Dear candidate,

First let me thank you for bringing me on as a policy advisor. I hope to prove your decision to do so to be intelligent. I hope you don’t mind if I forgo any further formalities and get straight to the point. Your foreign policy must be in line with that of your presidential predecessors and with the historical American foreign policy perspective.

This perspective is one that is clearly discerned by looking through the policies of past presidents. It is a perspective that takes into account not only the national interest but also a strong moralistic guiding light. Because as Reinhold Niebuhr said “There is no purely moral solution for the ultimate moral issues of life; but neither is there a viable solution which disregards the moral factors.”

As president you will face many foreign policy situations where you must remember this central principle.

At this point in time I am sure that you understand the greatest challenge for the next president is global terrorism. It is a threat that must be met head on and defeated in clear and definitive way. The most obvious and urgent fronts in this fight are Iraq and Afghanistan.

You must secure peace through victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is imperative not only to the security of the region but also to our standing in the rest of the world. You

must not take lightly the lessons of the Vietnam War. Our defeat in that war lead to the undermining of the cold war consensus by calling into question the policy of containment. But that was not the only negative consequence of the outcome of Vietnam, it also led to a questioning of the limits of American power, painted unilateralism as arrogant, created strong tension between congress and the executive branch, and put our nation into decline.

We cannot afford to suffer these kinds of set backs in our current fight against global terrorism. And it is imperative that you understand this because even though we were fortunate to see the decline of communism despite the negative affects of the Vietnam War, we would almost certainly not be as lucky in regards to terrorism if we lose in Iraq and Afghanistan. In order to avoid the types of pitfalls we experienced in the aftermath of Vietnam you must look to the effective policies of former administrations.

You must apply the same foreign policy themes that guided JFK to our modern day circumstances. First the policy of paying any price and bearing any burden must be adapted, and while JFK’s policy was in regards to the global conflict with communism it has become extremely relevant in regards to today’s global conflict with terrorism. And secondly JFK’s key policy of making the world safe for diversity through the development of democracy must also be integral to your foreign policy. However Kennedy was not the only president that dealt with the same basic problems we are dealing with today and while the specifics may be different, the general guiding light behind them is the same.

You must employ the same principles that Ronald Reagan’s administration used to strengthen our country. The principles surrounding how he restored America’s confidence must be reinstated today as we are experiencing the same kind of dip in American confidence that we saw proceeding the Reagan years. So in response to this dip you must react similarly to Reagan. The way to do that is by strengthening the military and demonstrating a willingness to use force when necessary as well as a commitment to the global cultivation of democracy. As I am sure you well know all three have seen resurgence lately.

You must continue the core initiatives of the current administration. Your ultimate foreign policy goal must be that America wins the war on terror. The best way to achieve this goal is through continuing to facilitate the spread of democracy and continuing the building of economic stability through out the world. These tactics are the most effective as they do the most to eliminate the breading grounds of extremism. This must be part of your policy if you wish to be successful.

A successful foreign policy for your administration will come through correctly applying the principles of previous administrations. However, a truly exceptional foreign policy will come not only from correctly discerning and applying previous administration’s principles to our roll in the world but also from applying your own personal world view to those principles.

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