Toward a Global Good Neighbor Policy

• Current U.S. foreign policy is a disaster and to continue on this course will lead to even greater disasters, for us and for others in the world we share. More U.S. citizens have died in the misbegotten occupation of Iraq than in the Sept. 11 attacks. Terrorist networks have had a recruitment heyday. Diplomacy has been abandoned as a means of guiding international relations, and resentment is rising throughout the world against U.S. actions. At home, we feel less secure, and our future is less certain.
• We do need to change course. We need to turn fear into determination and restore respect for U.S. leadership. We must meet new challenges in security, economics, and the environment with responsible policies aimed at global cooperation.
• Our proud history and our common values can guide us in setting new directions for foreign policy. The Good Neighbor policy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt emphasized the basic principles of mutual respect, global interdependence, cultural diversity, and common values in foreign and domestic policies. This positive agenda won widespread respect for the United States as a global leader and partner and ended a shameful era of military aggrandizement.
• FDR's conviction that global relations improve when nations treat each other as neighbors and when foreign and domestic policies complement one another still makes good sense as a guideline for a new foreign policy, despite the flaws in his policies and the new challenges of the 21 st century.
• It is past time to reject a foreign policy driven by fear. Fear feigns strength through the use of force, but is morally and intellectually weak. FDR's Good Neighbor policy established the grounds for a common response to common threats. Rather than acting alone, FDR advised the world that only collective action would free the world from tyranny, want, and fear.
• Our nation's well-being increasingly depends on that of the entire global neighborhood. We cannot confront the looming threats of global warming, terrorism, infectious disease, loose nukes, a scarcity of natural resources, or the inequity caused by unregulated economic globalization alone. We have a responsibility and an interest in adopting policies that support, not dominate, weaker neighbors and that take into account the interests of the broader community.
• In today's interconnected global neighborhood, we can best serve our national interest by cooperating with our neighbors to solve the global problems we face. This administration has alternately undermined or ignored the multilateral institutions designed in the FDR era to prevent the horrors of another world war. We must re-commit ourselves to cooperative solutions to shared problems. In the global neighborhood, cooperation, alliances, and multilateralism create more stable and enduring security solutions than isolation and unilateral intervention.
• A new value-based foreign policy must go hand-in-hand with principled policies to address domestic problems. Creating safety, justice, and harmony in the world is a natural extension of what we should do in our own neighborhoods.
• By restoring the neighborly ethic of mutual respect for each other's rights and an understanding of the importance of community, we can make enormous strides in promoting security, development, and good governance—not only for our nation but also for the entire global neighborhood. Unity of purpose is never achieved through browbeating and bullying. In the global neighborhood, cooperation, alliances, and multilateralism create more stable and enduring security solutions than isolation and unilateral intervention.

Inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's vision of international relations guided by "mutual respect" and cooperation, the IRC’s Global Good Neighbor Initiative is reclaiming this legacy by promoting dialogue and action aimed at forging a new animating vision for foreign policy in our time:

A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations
http://ggn.irc-online.org/

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