The Top 5 Things the Next President Needs to Know About Foreign Policy

Why the presidential candidates need to start proving that they have geopolitical savvy, they can detect political bullshit, and they'll be able to play hard to get with U.S. allies.

• By Stephen M. Walt
• December 7, 2015 | http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1403-china-and-the-u-s-are-long-term-enemies

Given the number of rank amateurs in this year’s presidential sweepstakes, I’ve been thinking about what someone ought to know before they become commander in chief of the most powerful nation on earth. To be candid, thus far none of the candidates has shown a grasp of foreign policy that fills me with confidence. That’s obviously true of a bombastic egomaniac like Donald Trump or a clueless naif like Ben Carson, but even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s track record is not exactly reassuring.
And managing foreign and defense policy is not just a matter of “finding really great people,” as the Donald seems to think. You can’t pick great people if you don’t have a clear sense of what you want them to do and if you don’t know enough to separate the “really great” from the “dangerously crazy.” Pick the wrong people, and the next thing you know you’re marching into a quagmire because your advisors told you it was necessary and that the whole adventure would be quick and cheap.
So what should the next president know about international politics and foreign policy? They don’t have to know the names of every foreign leader (a favorite “gotcha” question for lazy journalists), they don’t need to understand every international treaty the United States has ratified, and they don’t need to be able to explain the Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade (though that would be nice). I suggest a more modest criterion: The next president should have a good intuitive grasp of a few simple features of contemporary world politics and the foreign-policy process. These qualities will help them make sense of unexpected events, sift good advice from bad, and develop strategies that have a decent chance of succeeding over the long term.
In that spirit (and in addition to these earlier lessons), here are the top five things I believe the next president needs to know about foreign policy.https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/07/the-top-5-things-the-next-president-needs-to-know-about-foreign-policy-election/