Foreign Policy Formulation

Editor's Note: A career intelligence officer and contributor to this journal gives us his take on contemporary foreign policy and the political domestic influences which shape it for good or ill.-The Editor Fifty years ago, the Democratic and Republican parties were close enough philosophically so that an electoral change from one to the other did not create chaos. Quite the opposite, such a level of political agreement was a blessing for the United States. Inter-party transitions were smooth and relatively uncomplicated.