Foreign Policy Change - Assignment Example

FOREIGN POLICY CHANGE The current paper examines the parameters of the foreign policy change in the United States based on the arguments given by Jeffrey Legro. Jeffrey Legro is the author of “Rethinking the World”. In this book, he deeply discusses the issues faced by the United States due to the unpredictable changes in its foreign policy. There are some arguments presented by Legro on the major strategic turning points in the United States. He highlighted collective ideas within states on how the outside world could be related to the United States. Some chapters of this book discuss the world politics thoroughly and the effects of the World War II on the foreign policy of the United States. In this book, Legro presented some arguments despite knowing the importance of ideational transformations by scholars and policy makers. Legro presented some arguments related tithe change in the foreign policy of the United States. He raised four issues that needed further clarification. He pointed out an issue that is pertaining to the role of politics in performing relevant jobs that need to be reminded to the policy makers (Legro 2005). The author referred to politics by including activities led by the leaders of that country that are associated with the governance of country. Politics has a strong influence that can affect a country and its economy, businesses, society, education, tourism and many other elements. In order to manage and control all aspects of an economy the leaders should make strong strategies. The effective strategy can always become difficult to develop and implement because of the contingent political battle among political leaders (Legro 2005). Therefore, Legro gave his views on this issue by focusing only on the holistic nature of ideas. He explained that a change in collective ideas is inherently conflictual and political, but a focus on the situation of the contingent politics in which continuity is likely or it is not properly defined. Although, the political leaders can operate the situation with the help of effective ideas and strategies but the problem arises when it does not happen or political leaders fail to perform their duties properly (Legro 2005). Legro beliefs that national ideas and ideology is tend to be endured, because if something works then it should remain in practice (Legro 2005). New ideas may lead to different approaches in foreign policy. His argument is that there are three types of grand strategy and these grand strategies represent integrationist, isolationist, and revisionist ideology. He further explicated the United States’ ever changing foreign policy. Over the last century, starting with the isolationism after the World War I that is followed by the post-World War II integrationism and today’s revisionism. The United States were largely an isolationist nation, in the time around the World War I( Legro 2005). In chapter 3, Legros entire discussions and arguments are deeply focusing on the Unites States idea that is about foreign policy and it consequence in the molding world of politics during the twentieth century (Legro 2005). Conversely, he said that World War II lead the U.S in to a new era of international relations. Thereafter, the United States integrated into the international order and the reason is no longer justifiably diminish its role in the world (Legro 2005). Legro presents his argument that the domestic politics matters for the explanation of the foreign policy in the United States. His literature in the book provides the understanding as it is going against to neo- or structural realism (Legro 2005). The Structural realism is to hold that one can understand the important features of the United States’ foreign policy by avoiding the domestic politics (Legro 2005). A synthetic approach that is typically relevant to the two categories of the foreign policy. The parameters of the foreign policy change, that can be structural or conjunctural nature and domestic or international origins (Legro 2005). The analytical typology of parameters from both approaches to the foreign policy, the domestic structural parameters includes the domestic political setting and its existence in the foreign policy to support the alternative foreign policy. The international structural parameters that support a foreign policy change and systemic changes that can bring realignment about the foreign policy; on the other hand it describes the relationship with the international system (Legro 2005). However, some drastic changes occur in the foreign policy ideas after 9/11 incident in the United States. There were some important the government added points, they first changed the direction of the foreign policy in which terrorism was its focus (Legro 2005). The other noticeable change in the U.S foreign policy was its focus on preventive action that is known as preventive Warfare. The U.S humanitarian assistance has become more subject to the foreign policy demands (Legro 2005). The author explores many important cases in the United States after the World War II. That how the internationalism changed and how typically the economic calamity or war developed a reorientation of the foreign policy. However, Legro makes a convincing case that strategic beliefs are not easy to reduce to the strategic circumstances. He discussed about the great power and that is the power of government. Under in government power, the leaders and their ideas required some changes in the collective ideas. After that, he explained the changes that could happen with the help of new ideas and strategies by the political leaders. The government plays main role to make changes in the foreign policy and in the other policies and only the government can continue it effectively. Overall, it can be analyzed from his theories that reflection in the future of the United States’ foreign policy is more likely to track back to the mainstream of the post-World War II. The detail knowledge about synthetic approaches that have the parameters that cause change in the foreign policy and that is elaborated deeply. The international relations totally depends on the foreign policy of the Untied states that is why Legro argued that the foreign policy should be strong enough to make strong relationship with other countries in an political environment. He mentioned some points that have been changed after the incident of 9/11, and says that only the foreign policy may also witness the future success or failure that could be noticed from past history that he discussed while explaining the around time of the World War I and II. BIBLIOGRAPHY Legro, Jeffrey. Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order. New York: Cornell University Press, 2005. Read More