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  • Hello. I'm Craig and this is Crash Course Government and Politics and congratulations

  • you have made it to the final Crash Course Government and Politics video! Whoo!

  • Today were going to look at the mystifying paradox of both the least and most important

  • aspect of government: foreign policy.

  • Foreign policy is the most important because it has the potential to affect the largest

  • number of people, especially if you include environmental policy, which we should. Also,

  • foreign policy includes a lot of elements of economic policy, so that’s important.

  • But it’s also the least important, first because it tends to have a minimal impact

  • on how Americans think about their government, unless the U.S. is at war and even then not always so much.

  • Second, because it is the least democratic government policy. Which might be a good thing.

  • [Theme Music]

  • Foreign policy is the collection of policies that determine America’s relations with other nations & foreign entities.

  • It includes: - diplomacy - military and security policy

  • - international human rights policies - economic policies such as trade and international energy policy, and

  • - environmental policy. My environmental policy is [punches eagle] ...that.

  • In some ways, foreign policy is the quintessential public good. Everybody benefits from a policy

  • that makes citizens, and the world, safer, and no individual, except for maybe a Bond-style

  • supervillain could pull it off by themselves.

  • Like all government policy, foreign policy has goals. Of course, foreign policy is about

  • providing security, but American foreign policy also seeks to create prosperity, and works

  • toward a somewhat idealistic goal of making the world a better place.

  • Security has many facets, and like most things, it has grown more complex over time. It used

  • to simply mean being able to repel invaders.

  • [Mongoltage]

  • No, not like the Mongols, more like the British.

  • Now however, in addition to physical security, foreign policy encompasses transportation,

  • energy, cyber-security, and food security.

  • So we can see how foreign policy and economic policy are closely related.

  • And of course, we can’t forget terrorism.

  • I can’t resist a little history here, especially since this is the last episode of the series.

  • From the beginning, starting with George Washington, in terms of physical security, the U.S. has

  • been pretty isolationist, although Canadians and Mexicans would probably disagree.

  • George Washington urged the U.S. to avoidforeign entanglementsand we basically

  • did, right up until World Wars I and II, when threats to the international order were seen

  • as detrimental to American security, even though there wasn’t much danger of the Germans invading the U.S.

  • After World War II, the advent of long range bombers and then ICBMs meant that there was a threat to

  • Americans in America and security policy developed into one of deterrence, which meant building up

  • enough military strength to discourage potential enemies, pronounced Soviet Union, from attacking us.

  • Deterrence was expensive, and required a large arsenal of dangerous weapons and a willingness

  • to fight, which the U.S. did in Korea and Vietnam. We still maintain an enormous nuclear

  • arsenal, but nowadays, different security threats mean deterrence is less important.

  • It’s not clear that a gigantic nuclear threat has much effect on terrorists, and since 2001,

  • America has pursued a global war on terror, that, as we saw in Iraq, includes the doctrine

  • of preemptive war to forestall potential threats.

  • Although military force may be the most visible form of U.S. foreign policy, it might not

  • be the most useful. For one thing, it’s generally seen as a last resort, which I’d

  • say is a good thing. It also has significant downsides, including costs, both in terms of lives and money.

  • It’s also politically dangerous because, while Americans are usually on board with

  • short, decisive and victorious military action, the longer a war drags on, the less support it tends to have.

  • The main economic goals of foreign policy are to expand opportunities for the U.S.,

  • promote foreign investment, maintain access to foreign energy supplies, and promote trade

  • policies that will keep prices low at American big box stores.

  • What this means in practice is that the U.S. maintains an active role in international

  • organizations, like the World Trade Organization, that make and uphold free trade rules.

  • We grantmost favorable nationstatus to trading partners that agree to low tariffs,

  • and most notably we engage in regional trade agreements like NAFTA.

  • The third goal of foreign policy is to make the world a better place. One way that the

  • U.S. does this is through international human rights initiatives.

  • The U.S. is a party to many human rights treaties, but we have a somewhat complicated relationship

  • with the UN and international lawmaking bodies, so we don’t sign on to all of them.

  • For example, the U.S. hasn’t signed on to the international criminal court, probably

  • because were afraid that submitting to its jurisdiction would be a loss of our sovereignty.

  • But in reality international law isn’t a huge part of American foreign policy.

  • The U.S. also engages in international peace-keeping missions, and international peace certainly

  • makes the world a better place.

  • America doesn’t usually commit its soldiers to UN peacekeeping missions, preferring to

  • make its own coalitions or work through NATO, which by the way is an example of an international

  • security agreement too. See there’s a lot of overlap here.

  • Another way the U.S. makes the world a better place is through international environmental policy.

  • Again, (punches eagle) that’s my environmental policy. Keep eagles away from me.

  • Environmental policy has a domestic component, as when we set fuel standards or rules for power plant

  • emissions or dumping toxic chemicals. But since were all on one planet with one environment, it’s also part of

  • foreign policy. Talk to me when you live on Mars. Then maybe you don’t have to worry about this stuff.

  • On the other hand, the U.S. lags behind other nations in terms of participation in many

  • global environmental initiatives, which is a bit of a problem considering were one

  • of the world’s biggest polluters and producers of greenhouse gasses.

  • I can’t imagine these statements are going to lead to any bad comments. At all.

  • When it comes to the conflict between environmental protection and economic growth, Americans

  • tend to choose economic growth.

  • So, overall, in terms of foreign policy goals, security comes first, economics second and

  • making the world a better place definitely third, at least in terms of formal foreign policy.

