U.S. Foreign Policy - Science topic

The following elements, among others, should be considered in any analysis of the foreign policy of Trump's administration:

1- War trade between China and the USA, including the imposition to retaliatory tariffs on countries that violate trade agreements or engage practice affecting the USA interest.

2- Inmigration policy.

3-Climate change.

4-Iran nuclear agreement.

5-DPRK nuclear weapon and ballistic program

6-Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

7-Siria conflict.

8-Afganisthan conflict

9-Venezuela conflict and Cuba's economic embargo.

10-Europe and USA economic and military differences

11-Russia- USA conflict on several issues.

Jael Dolly

If you are seeking an approach the research from an 'applied' cultural anthropological perspective there are vast considerations.

First, there are prerequisites that must be satisfied, the most immediate being, understanding individual and group motivations of the BLM movement, social interactions between members, economics, and most importantly, their worldview as indicated on the "superstructure of cultural systems connected with the infrastructure and social structure guided by the 'barrel model'" (Haviland 297). After all, there are combinations of religious/ spiritual, economic, and cultural reasons people do the things they do. It is advantageous to look at a wide scope of these motivations.

Then there is the even wider scope of law enforcement, the hegemony being of Europid descent sets the tone of social norms in America, indeed, the world. The current formula or policy is the "Broken windows" theory of community policing, an agenda set far apart from goals of the BLM movement. 'Zero tolerance' for social deviance is bound to impact protests, peaceful or not (Alpert, et al., 2016). As such, the butting of heads between BLM and police is inevitable. However, priorities established by local and Federal legislators does little to distinguish or address policies that conflict with critical social movements and policy directives.

From those understanding qualitative data research and analysis should challenge your resolve to be sociologically mindful of culture-bound fallacies.

ALPERT, G. P., DUNHAM, R. G., ALPERT, G. P. AND DUNHAM, R. G.

Critical issues in policing: Contemporary readings Seventh Edition

Haviland, William A. Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 14th Edition.

This is difficult to establish, both because it is not always clear what we mean by neo-realism and also because trying to show a kind of direct influence of ideas on policies is not empirically easy or even feasible.

As to the first. Neorealism is usually meant to include 'structural' realists. This would then include defensive (Waltz) and offensive (Mearsheimer) ones. These two sides can come up with quite different policy recommendations. Waltz was a proponent of controlled nuclear proliferation (since it would increase rational self-restraint), Mearsheimer is not, as far as I remember (since he does not trust rationality much and is more 'worst-case' oriented). Hence, any position of the US administration would fit one of the neorealists. Indeed, probably all of the typical US policy positions (intervention versus isolation, deterrence versus reassurance) can be found among realists and my sense is also the specific (small) group of neorealists. Maybe, another way is to see what sets them apart. Since they _tend_ to see military strategy as the ultimate fallback of politics (but again not all), they tend to see international affairs through more military lenses. Hence, whenever politics is more militarised, it could be an indicator of the presence of their thought. Again, however, there are 'liberal hawks' who have been supporting the invasion of Iraq whereas Walt and Mearsheimer famously did not. So, my sense is that as all realist theories, they are very good in being against some other option, but that does not make it a very coherent school when it comes to policy advice. In principlre, prudent self-restraint defensive neorealism should be more attractive to democratic administrations - but then, it seems to work also with Bush sen. As you turn it, I think it is 'indeterminate' if one wishes to answer the question in general.

As to the second, there is a big difficulty to retrace the process from ideas to behaviour. In my reading, ideas cannot be likened to causes that push, like a billiard ball, people to behave one way or another (the critique has been done many times by e.g. Friedrich Kratochwil. There is also a set of literature around Goldstein/Keohane, Laffey/Weldes and Yee.). Ideas can provide internal reasons, which is not the same as external causes. Hence, the most one can do with an analysis of ideas (or discourses) is to show what kind of position they exclude from being taken into account, since they are not 'authorised' or, in the extreme case, not even 'thinkable'. They affect by excluding (Jutta Weldes' book on Constructing the National Interest is excellent on this). At most they can be part of a 'how-causal' explanation providing factors that make possible: they answer 'how possible' questions that can be answered ex post, but not 'why' questions that can be answered ex ante. Still, one way to make a more direct analysis of the link is to do it via people. Jeffrey Checkel's early book on the end of the Cold War does that by showing how ideas transmute from certain expert circles to the government (Checkel, Jeffrey (1997) Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behaviour and the End of the Cold War. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.) With the revolving door policies of academics turning officials and returning academics, there is perhaps a way to see whether there is a direct influence. I am not sure, though. Hence, this leads to analyse the think tank world in the US. Piki Ish-Shalom has worked on such 'hermeneutic mechanism' (see his article: 'Theory as a hermeneutic mechanism' (EJIR 2006).

Hope that provides some pointers.

 I very much agree with your summary particularly where the US and Israel are concerned, Human rights violations are occurring often as part of counter terrorism strategies. This is where the concept and often the excuse of the Just War Theory is used by governments to carry our state  terrorism  and counter terrorism in the name of protecting their own sovereignty and first strike attacks. 

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a powerful tool to fight the bribery of government officials in international business transactions. The FCPA is a federal law enacted in 1977 (and has since been amended); it specifically prohibits U.S. companies from paying bribes to foreign government officials and politicians in order to obtain or keep business. There is a lot of literature on the FCPA and its impact on corruption in international business. Enforcement of this law by the U.S. government has been stepped up within the last several years and has yielded significant results.

The American Bar Association (ABA) has initiated and carried out programs designed to enhance the rule of law. See their website for more information. 

Just to let anyone know who may be interested, I have found little to no persuasive scholarship that would permit this.  When I asked the question, it had been a topic of interest in the U.S.--perhaps influenced by the media or political debate--but there is no legal or ethical basis that I could find regarding the use of drones this way under U.S. constitutional law.