If you were in control of US foreign policy what would you do?

I would not be isolationist neither would I be apt to use a cowboy mentality of shoot first and ask questions later.

I would exhaust all diplomatic and economic means possible before taking any military action. I would make sure I have all the facts, varified through different independant sources before I took any action.

I would ask for the support of other like minded nations and give them compelling, unrefutable evidence of what I am claiming about another soverign state is true.

I would be very careful in intervening in the affairs of other countries. I would watch and pay very close attention to what is going on. The CIA can be useful in finding out information and making certain things happen covertly and in a limited way. If it is determined, at some point, we need to intervene, such as an invitation by another soverign nation for help or when we don't have the support of other nations, I would back off and let things play out. Watching other nations closely and knowing what they are up to can be very affective. We could nip something in the bud if they try an attack, for example, but not until they actually attempt to attack.

We have the most sophisticated intelligence network on the planet and the most high tech of any military, by far. That coupled with simple low tech methods that have been proven tried and true can keep us up on what our percieved enemies or potential enemies are up to. This knowledge will give us an advantage. The knowledge of one's enemy is how Alexander became great and stayed great until his death.

The USA is currently the most powerful nation on earth, but its wealth and might are not reflected in the lives of the majority of its 300+ million people. Just imagine that currently in pursuit of the war effort in Iraq, it spends ONE BILLION dollars every 2.5 days, at a time when some of its own war veterans are sleeping rough on the streets of Washington DC. By contrast, its northern neighbour, Canada, with no interventionist and megalomanic policies, practises a welfare system that has its modest wealth more equitably distributed amongst its 30 million or so inhabitants, to the envy of most other countries of the world. If the US could also scale down on its obsession of exporting its brand of democracy to countries that should not be of much concern to it and concentrate more on its own people and a few well-behaved countries, she would definitely have fewer enemies to combat and certainly more prosperity for her people.

tough question. there's no way to know whether this would work unless it was actually implemented, but here it goes.

Firstly, we would get the hell out of Iraq. Whether we stay or leave, a civil war is going to escalate and a new dictator (presumably - because that's pretty much the only type of government that Iraq has ever had) will rise to power. Let history take it's course and stop trying it to do what we (America) wants it to do. Secondly, I'm all about increasing intelligence gathering, but we're going to have to do it differently. The torture scandal at Guantanamo Bay is portraying the picture (to the international community) that the US is willing to sink to the level of the terrorists to get what they want. We're going to have to get better at spying. Ever seen the show 24? We need some damn good Jack Bauers working for us, and our governmnet has the funding to pay these guys.

Third, rather than worrying about other nations (I argue that terrorism isn't a problem between nations, it's a problem between people with starkly different opinions), I think we need to focus more on diplomacy with groups that think differently than we do. I'm not saying to kiss their asses, but telling them they're our arch enemy does nothing but piss them off worse - and that's exactly what we're doing. We're playing the 'they hate us so we hate them' game, and we've got to quit. Our country preaches that people have the right to their opinion, but we don't live in an isolationist world anymore. We live in a global world, and our values, rather than being solely national, need to be global as well. We need to accept that some people will never like us, and instead of trying to force them to, we need to let them be. If we'd stop instigating the problem, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about it much.

Thirdly, we also need to take a serious look at the environment. The rainforests are disappearing, and natural resources are becoming more scare. We need to either make better use of what's left or we're going to have to design new ways to do stuff. We also need to take a serious look at global warming. It's affecting everybody, and the global community needs to take steps that will slow down the process (that includes us).

We also need try to mend our relationship with the Russians. It looks like we're intentionally trying to piss them off with the shield, and they're doing it back by firing off ICBM's. Sounds like a new Cold War, and we need to stop this before it gets really bad.

That's it for now. Good question, by the way.

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Thanks but foreign policy is largely dictated by energy policy. IF I can borrow control of that as well for this question I can give a cohesive approach to the problems.

Nuclear energy is my answer. Then electric cars. Now that foreign oil is not needed as much we can divest ourselves from the middle east and let India and China get involved in that quagmire (best of luck to them)

As far as intervention goes I would have eliminated much of the military and there's no intervention without guns.

I would work towards self sufficiency rather than dependence and the notion of controlling foreign governments isn't so important.

I would have used the opportunity post 9/11 to educate the public that, unlike the Cold War, terror does not emanate from a single nation state, but around the world. Afghanistan was prudent move, but I would also have focused on increased intelligence gathering wherein we would use modern techniques that apply studies in persuasion and education rather than the outdated KGB borrowed stuff we are using currently.

Great question.

Remove every single piece of military hardware and personnel from around the globe and adopt the Nuke a capitol city policy .

It is up to each nation to keep terrorists from coming to america . If they fail to do proper background checks on their people and they come here and commit violent acts of terrorism on United States soil they forfeit their Capitol city .

Cut off foreign aid, kick the UN out of the America, close our borders, get the soldiers out of Iraq so the insurgents can continue their civil war in peace (or pieces), mend the friendships with our TRUE allies and uh, that's about it.

Thanks for asking.

I would immediately start calling in our loans. We would bankrupt half the planet in less than a week.

Then lets see how bad the world 'hates' us ; )

Vince

Between these two inaccurate depictions, I would choose none.