Madison Hogge

POLS 2100
November 22, 2016
Paper #1: Foreign Policy
As a member of the new Presidents foreign policy team, I am going to briefly state
where the nation stands on foreign, economic, and defense policy, and also some of the
humanitarian problems facing our world today. Our nations foreign policy (and others) should
include the things that will not just benefit the United States, but also all states involved in the
international arena. The goals of our foreign policy are, to preserve the national security of the
United States, promote world peace and a secure global environment, maintain a balance of
power among nations, work with allies to solve international problems, promote democratic
values and human rights and further cooperative foreign trade and global involvement in
international trade organizations (Foreign Policy: What Now?)
Our foreign policy should still remain around meeting regularly with other international
leaders to solve and prevent issues around the globe. I think one major aspect of foreign policy
that should be changed is our foreign aid. When you donate money to a charity, almost none of
the money actually goes directly to the site. That is how lots of organizations make their money.
Lets say that in a poverty stricken country there is a farmer who sells eggs for a living. He
makes enough money and sells enough eggs to do well and get by. The surrounding areas also
depend on his eggs for their food. But lets say that we then provide foreign aid to them and
provide them with eggs. Now there is no demand for eggs and the farmers business is destroyed.
I think that instead of supplying an overbearing amount of material aid, we need to provide
opportunities and jobs to other countries in need and let them learn and flourish on their own. I
believe that if we do this and make improvements to this aspect, we can build stronger
international relationships because those countries will see the long term change instead of
having the short term aid. I think that it is a big misconception that our help and foreign aid is
actually helping others, when in reality we are helping diminish their economy.

Everyone working with the President has some type of role with how we form our
foreign policy. The President almost always has the primary responsibility for shaping foreign
policy. According to the Constitution, Presidents sign treaties with other nations with the "advice
and consent" of the Senate. The Secretary of State is usually the President's principal foreign
policy adviser, and he or she is the chief coordinator of all governmental actions that affect
relations with other countries. The Foreign Service and the embassies are part of the State
Department, and they protect Americans overseas and are responsible for harmonious
relationships with other countries. The National Security Council, as part of the Executive Office
of the President, helps the President deal with foreign, military, and economic policies that affect
national security. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), one of the best-known agencies that set
foreign policy, gathers, analyzes, and transmits information from other countries that might be
important to the security of the nation. (Foreign Policy: What Now?). As you can see there is a
big team in determining how we write and take action with our foreign policy.
A United States defense policy is necessary as a second level of protection in case
diplomacy fails to solve international problems (Foreign Policy: What Now?). I agree with this
statement. I think it is important to have a strong defense force because there is always an
unknown dealing with foreign relations that we didnt always share a favorable past with. The
President is the one who is first in charge and oversees the armed forces. The President is able
to order covert or secret operations to avoid full-scale military involvement (Foreign
Policy: What Now?). An example of this is how we found, captured, and killed Osama Bin
Laden in 2011. We have also tried other tactics like in Cuba since Fidel Castro became President
in 1959 to avoid communism, etc. In a 1993 review of the mission and needs of the Defense
Department, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin identified four major threats to U.S. national
security: The rapid growth of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs, regional
conflicts in the Middle East, Korea, and elsewhere, the emergence of anti-democratic forces in
Russia, and the erosion of American economic strength. Even though the United States economy
is considerably stronger than it was in 1993, all four threats remain important today (Foreign
Policy: What Now?). Our defense policy is one of the most important and one of the areas of our
government that we need to make sure is sufficient especially because of our ongoing tensions
around the world, specifically the Middle East.

Today, United States economic policy lies somewhere in between government should
regulate and sometimes manage, but should allow a free market whenever possible (Foreign
Policy: What Now?). Our economic policy is by far the most impactful on citizens in the U. S.
because it affects their daily lives. Money is what makes our world revolve, so we must be
careful how we handle that. For example, when we had the Great Depression it didnt just affect
the U.S. if affected other countries that were involved with us economically and put a halt on
trade, which also deteriorated other countries economies as well who were dependent on us for
trade. Monetary policy is the government's control of the money supply. The government can
control how much or how little money is in circulation by the amount that they print and coin. If
too much money is out there, it tends to cause inflation, or the devaluation of the dollar. Too little
money causes deflation, which can lead to a recession (Foreign Policy: What Now?). That is an
example of how we had our recession in 2008. Another aspect of our economic policy that is
important is our fiscal policy. Fiscal policy affects the economy by making changes in
government's methods of raising money and spending it (Foreign Policy: What Now?). We do
this by taxation and spending billions of dollars a year on our federal budget. There is much
debate to whether we should use our tax money to pay off our nations debt, or how much control
the government should have over the nations money.
Some of the humanitarian problems facing the world today are of course the rise of
terrorism, conflict in the Middle East, the refugee crisis in Syria, deportation, world hunger, etc. I
think however our main concern should be resolving our issues in the Middle East and ending
our military involvement there. I think it is a good idea to take these countries little by little
rather than imposing full force, head first and trying to take everything all at once. I think if you
work city by city or area by area you will have a lot more success and fewer casualties. I think
that this is too big of a problem to just send military personnel and try and resolve it all in one
hit. This will also be a turning point with our new President elected and the choices he makes on
what to do next with these issues we are facing as an international party.
Works Cited
"Foreign Policy: What Now?" Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 16 Nov.
2016.