Trubowitz claims that the American presidents often respond to national and international events based on his or her own self interest over the course of developing grand strategy, they are likely to be motived by domestic party’s preferences instead of looking at the bigger picture. Essentially, Trubowitz choose to focus on the personal ambitions that these political figures held. It is in his opinion that grand strategy is merely a procedure for the state to meet its means and ends where the president will operate it as the product, to maximize the benefits that they will receive in their own political careers (Trubowitz, Pg1). Yet again, as Brands implied in his work, grand strategy contains more than just foreign policy agendas that the nation wish to carry out. The core of Trumbowitz’s thesis is troublesome for which it shed aggrandize spotlights on the domestic electoral factors and ignored the president’s role as the representative for the U.S.’, and the American’s seat in the international politics. …show more content…
Still, I think that there are certain limitation to the extend of how much can a president truly earn from enforcing policies that are plainly driven by his or her ideology and personal values. For instance, Henry Nau will argue otherwise: president Truman was never a fan of executive power; the principle of check and balance in America’s system even prevented him to propose more aggressive policies toward the Soviet Union as he wished. Let along the fact that both of him and president Reagan is fairly religious, they did not build their policies around their sentiments (Nau,
Skowornek writes, “these presidents each set out to retrieve from a far distant, even mythic, past fundamental values that they claim had been lost in the indulgences of the received order, In this way, the order-shattering and order-affirming impulses of the presidency in politics became mutually reinforcing.” (Skowornek, 37, book). These presidents are in the best position not because they are exceptional at their job but because the time they came into office offered them the elasticity and authority to make new orders and be welcomed by the public because he is taking the country out of its troubles and challenges.
Between 1895 and 1920, the years in which William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, and Woodrow Wilson reigned in the presidents, the United States struggled for not only justice at home but abroad as well. During this period policies such as Roosevelt’s Big Stick diplomacy, William Taft’s Dollar diplomacy, and Woodrow Wilson’s Moral diplomacy were all used in foreign affairs in hopes of benefit for all involved. However, it would be appropriate to say that self-interest was the most important driving factor for American policy and can be exemplified through economic, social, and political relations.
The Monroe Doctrine reflected the concerns and ambitions of a fledgling nation that was brave enough to declare its sovereignty on the world stage. The Doctrine, in stating that European powers ought not to intervene in America’s affairs, established the US as a world power, although one that had inadequate, hemispheric aspirations. However, these aspirations would extend, and in future years the Doctrine would substantiate its usefulness for interventionists, as well as protectionists. Being conceivably the most distinguishable and the most revered as regards principles of diplomacy, the doctrine’s influence on the popular imagination was so great that it described the limits of standard decisions on policy, in turn influencing the choice of preferences that US Presidents had for most of the last two centuries.
In A Tactical Ethic, Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace, author Dick Couch addresses what he believes to be an underlying problem, most typical of small units, of wanton ethical and moral behavior partly stemming from the negative “ethical climate and moral culture” of today’s America (Couch, D., 2010, p. 15). In chapter one, he reveals what A Tactical Ethic will hope to accomplish; that is identify the current ethics of today’s military warriors, highlight what is lacking, and make suggestions about what can be done to make better the ethical behavior of those on the battlefield and in garrison. He touches on some historic anecdotes to highlight the need for high ethics amongst today’s military warriors as well as briefly mentions
George Washington, the first president of the United States, had written a very important historical speech and document towards the end of his time in office. He had written the Farewell address which focused on helping America understand the importance of preserving unity, acknowledging the rise of political parties forming, strengthening religion and morality, and he stated his position on American foreign policy. He addressed these ideas with strong tone and used incredible amount of dictions that strengthens his tone as well as representing his appeal to ethos to a strong degree. However, today’s society seemed to forget Washington’s position on foreign policy and has created a new form of the policy. But nonetheless as time grew, change occurs. In today’s society Washington’s foreign policy would include many positive and negative manifestations, but it is still a speech and document that will always apply to America.
