Foreign Policy Starts in Your Own Neighborhood

Joseph A. Ledford

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As Secretary of State George Shultz observed, “foreign policy starts in your own neighborhood.” For Shultz, and for the president whom he served, the United States could not successfully confront the Soviet Union without strengthening relationships, shoring up alliances, and addressing problems in the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, in recent years, the United States has not paid sufficient attention to its backyard, forgetting this key lesson of statecraft. The oversight is puzzling, given that the United States seeks to win a great-power competition with China. In an era of uncertainty, American policymakers should abide by Shultz’s diplomatic maxim.

Ronald Reagan faced a world in crisis upon walking into the Oval Office. Around the globe, interstate conflicts, civil wars, terrorism, and nuclear weapons were the crises du jour. The Cold War was bound for escalation. A resurgent Soviet Union built up a powerful military, bulldozed into Afghanistan, propelled revolutionary movements in the developing world, and resealed the Iron Curtain. In the Western Hemisphere, where the struggle for democracy persisted, revolution and counterrevolution plunged the region into a maelstrom of instability.