Foreign Policy of the Kennedy Administration

U.S. foreign policy is not conducted as the deliberate pursuit of a coherent national goal. It comprises, most of the time, a number of different, frequently conflicting goals pressed into a loose amalgam by such abstractions as “peace” and “democracy.” It is therefore impossible to summarize the policy, as of a given moment, by a simple formula.

What we sometimes observe, however, if we widen our glance to cover the main episodes of several years running, is a pattern, tendency or drift that shows the direction in which policy is moving even if its exact composition is obscure to pilot as well as passengers. It is in this sense, and this only, that we may intelligibly speak of “the foreign policy of the Kennedy Administration.”

JB

About the Author

James Burnham

Featured Tags

U.S. foreign policy is not conducted as the deliberate pursuit of a coherent national goal. It comprises, most of the time, a number of different, frequently conflicting goals pressed into a loose amalgam by such abstractions as “peace” and “democracy.” It is therefore impossible to summarize the policy, as of a given moment, by a simple formula.

What we sometimes observe, however, if we widen our glance to cover the main episodes of several years running, is a pattern, tendency or drift that shows the direction in which policy is moving even if its exact composition is obscure to pilot as well as passengers. It is in this sense, and this only, that we may intelligibly speak of “the foreign policy of the Kennedy Administration.”