The president has a significant amount of power; however, this power is not unlimited, as it is kept in check by both the judicial and legislative branches. The president is held responsible for passing legislation that will improve the lives of everyday Americans, even though he shares his legislative powers with Congress. The sharing of power acts as an impediment to the president’s ability to pass legislation quickly and in the form it was originally conceived. However, Americans do not take this into account when judging a president, as they fully expect him to fulfill all of the promises he makes during his campaign. By making promises to pass monumental legislation once elected without mentioning that Congress stands as an obstacle that must be hurdled first, the president creates unrealistic expectations of what he can fulfill during his time in office (Jenkins-Smith, Silva, and Waterman, 2005). A president is expected to have the characteristics that will allow him to efficiently and effectively lead the nation and to accomplish the goals he set during his campaign (Jenkins-Smith et al., 2005). There have been a handful of presidents that have been immortalized as the ideal person to lead the United States and if a president does not live up to these lofty expectations the American public will inevitably be disappointed. Since every president is expected to accomplish great things during his presidency, he is forced to created and project a favorable image through unrealistic promises. The combination of preconceived ideas of the perfect president and the various promises made by presidential candidates during their campaign create unrealistic expectations of the president by the American public.
According to Wright, this decline in the unipolar concert “marks the return of geopolitical competition and presents a significant challenge for U.S. strategy” (Wright, 8). Many believe that these country were not too concerned with global power until it saw the U.S. weak
Political scientists have continually searched for methods that explain presidential power and success derived from using that power effectively. Five different approaches have been argued including the legal approach, presidential roles approach, Neustadtian approach, institutional approach, and presidential decision-making approach. The legal approach says that all power is derived from a legal authority (U.S. Constitution). The presidential roles approach contends that a president’s success is derived from balancing their role as head of state and head of government. The Neustadtian approach contends that “presidential power is the power to persuade“ (Neustadt, p. 11). The institutional approach contends that political climate and institutional relations are what determines presidential power. The last approach, decision-making, provides a more psychological outlook that delves into background, management styles, and psychological dispositions to determine where a president’s idea of power comes from. From all of these, it is essential to study one at a time in order to analyze the major components of each approach for major strengths and weaknesses.
...om time to time to continue the pretense that US domestic affairs are very dear to his heart and have his wholehearted attention. If we take a deeper look in to the foreign adventures and foreign relations gimmics of the US presidents during the last 50 years, it is quite evident that they have not got themselves involved in these out of necessity, but to draw the nation’s attention away from their domestic policy or personal failures. Definitely, future US presidents will continue to indulge in such adventurism unless the nation through its legislatures and public opinion builders endeavor to put a stop to such practices and tie up the presidency with necessary laws. References Scheer, Robert 2002 Published in the Los Angeles Times www.mediamonitors.net/alan1.html www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html www.freeman.org/m_online/jan99/eidelberg.htm
Understanding and evaluating presidents’ performance often poses challenges for political experts. The nation votes one president at the time and each presidency faces different tests. The environments surrounding a presidency have a tremendous impact on the success and failure of that presidency. In addition, the president exercises his power through a check and balance system embody in the Constitution. As stated in (Collier 1959), the Constitution created a government of “separated institutions sharing power.” As a result, a president works with others institutions of the government to shape the nation’s agenda. Thus, determining a presidential performance becomes difficult, especially when it comes to comparing the performance among presidencies.
Johnson, Loch K. 1942-. American Foreign Policy and the Challenges of World Leadership. Power, Principle, and the Constitution. New York: Oxford UP, 2015. Print.
Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Hard and Soft Power in American Foreign Policy.” In Paradox of American Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 4-17. Print.
Richard E. Neustadt, the author of Presidential Power, addresses the politics of leadership and how the citizens of the United States rate the performance of the president's term. We measure his leadership by saying that he is either "weak or "strong" and Neustadt argues that we have the right to do so, because his office has become the focal point of politics and policy in our political system. Neustadt brings to light three main points: how we measure the president, his strategy of presidential influence, and how to study them both. Today we deal with the President himself and his influence on government action. The president now includes about 2000 men and women, the president is only one of them, but his performance can not be measured without focusing on himself.
Jimenez was successful in Wichita not because of the monthly chats, weekly baseball games or Keller, but because she set up an environment conducive to attaining results she needed. This achieved two critical goals- it enabled the employees develop cross-functional solutions and fostered a sense of ownership and commitment. Jimenez misunderstood what made the Wichita project successful. Instead of trying to set up circumstances conducive to developing site-specific solutions in Lubbock, she simple imported the methods that the Wichita employees had created.
Born from the crashed economy of the Great Depression and the memory of the Great War, public attitudes towards foreign affairs turned inward. Perhaps best capturing this sentiment was a quote published in The Reader’s Digest that “War doesn’t determine who’s right, only who’s left”(16). In 1935 General Smedley D. Butler USMC published a book entitled “War is a Racket”, in which General Butler recommended an isolationist military policy, predicated on defense in lieu of undue aggression(17). It seemed, at least for a while, that U.S. foreign policy would be conscripted to an isolationist