Bush's views on foreign policy were one & the same as Rice's
Lacking a deep background in foreign policy, Bush counted on a team of foreign policy heavyweights with diverse expertise to help formulate policy based on his guiding principles, such as freedom, a strong military, and free trade.
Bush developed a strong personal bond with Rice and came to trust her judgment, instincts, and insights. As Hughes' and Bush's style and tone of communicating were one and the same, so too were Rice's and Bush's views on foreign policy.
Rice headed the group, referred to as the Vulcans. It included Richard Armitage (Colin Powell's alter ego), Paul Wolfowitz (protege of Dick Cheney), Richard Perle, and Bob Zoellick (a James Baker prot‚g‚). George Shultz was often called on for advice, an
once Dick Cheney became the vice presidential nominee, he too was directly involved. The name of the group was based on the imposing statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, that is a landmark in Rice's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.
This is a transitional period for the Cuban people. We are going to stand with them for the proposition that there should not simply be the end of one dictatorship and the imposition of another dictatorship.
And we are working with partners in the international community to send that message very strongly. But our role will be to help the Cuban people when the time comes to have a peaceful and stable democratic transition.
Source: Free Cuba Foundation, on www.4condi.com, “Issues”
Aug 6, 2006
Routine transatlantic relations good for business & people
Relations between Europeans and Americans are so multi-faceted that we have simply ceased to think about it any longer. Some people read it as a decline in transatlantic contacts. But if you just look at the raw numbers of contacts,
I doubt that there has been a decline, I think that there has been an acceleration. But it has become routine.
In any class that I teach at Stanford now probably some 10 or 15% comes from some place else, and a significant number from Europe.
The tendency of youth to think of themselves as, yes, holding citizenship [in one nation], but living here for five years, going and working there for three years, is probably the best thing we have going for us.
So I don’t despair about this at all, to say nothing of the business community where the ties and contacts are almost daily.
Source: TIES-Webzine interview at Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ.
Jun 25, 2000
Redefine national interest, to avoid interest-based policy
Constituency-based politics, interest based politics, is having mostly a negative effect on foreign policy. Part of the problem here is that of having a clear view of the national interest.
It was so clear that when issues 1 through 10 all began and ended with the Soviet Union, it was a lot easier for the President to dominate foreign policy. Without a strong sense of what the national interest is,
foreign policy becomes a patchwork of interest group politics, like every other issue.
The change was utterly predictable [because] the Soviet Union was such an organizing principle. Americans saw every issue through the prism of Soviet Union.
Today it is just not true. So now the centripetal forces are very powerful in the absence of that centralizing principle. Hence we need a much more powerful definition of national interest.
Source: TIES-Webzine interview at Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ.
Jun 25, 2000
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