MAKING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY in the POLITICAL PRESSURE COOKER

Book excerpt: This little volume of eight case studies in American foreign policy grew out of the author's course on that subject in a Leisure Learning offering at the University of West Florida during the Presidential campaign in 2008. It is, therefore, designed to appeal to the causal and well as the serious, scholarly student of how foreign policy is made. The thesis of the work is that major mistakes in the past have been made precisely because foreign policy, used as a wedge issue in Presidential campaigns, has been made without long-term analysis of the implications of policy so hastily made, and for the most base of political purposes. The conclusion is a plea for reducing the frequency of making such mistakes under such pressure, relieving the nation of the necessity to rue the resulting mistakes. That begs the question, "How do the citizens of a democracy, such as the American, have input into the creation of foreign policy, surely a vital function of political debate, without falling into the trap illustrated by these eight case studies?" Both general and specific recommendations are made, reflecting the author's academic and real-world foreign policy experience.