This report is about the central foreign policy choices the next president of the United States, the Congress, and the American people will face in 2009 and beyond.

The next U.S. president will not inherit the geopolitical advantages initially available to the last two. President Clinton came to office in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. President Bush took office at a time of relative peace and national prosperity, with declining U.S. budget deficits.

The winner of the 2008 elections will command U.S. forces still at war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against elusive terrorists with a global reach. The U.S. economy will remain burdened by turbulence in the credit markets, a weak housing market, trade and budget deficits, and the impending retirement of seventy-eight million baby boomers.

America’s moral leadership and decision-making competence will continue to be questioned at home and abroad, despite the arrival of new leadership in Washington. Restored respect will come only with fresh demonstrations of competence.

The world is in a highly volatile and fluid geopolitical period. When this project began in November 2006, the average price of oil was $53 per barrel, and U.S. economic prospects appeared positive.

On the other hand, seventy U.S. troops died that month in Iraq, and the sectarian conflict seemed to be escalating out of control. One year later, the security—if not the political situation—has improved in Iraq. Thirty-seven Americans died in Iraq in November 2007—still too many but fewer than a year earlier. The price of oil, however, has almost doubled over the last year, the value of the dollar against the euro has dropped, and the U.S. economy is perched on the cusp of a recession, thanks to a sharp reversal in the housing sector and subsequent credit concerns. ...

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Thomas R. Pickering, Chester A. Crocker
Project Co-Chairs
Casimir A. Yost
Project Director

A Working Group Report of the
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF DIPLOMACY
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University

THIRTEEN CHOICES
Getting Our Own House In Order
1. Foreign Policy Tools and American Capacity
2. Globalization and America
3. Energy Consumption and America
Seeking the Initiative Abroad
4. Values and American Foreign Policy
5. Institutions, Alliances, and Coalitions
Regaining Global Leadership
6. Iraq
7. Iran
8. Arab-Israeli Conflicts
9. Fragile States
10. Major Power Relations
11. International Terrorism
12. Nuclear Proliferation
13. Environmental Challenges

ABOUT ISD
The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD), founded in 1978, is part of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and is the School’s primary window on the world of the foreign affairs practitioner.

ISD studies the practitioner’s craft: how diplomats and other foreign affairs professionals succeed and the lessons to be learned from their successes and failures. Institute programs focus particular attention on the foreign policy process: how decisions are made and implemented.

ISD conducts its programs through a small staff and resident and nonresident associates. Associates, who include U.S. and foreign government officials and other foreign affairs practitioners, are detailed to or affiliated with the Institute for a year or more. The Institute seeks to build academic-practitioner collaborations around issues.

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