote growth for us and others in the 21st, U.S. leaders from both parties have always understood that we need to work with others. It's just common sense.
A smart foreign policy will expand our options by building ties of respect with other nations, so that we can count on them -- and they know they can count on us.
We will always do better when we are, as President Bush has said, a humble nation, not an arrogant-seeming one. We're not perfect; in fact, our values are more inspiring when we're honest about our own struggles and shortcomings.

Teamwork

We're at our best when we build structures and habits of cooperation with others and do not try to do it all ourselves.

A smart U.S. foreign policy will enable us to work with others to build durable strategies and structures for cooperation -- treaties and agreements to resolve difficult issues, institutions that bring us together to work out disagreements -- so we will have reliable partners to help us respond to global threats.

Efforts to help societies rebuild after a conflict have been most successful (e.g., in East Timor and Kosovo) when the U.S., the UN, and other partners have split up the assistance according to what each does best.
Effective teamwork can overcome challenges: Several times in the past few decades, countries have threatened to start building or selling nuclear materials in large quantities. But still, only 8 countries have nuclear weapons, and none has used such a weapon since 1945 -- because the U.S. and its partners have used innovation and teamwork every time to find new ways to discourage making and buying the weapons.
Effective teamwork evolves over time. The European Union, which today sets economic, health, labor, and foreign policy for a bloc of countries whose size rivals that of the U.S., started out as a coal-and-steel-based trade organization among 6 war-torn European nations after World War II.