What I have noticed about foreign policy in the U.S. is that it's quite fluid. You make an agreement with the U.S. and it has a maximum shelf-life of 4 years, 8 if you're lucky. In other words, the life of one particular administration.
During the Cold War there was a "bipartisan consensus" on most foreign policy issues. But the Cold War is over, and the parties today disagree on what to do about just about everything in the world.
The U.S. government is notoriously short-sighted. We think in terms of the next midterm election, the next few years, the next fiscal quarter.
I think we'd
**** a lot less people off if we were a little more consistent, and honored agreements in the long term instead of having them more or less expire every time a new bunch gets in the white house. The lesson other countries would learn from this is, "don't make an agreement with the Americans, the next president won't honor it."
I admit that I'm not an IR professor or anything like that, but it's something I've just noticed over the years.
Thoughts?