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When our allies give us the cold shoulder it is a red flag, Scott Kleeb notes.


Question: How do you assess America’s image abroad?

Transcript:I think that we’ve had better moments in our history as far as the opinion that other countries have of us and that’s actually to our detriment as well. As we talk about American foreign policy and the willingness for America to shape behavior internationally for its benefit and for a world system there’s tremendous consequences. I was overseas at the time of the first Gulf War. I was overseas at the time of the Libya bombings during President Reagan’s term. I mean, you know, there’s some pretty hot times while I was there but nothing like the experience that I had when I was in Spain last and to have life-long allies actually not received [an American] very well is not in our best interest. And there’re things that we can do to repair that. Recognizing that we do work, that we are first among nations but [then] we are a concert of nations, and that we to address the greatest challenges that we face, we’ve got to work together with our allies. And that those relationships have [strain] makes us less secure, not just in the national security sense but also in climate change and international tourism, in economics, it pulls off unto a range of issues. You know, sometimes our greatest strengths during the Cold War and I was living there as a part of the Cold War. If you go back through our history, I mean, from Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, on through the times of our greatest strengths were when we were willing to work with other nations to advance our own names and interests, but work with an alliance structure and shape behavior internationally to our benefit and to our world system’s benefit.


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