The result is a US foreign policy that tends to be chaotic, changing with administrations (as we've seen with the current one, most tragically).
The last point is huge. The ignorance of the American public about the world, the vapid coverage we see about events unfolding around the world hinders everything else. The total lack of qualified discussion, leadership, and direction at home in defining what our real national interests and goals are, as well as the strategies we should choose to achieve those goals have elevated US Foreign Policy to the Theater of the Absurd we see today (Condi Rice lecturing Russia on invading sovereign nations. Does she think pulling that off with a straight face makes her a diplomat?).
Kissinger broadly defines the rift in American foreign policy divided between Teddy Roosevelt's realpolitik (the "realists") and Wilsonian morality in foreign affairs. In Kissinger's view, the moralists control the meme in public discussions on foreign affairs and broadly speaking, he has a point. The US has never come to a general concensus about the goals of foreign policy, pure and simple.
As we've seen, this in itself is a danger to the rest of the world.
For all that, there are signs of hope. If you look around, you'll find some excellent research being done by an unsung handful of "Westerners" (try checking out The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, and there are others, of varying quality). In the long term, the goal should be to elevate the public understanding of what goes on beyond our borders. More immediately, I say leave the conduct of foreign policy to the professionals. And as Nicholas Kristof points out, with our entire diplomatic corps outmanned by the personnel in our military bands (for chrissakes!), we need to spend more, expand, and support a qualified, competent body of foreign service officers.
And listen to them! "The cure for bullshit is fieldwork"--Robert Bates, Department of Government; Harvard University
build democracies abroad (with the idea that they'll more moral and be friendly to the US)
You forgot the scare quotes around the word "democracies." The neocon/neolib version of democracy is barely recognisable to civilised people. We really need to stop pretending that these people care about democracy, at least for any definition of democracy that most people would accept as valid.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
