Politics Space

Democratic Transitions

Dear Mr. President.

Your historic win to become the President of the United States is an event that has altered our view of national policy for each of us here within the borders of our nation and it immediately alters the course of our existing foreign policies which may directly or indirectly affect every man woman and child on the planet. We are here to suggest that your foreign policy analysis must be considered to be interdisciplinary because it will draw from a variety of theoretical approaches. Usually, public pundits have added emphasis on presidential leadership as key components of United States foreign policy so it is critical that you understand what else is needed to have, create and implement a successful foreign policy process.

The success of your policies, your cabinet and all associated policy makers will require an implementation of various underlying theories towards this process. As with the previous two administrations, it often comes as a surprise that most of the average people that create and mandate our foreign policy process may not be dependent on whether or not it is accepted or in some cases, even understood by those policy makers. The big picture is that the United States continues to be understood as the world leader in the majority of global concerns and that you project a presence that the rest of the world can appreciate and look up to even if they do not fully concur with our foreign approach.

The American people are transitioning from eight years of the Bush administration into what you have personally coined as our nation's new direction. Our policies will have to appear as though they demonstrate in theory and practice that our nation aims to be mutually constitutive no matter if our foreign policies are compatible or contradictory. This is a political analysis for the U.S. government and is directed to you in order to brief you on creating a foreign policy strategy for the United States in this post-9/11 era. We hope that you can see that we have taken into account the lessons of past efforts of democratic transition, not least in Iraq. We will attempt to thoroughly explore the major themes of the process of democratic transition and will present arguments in large part on the theoretical debates and empirical examples that have been introduced.

The first issue is the benefits and costs of democratic transitions. We want to explain that we wish to interact with democratic states as opposed to authoritarian ones. Marxism has shown us that our world is dominated by a capitalist class and this class controls the underlying means of production and all dominant institutions of this modern society. We are the ruling class and therefore we are believed to control not only the state, but all of the agencies that are needed to maintain the power base which includes our military, the various police forces and our court system. Your foreign policy will therefore be an expression of the interests and power of our dominant social class.

Marxism was correct in assuming that your influence on foreign policy will translate into the leader of the rich making decisions for the wealthy. I look back when you recently met with the Indian Prime Minster as an example. "President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged during the first state visit hosted by the Obama administration to expand their countries' strategic partnership on issues ranging from counterterrorism to global warming. At the same time, Mr. Singh's visit to the White House on Tuesday underscored some of the contentious issues that still exist between the world's two largest democracies. Indian diplomats and pundits have bristled during the past week over what they fear has been the administration's tilt toward China, New Delhi's historic rival, on key Asian security and economic issues." (Solomon)

We wish to work with those who understand our goals and objectives and not some self-motivated authoritarian leader who does not understand our true power base. Consider applying the Marxist view to this meeting of the two super democracies. We fully grasp that India knows that we need to maintain our current wealth status and our policies move towards an opportunity of wealth building. Like an investor choosing to buy Google stock over Time Warner's, the perception for profitability takes precedence so your foreign policies toward India will be adversely affected. A few years ago that process was reversed and the Clinton Administration chose India over China. "Not only did Bill Clinton...

There are many neoconservative views that can be associated with intellectual and political movements that focus on political, economic, and social conservatism. This way of thinking had its place. Consider the neo-conservatism way of thinking as a very effective tool to sway foreign policy in regard to Iraq both prior to and during the Bush administration. The attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 allowed for us to alter past views of both internal and external policy directives.
The Iraqi people may never fully comprehend democracy but we are now fully in control of all of their natural resources. George W. Bush was already prepped to attack Iraq prior to 911. But without 911, our policies could never have justified the invasion. Explaining that we would be promoting democracy would have not been accepted by anyone. Afghanistan is the same. The mostly Muslim nation has no intention of becoming a democracy no matter how much we alter the political process there so it is better to utilize the justification of stopping terrorist attacks on the United States as a way to infiltrate Afghanistan's borders. There were many new powers bestowed on the Bush administration because of 911 and this is another wonderful outcome of the previous administration. They set and established so many new legal precedence that clearly were meant to bypass our three tier governmental system that you now have the greatest presidential autonomy and power to influence foreign policy than any other president in the history of our nation.

We have some suggestions to make democratic transitions of your choosing seem successful and are based in the actions of political leadership. Consider prominent theories of international relations such as the power transition theory and the democratic peace theory. The power transition theory has a causal link to the outbreak of war, minor disputes or the redistribution of power. While democratic peace focuses on structural and institutional characteristics of democracies thus reducing conflict. You will have to choose a direction to answer which theory applies to your line of reasoning.

Democratic nations are judged on their ability to make war and their Gross Domestic Products or GDP. Historically, the nation's GDP have been better measures of power than the basic elements of size of economy, military, and demographics. Thus, those nations that can positively influence our own GDP are nations that we choose to influence their power structure and in the majority of instances, we feel our foreign policy decisions should be based in favor of the actions of those political leaderships.

Sir, there are common obstacles to successful democratic transitions and we have overcome some of these in the past. Of course, there have been failures such as Nigeria, the Sudan, Rwanda and even Vietnam. The obstacles more than likely boil down to these three areas: Political, economic or social. From a political stance, our foreign policies must always address the translated and grounded policy recommendations that advance the understanding of the pathway for success. We also want to translate any findings of existing policies that support more effective future transitional endeavors while also disseminating and promoting positive findings to reform leaders, policy-makers and analysts. New regimes want one answer: what is the role of this new political institution in the management of the nation's economic and cultural future. From an economic perspective, we have to show that we share a mutual economic spectrum. In particular, it is necessary to consider the interaction between economic conditions and political endeavors. New regimes need to know to what extent their differing economic experiences, institutions, and levels of development will be available to them.

They also need to understand the impact of our and other foreign governments, NGO's, and international financial institutions will have on the nation's internal economic issues. From the social perspective, the people will want to be able to trust the new regime; this directly alters the public attitude towards democracy. Modern society also wants certain…