FOKUS AMERIKA Büro Washington Dr. Almut Wieland-Karimi 1023 15 th Street NW,# 801 Washington, DC 20005 USA Tel.:+1 202 408 5444 Fax:+1 202 408 5537 fesdc@fesdc.org www.fesdc.org Nr. 2/ 2008 The American Elections: Prospects for a New US Foreign Policy Richard Rubenstein 1  All candidates, Republican and Democrat, perceive the Bush administration’s foreign pol­icy as a failure and share the goal of changing the course of US relations with its allies.  Candidates differ along party lines with respect to the war in Iraq. The Democrats prom­ise to begin withdrawing troops, whereas Republicans promise to wait until the war“has been won.”  Democrat or Republican, the new president will continue to emphasize America’s unique role as military and diplomatic power, and will not change this underlying assumption.  The new president, regardless of party, will significantly change the tone of American foreign policy. However, disproportionate military spending will persist, contradicting rhe­torical emphasis on peaceful conflict resolution. Predicting the foreign policies that American presidential candidates will embrace after attaining power is rather like trying to fore­see the course of a marriage by analyzing the wedding ceremony. Where domestic issues like health insurance or tax reform are concerned, the candidates are accus­tomed to outlining programs which, however vague or impractical they may be, give at least an inkling of what they might attempt to accomplish once in office. But in the tradi­tionally bipartisan arena of foreign affairs, politicians are wary of making specific com­mitments, particularly if they imply substan­tial shifts in the direction of US foreign pol­icy. As presidential candidates from Adlai Stevenson to John Kerry learned in the past, to be considered indecisive, naïve, insuffi­ciently nationalistic, or“soft” on the latest threat to American security is the electoral kiss of death. As a result, statesmanlike declarations, patriotic poses, and sonorous slogans tend to replace specific programs, making prediction of a candidate’s post­election behavior particularly hazardous. 2