American Foreign Policy Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

American Foreign Policy - Assignment Example aling with the two determinant factors differ between the realist approach and the idealist approach; the two approaches that have been exercised by different American leaders while each still adopts the same objectives of foreign policy1. How do these divergent approaches achieve foreign policy with the same goals? We analyze the realist foundations upon which President Bush’s administration was based versus the idealist foundations upon which President Obama’s administration is based. To achieve this, the paradigms of realism which underlay Bush’s foundation are hereafter explored2. The tenets of realism that Bush administration grew on included: firstly, nations or countries are the vital targets of foreign policy but their interactions complicate the attempts to influence their inherent natures. Second, a state’s material resource base (regarded as its power) relative to others determines its projected interests. The more the resource base the more it seeks to expand its political influence over lesser nations with cost/benefit analysis subtly influencing any relationships born. Therefore, according to realists, American power could and should be used to restrain states that could clearly harm the U.S. and its interests, (American interests are considered here to encompass political and economic)3.This disposition clearly enumerates those nations whose economies are currently emerging with the threat of toppling United States off the perch. This is an obvious manifestation of how realistic opinions in foreign policy formulation propose war with other n ations which may not have declared war on America. As it will be stated in the course of the discussion, realists use military interventions to solve such threats. It is important to see this misguided application of military on economical wars. In fact the undertones of U.S. being in pursuit of resources from other countries, mostly oil, and wary of emergent nations like China have been growing louder.