Foreign and Defense Policy

In chapter 15, we see two basic approaches to foreign policy: Moral Idealism and Political Realism. they differ in how we might think, and talk, of interacting with other nations. Should human rights matter to our foreign policy?

Bush praises Azerbaijan's president, despite spotty record

By James Gerstenzang
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush praised Azerbaijan's president Friday despite human-rights problems documented by the State Department, and he said the country has a "very important role to play" in meeting global energy needs.

Bush met in the Oval Office with President Ilham Aliev, who succeeded his father 2 ½ years ago in a ballot that the State Department said suffered from "numerous, serious irregularities."

With Aliev sitting in an armchair next to him, Bush held out Azerbaijan as "a modern Muslim country that is able to provide for its citizens, that understands that democracy is the wave of the future."

The meeting demonstrated the difficulty the administration faces as it seeks to maintain U.S. access to oil and gas supplies from countries that may be unstable or unreliable, often because of corruption or human-rights abuses.

Also on the foreign and defense policy front, an article from Thursday's Washington Post on the cost of our Wars.

Projected Iraq War Costs Soar
Total Spending Is Likely to More Than Double, Analysis Finds

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; A16

The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.

The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure.

Once the war spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have reached $101.8 billion this fiscal year, up from $87.3 billion in 2005, $77.3 billion in 2004 and $51 billion in 2003, the year of the invasion, congressional analysts said. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phaseout, the report said, citing a Congressional Budget Office study. When factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War.

Policies we pursue have tradeoffs: human lives, standing int he world, and money. And not pursuing policies have tradeoffs, too.