  • This brings us to the question of how foreign policy is made, and why foreign policy is

  • the least democratic type of policy the government makes.

  • Let’s go to the final Thought Bubble for Crash Course Government and Politics. Whoo!

  • At the top of the foreign policy picture is the President, who the constitution suggests

  • is the nation’s chief diplomat, having the power to receive foreign ambassadors and negotiate

  • treaties. The president gets all the face to face meetings with foreign leaders and

  • has authority to hammer out agreements; remember that when the Constitution was written most

  • other countries were still ruled by kings, emperors, and sultans, so we needed a single

  • person to do the negotiating. He also has the advantage of beingthe decideron

  • crucial issues, which may be good or bad depending on whether or not you like his decisions.

  • But the president, like John Green, is only one man, so most of the day-to-day work of

  • foreign policy is relegated to bureaucrats. Like most of the day-to-day work of Crash

  • Course is relegated to bureaucrats like me, and Stan, and Zulaiha, and Raoul, and Brandon,

  • and Thought Cafe, oh this isn’t the credits let’s move on.

  • Diplomatic work is handled mainly by the State Department, but they get a lot of help from

  • the defense department and the intelligence gathering agencies like the CIA, NSA, and

  • DHS. After all, you want to have as much information as you can before you sit down at the table

  • to negotiate. Unless you are negotiating the size and shape of the table. Which has happened.

  • Congress has a role in foreign policy but it's a limited one, and that’s probably a good thing.

  • The Senate has the constitutional power to ratify treaties, but since a 2/3 vote is required,

  • the president will often try to create foreign policy with executive agreements that only

  • require a majority vote in both houses, which is usually easier to secure, especially recently.

  • One way Congress has a big role to play in foreign policy through its power of the purse.

  • It takes money to pursue a policy, and it takes a purse to hold money. And especially

  • in the area of defense Congress appropriates a lot of it. Money not purses. Contrary to

  • popular belief, though, Congress hasn’t budgeted a lot of money for other types of

  • foreign policy, especially aid to foreign nations.

  • Thanks, Thought Bubble. [cries] I’m going to miss you.

  • Congressional committees, like those on foreign relations can provide some expertise, but

  • not as much as bureaucracies, because Congressmen still have to spend a lot of time running

  • for re-election and usually those elections don’t hinge on their knowledge of foreign affairs.

  • They can also try to limit the executive branch’s authority through hearings like the one that

  • targeted the State Department’s handling of the Benghazi incident, but these don’t

  • usually affect business as usual at the bureaucracy, although they may force a few resignations.

  • Congress at times does try to assert a foreign policy power like it recently did with Iran’s nuclear deal.

  • But it takes a hot-button issue like Iranian nuclear weapons to garner enough public attention

  • for Congress to wade into foreign policy like this, and I think there’s a good argument

  • that they should stay out and leave it to experts.

  • Like me. I’m real good at Iranian nuclear weapons dealing.

  • For the state department and the president to work directly with other countries, those

  • countries need to be confident that the deals they hammer out won’t be undercut by congress.

  • Fewer actors in this arena helps build predictability, which is something you want, especially when

  • nuclear weapons are on the tableno matter the table’s size or shape.

  • Interest groups can play a role in foreign policy in terms of shaping the agenda, but

  • they don’t do much of the work of crafting the policies themselves. As with domestic policy, interest

  • groups are most effective when they are focused on a single issue, especially if that issue is narrow.

  • Industry interests can lobby, sometimes vigorously, for trade deals, and labor groups often lobby

  • against them. Since foreign policy often involves foreign nations, you tend to find ethnically

  • based interest groups that can often lobby very vocally, as some Irish-Americans did during the 1980s.

  • Interest groups that coalesce around issues have been growing in importance, especially

  • as communication technologies enable them to get their message to a wider audience and

  • to organize grassroots lobbying efforts.

  • In general environmental groups are more effective at organizing demonstrations and human rights

  • groups are more effective at lobbying, but especially in the environmental arena it’s

  • difficult to see where their efforts have caused major policy shifts.

  • Because there aren’t that many foreign policy bureaucrats it should be easy for lobbyists

  • to influence them, but the President, who is often the last word on foreign policy is

  • kind of difficult to lobby. He’s a busy guy.

  • There is a lot more I could say about foreign policy, but this is a good place to stop,

  • because I’ve mentioned the structural aspects of foreign policythe branches of government

  • and how they make itand some of the political elements that can influence it.

  • And well talk about more of it in a later episode.

  • No we won’t! This is the last episode!

  • Foreign policy affects all Americans in ways that other policies don’t. And at least

  • as far as security policy goes, keeping Americans safe from external threats is one thing that

  • almost all Americans, from both ends of the spectrum, agree on.

  • I hope this series on American government and politics provided you with a little bit

  • of understanding about the way the U.S. works and that it encourages everyone to participate

  • in the political process, wherever you live.

  • Except for you, you stupid eagle!

  • Crash Course Government and Politics is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios. Support

  • for Crash Course: U.S. Government comes from Voqal. Voqal supports nonprofits that use

  • technology and media to advance social equity. Learn more about their mission and initiatives at Voqal.org.

  • Crash Course was made with the help of all these soaring eagles. Thanks for watching.

Hello. I'm Craig and this is Crash Course Government and Politics and congratulations

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外交政策。政府和政治速成班第50期 (Foreign Policy: Crash Course Government and Politics #50)

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