Why is American Foreign Policy Failing? with Stefan Halper speaking at the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
As debate over Iraq war policy grows, many are calling for alternatives to a planned increase in troops, but where will alternative plans come from? Who shapes the proposals that will influence US policy in Iraq and elsewhere?
In The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing, co-author Stefan Halper describes how American policy is currently formed. Using the phrase "Rational Center" to describe the career professionals - academics, government officials, journalists, think-tank scholars, and retired politicians. Halper argues that these informed and rational analyses are not being resourced for policy decisions. He also considers ways to change this trend by restoring these voices that, he believes can strengthen American policy and bolster U.S. standing in the international community.
Bio
Stefan Halper
Stefan Halper is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Donner Atlantic Studies Program at the Center of International Studies at Cambridge University. He is the co-author of America Alone.
Halper has served under four American presidents in the White House and the State Department as an expert on U.S. foreign policy, national security policy, United Nations, Anglo-American relations and contemporary international security issues.
General objectives that guide the activities and relationships of one state in its interactions with other states. The development of foreign policy is influenced by domestic considerations, the policies or behaviour of other states, or plans to advance specific geopolitical designs. Leopold von Ranke emphasized the primacy of geography and external threats in shaping foreign policy, but later writers emphasized domestic factors. Diplomacy is the tool of foreign policy, and war, alliances, and international trade may all be manifestations of it.