Foreign Policy Players (Paper #1)

So. I've hit writer's block. Yet again. And now, in an attempt to make this day worth something, I'll see if maybe I can trick my fingers into typing something worthwhile by writing the basic idea of my paper in this forum. Try not to get too bored. {PS: All informal language will be removed from the final paper. It is there purely for your enjoyment and my sanity at this point.}

Players in US Foreign Policy

On Februrary 20, 1978 Gerald Ford delivered a speech at Kansas State University, in which he posed the question: "How should [the] powers of the executive and legislative branches be coordinated, especially in the field of foreign policy?" Freshly retired from the American Presidency, he then spun out his own answer to the question of how the "complex interplay" between Congress and the President can be most effective while also responding to the issues raised by the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the Vietnam War. His argument reflects one side of the larger debate of who should hold the power in formulating foreign policy that has been existant from the moment that the Constitution received its' last signature. The founders spun out these arguments in the meetings of the Federal Convention, and later defended their decisions in The Federalist Papers. The debates can be found woven throughout American history, and are no less relevant today in the context of the Bush Administration, a partisan Congress, and a foreign policy bureacracy unlike any that this nation has seen before. This paper seeks to survey the players within this bureacracy and explore the question of how US foreign policy can be effectively coordinated in today's political environment.

This survey begins where US foreign policy began, with the Constitution and the Founders' outline for how foreign affairs should be dealt with on behalf of the US government. On the surface, the Constitution seems to set forth a balanced agenda for the three branches: the President is granted the power to command the army and the navy, make treaties, appoint ambassadors and other state officials, and receive foreign dignitaries; the Congress gets to declare war, regulate foreign commerce, define and punish piracies (obviously the most fun part of the job...pirates!), and make the rules for the Government and the land and sea forces; oh and the Supreme Court, it basically as the power to interpret all said laws or actions as constitutional or unconstitutional therefore keeping the other two branches in check and not allowing them to kill the other.

However, history shows that as balanced and nice as that may seem in pretty ink on ancient parchment, and as optimistic as the founders were about the quality and knowledge of the future US Senators and Presidents (see The Federalist Papers #64)...the balance didn't last too long. And once we hit World War II, the checks and balances seem to get permanently out of whack because then you have 3 things happen: #1-the government reorganizes itself drastically changing how things get done #2-the US gets handed global power (end of World War II), and simultaneoulsy is threatened to no longer be in power (silly Soviets) and #3-the foreign policy trends which had existed before sort of changed over onto a new course, changing how people looked at the US, power, and the government in general.

So, a few things important began to go on (and here's the part that I don't know how to talk about, or maybe just don't know enough about):
---National Security Act of 1947 - basically reorganizes the Executive branch's ability to formulate foreign policy by establishing the National Security Council (NSC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, formally the wartime OSS), and the Department of Defense.
---War Powers Act 1973 - Congress getting fet up with Presidents taking Executive power and running with it, especially when it involves putting Americans into harms way. Their opponents say that they've always had that power and that it was actually Congress at this point who was doing the constitutionally unthinkable and demanding more power than they were granted. Semantics. Whatever.
---Congress changing...a lot. You had shifts of Congressmen totally and utterly change, huge increases in congressional staff and individual congressional power. The up-and-down curve of respect and power of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee. And various loud voices enamating from the Congressional Chambers that affected the relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches.
---Preisdents: FDR (at the end of WWII, 1933-1945), Truman ( 1945-1953), Eisenhower (1953-1961), Kennedy (1961-1963), Johnson (1963-1969), Nixon (1969-1974), Ford (1974-1977), Carter (1977-1981), Reagan (1981-1989), George Bush (1989-1993), Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-Present).
[Trying to figure out how each one of them affected these patterns in a succinct manner makes me want to cry.]
---Basically...the long and the short of it, the question of power between Congress and the President had its ups and downs over the latter half of the 20th Century, which at its' height resulted in Congressional act or reproval in the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was subsequently ignored by presidential administrations.
---Now, we are in another significant turning point in foreign policy with a President who is taking a gracious view of Constitutional Executive power and who has put out significant policy changes in terms of the National Security Acts of 2002 and 2004, and the debate continues on.

But of course, it's not just the president who is making these decisions. Many people affect the decisions that he signs of on...in other words:

“The president does not sit atop the bureaucracy as if it were a pyramid of power, commanding bureaucratic units to do his bidding. Rather, the president is confronted with well-established institutions and ongoing stream of foreign policy. Much of the context and direction of policy is provided by members of the foreign policy bureaucracy who have careers and perspectives that inevitably reflect more than the most recent presidential electoral returns."

Thus, within the Executive Branch you have the CIA and the NSC which provide critical intelligence that inform foreign policy decisions for the President, as well as Congress. The Department of State...Department of Defense...Various other Government agencies...Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, EPA, etc. USAID!

NGOs...Corporations, Lobbyists...International Bodies...The People

This is a mess.