A Democratic Foreign Policy: Regaining American Influence Abroad

In 2020, America will elect a president, deciding not just the trajectory of its national politics but the future of American foreign policy. Will the Alt-Right, nationalist, and mercantilist approaches to international trade that characterized Donald Trump’s rise to power maintain its hold? Or will the “national security establishment” ultimately prevail, continuing the illusion of the indispensable nation? In A Democratic Foreign Policy, renowned IR scholar Ned Lebow draws upon decades of research and government experience to reject both options and set forth an alternative vision of American foreign policy, one based on a tragic understanding of life and politics. Lebow challenges the assumptions of establishment voices on both sides of the aisle, and offers a probing rethinking of America’s role in the world to disrupt the inertia of a bipartisan ideology that has dominated foreign policymaking since the days of Truman. Emphasizing the importance of America’s core values for shaping domestic and foreign policies, A Democratic Foreign Policy provides a vision and blueprint for a new congress and president to reorient America’s relationship with the world