Nonfiction Audiobook Narration
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
This is a short book about a big topic. Foreign policy in the widest sense, a particular countries. Foreign policy pertains to the myriad ways in which that countries people engage and interact with people and institutions from other countries. The book focuses mainly on a particular class of people who have a particular responsibility for conducting a given country's foreign policy, chiefly its elected officials, military personnel and diplomats. These people establish and enforce the rules governing how the rest of their country's people may or may not engage or interact with foreigners. Some of these laws are fairly innocuous and impose only minor or temporary inconveniences. For example, US law prohibits me from purchasing or owning certain items covered by US sanctions. If I'm caught breaking the law, I could be prosecuted collectively. The drafting and enforcing of such regulations necessitates a large and relatively intrusive state, larger say, than a state that allowed me to purchase any good or service from any place, regardless of the circumstances of its production or provision. But war that, most visible of all instruments of foreign policy, imposes major and oftentimes lasting effects on individuals, lives and liberty. War today is often seen as a foreign policy failure. But it wasn't always that way. The famed Prussian military theorist Carl von Klaus of its described war as the continuation of policy by other means. Even militarily. Strong countries, however, would generally prefer to attain peacefully what could be secured by force. The reasons are fairly obvious and straightforward. War is unpredictable. Wars costly. War is violent. Policymakers, therefore, should not embark on such a course lightly or with unrealistic expectations about quick success. Klaus, if it's spoke of friction, the fog of war and how battle plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy. Winston Churchill, a celebrated wartime leader, was similarly mindful of wars, uncertainty. The statesman who yields toe war fever, he wrote in his memoir, My Early Life is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. The liberals of Klaus of its is Day, whom today we might call libertarians, had still more reasons for wanting to solve international problems by peaceful means. They knew that war often contributed to the rise of state power and therefore constituted a threat to liberty. This book approaches warfare as they did as an occasionally necessary evil, not an endeavor that should be used as a vehicle for promoting social change. The book is organized around a theory or more accurately, a set of different theories about what best creates security and prosperity. Simply what causes peace and related Lee. What can we do to advance individual liberty through peaceful means? In what instances, if any, is war, the appropriate recourse and what foreign policies other than war arm or effective? This book addresses these questions because I am an American writing chiefly for an American audience, I will focus mostly on U. S foreign policy. I believe that America's founding generation in particular proposed a foreign policy broadly consistent with libertarian principles, favoring peaceful engagement through trade and cultural exchange and holding a skepticism of warfare as an instrument of policy. Despite this US centric approach, I believe that the book has insights for many people in many countries identifying the particular pathologies that have afflicted US foreign policy. Over time, foolish wars fought well. Noble wars fought badly, well intentioned restrictions on travel or trade that it unfortunate side effects, alliances created or dissolved surely has relevance for other countries. At other times. The claim that U. S foreign policy is like that of any other country comes with a crucial provides. Oh, US foreign policy is bigger, a function of our greater wealth and power, the scope of anyone. Nation's foreign policy is shaped by that nation's physical context, including its geography and by the disposition i e. Friend or foe of its neighbors. Scope is also constrained by given country's economic capacity to engage in all aspects of foreign policy from conducting diplomacy. Toe waging war relatively small, relatively weak or relatively poor countries must necessarily prioritise what they dio. Medium and large sized countries also set priorities but can have mawr of thumb. Even relatively affluent countries often choose to privilege one aspect of foreign policy. E g trade over another e g war. Iceland's defense budget is effectively zero, as is Costa Rica's. The United States began as a small, weak country. It's Constitution forbade a standing army, and it struggled in its early days