Chapter 32 — Exercises

These exercises ask you to engage with American foreign policy at the level of primary sources and concrete cases, not at the level of cable-news framing. Foreign policy is a domain in which secondary commentary tends to amplify partisan signals; reading the underlying documents is one of the few corrections.

Exercise 1: Trace a current sanctions list

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) maintains the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list — the public roster of individuals and entities subject to U.S. sanctions. It is searchable at home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions.

Pick one of the following programs to study: - Russia-related sanctions (post-2014 Ukraine and post-2022 invasion combined) - Iran sanctions - Venezuela sanctions - Cuba sanctions - Specific designated terrorist organizations (ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas)

For your selected program, answer: 1. What is the legal authority — IEEPA, statutory authorities, or specific Executive Orders? (OFAC publishes a list of "Programs and Country Information" that includes the legal basis for each program.) 2. How many individuals and entities are designated? Has the number grown, shrunk, or stayed flat over the past two years? 3. What types of designations dominate (financial-sector, energy-sector, military-industry, individual officials)? 4. Identify one designation that surprised you. Who is the person or entity? What did they do, according to the OFAC press release? 5. What is the stated U.S. policy goal of the sanctions program? Are sanctions the primary instrument, or are they paired with other tools (military, diplomatic, intelligence)?

Write a 600–800 word memo summarizing your findings.

Exercise 2: Analyze the most recent National Defense Authorization Act

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the annual law that authorizes Department of Defense activities and (often) substantial non-Defense provisions. Each year's NDAA is one of the few major bills that consistently passes both chambers — typically with bipartisan support and many amendments. The text and committee reports are available at congress.gov.

For the most recently enacted NDAA (likely the FY 2026 NDAA, with FY 2025 if FY 26 has not yet been enacted at the time of your assignment): 1. What is the topline authorized funding level? 2. Identify three policy provisions (not just funding) that the act includes. Examples: provisions on AUMFs; provisions on authorities to support Ukraine or Israel or Taiwan; provisions on force posture in particular regions; civil-military relations provisions; sexual-assault response provisions; AI/cybersecurity provisions. 3. For one of those provisions, identify who the leading Republican and leading Democratic supporters and opponents were. Use Congress.gov's bill-history tool plus searches of Politico Pro, Defense News, or Defense One coverage. 4. Did the act include provisions that did not survive conference (passed one chamber but were dropped or modified)? If so, what political dynamics drove the changes?

Write a 700–900 word analytical brief.

Exercise 3: Identify your state's defense industry

Defense is one of the largest industrial sectors in the United States, and it is geographically concentrated. Use the Department of Defense's annual report on defense spending by state (available through the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation) or news coverage of state-level defense impact.

For your state: 1. What is the total annual defense spending in your state (contracts plus military-installation payroll)? 2. Which congressional districts (and which members of Congress) have the largest defense-industry presence? 3. Which major defense contractors operate in your state? What do they make? 4. Are there active military installations in your state? Which services? What missions? 5. How does defense spending in your state compare to the next largest federal spending category?

Now answer: how does this geographic distribution affect your representatives' likely positions on defense-related foreign-policy questions? Be specific about the political economy: a senator from a state with major shipbuilding industry is more likely to support naval expansion regardless of their broader foreign-policy ideology; a senator from a state with major Army installations has a stake in Army end-strength; etc.

Write a 600–800 word state-defense-policy analysis.

Exercise 4: Steel-man restraint vs. internationalism on a specific question

Pick one of the following live policy questions: - Should the United States maintain or reduce its commitment to defending Taiwan? - Should the United States maintain its current level of military aid to Ukraine, increase it, or push for a negotiated settlement? - Should the United States maintain its current military presence in the Middle East, increase it, or significantly draw down? - Should the United States increase or reduce defense spending as a share of GDP?

Write two 500-word essays on the question — one defending the restraint position (drawing on the realist or "America First" or progressive non-interventionist traditions) and one defending the internationalist position (drawing on liberal internationalism or neoconservatism). Each essay should be the strongest version of that side's argument. Cite at least one substantive source per essay.

Then write a 200-word reflection: which essay was harder to write, and why? Did the exercise change your sense of where the disagreement lies?

Exercise 5: Democracy Audit — military and federal foreign-policy presence in your district

Building on the Democracy Audit project from earlier chapters, extend your analysis to foreign policy: 1. Are there military installations, defense contractors, or significant federal foreign-policy facilities (FBI field offices, port-of-entry operations, state-level National Guard units with federalized missions) in your congressional district? 2. What is your representative's voting record on the past three NDAAs? On AUMF repeal/replacement votes? On Ukraine aid? On Israel aid? 3. What is your representative's stated foreign-policy ideology, in their own words? Find a foreign-policy speech, op-ed, or campaign-website statement. 4. Which of the six traditions in this chapter does their stated ideology most resemble? Justify with specific quoted language. 5. How does their voting record compare to their stated ideology? Is there alignment, drift, or a notable gap?

Write a 700–900 word section to add to your running Democracy Audit project.

Exercise 6: The war-powers reform debate

Read either: - Senator Tim Kaine's (D-VA) and Senator Mike Lee's (R-UT) joint op-eds on war-powers reform, or - Public statements from Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL) or Ro Khanna (D-CA) or others on AUMF repeal.

Identify: 1. What specific reforms are proposed? 2. What constitutional principles do the reformers invoke? 3. What objections have administrations (of both parties) raised? 4. Why have repeated reform efforts failed despite bipartisan rhetorical support?

Write a 500–700 word essay on whether you think the current allocation of war-making authority between Congress and the President is constitutionally appropriate, and what (if anything) you would change. Apply the steel-manning discipline — present the strongest case for both the executive-flexibility and congressional-prerogative positions before reaching your own conclusion.

Exercise 7: Compare foreign-policy think tanks across the spectrum

Visit the websites of the following five foreign-policy think tanks. Each represents one of the traditions described in the chapter: - Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org) — traditional liberal-internationalist establishment - Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (quincyinst.org) — restraint - Center for a New American Security (cnas.org) — center-left/center, China-focused - American Enterprise Institute (aei.org) — center-right, often more hawkish - Cato Institute (cato.org) — libertarian non-interventionism

Pick a single contemporary issue (e.g., Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran, defense spending). Read the most recent substantive analysis each institution has published on it. Summarize: 1. How does each institution frame the issue? 2. What policy recommendations do they make? 3. Where do they agree? Where do they disagree? 4. Which framing did you find most persuasive, and why?

Write a 600–800 word comparative analysis.

Exercise 8: Trade policy and your own life

Trade policy is unusually direct in its impact on consumer prices, employment, and the supply of specific goods. For one week, keep a log of: 1. Goods you purchase or use that are imported (check labels; trace supply chains for major purchases like electronics, vehicles, or apparel). 2. Goods that have been the subject of recent tariff actions — which originate in countries currently subject to U.S. tariffs? 3. Estimated price impact, if any, of those tariffs on the items in your log.

Then evaluate: 1. The argument that tariffs benefit American workers and producers. 2. The argument that tariffs harm American consumers and producers who rely on intermediate inputs. 3. The argument that strategic decoupling from China requires accepting consumer-price costs.

Write a 500–700 word reflection on what trade policy looks like from your own consumption pattern, and which arguments fit your observations.

Exercise 9: A presidential foreign-policy speech, deconstructed

Pick a major foreign-policy speech delivered by either President Biden or President Trump (in either term) — the State of the Union address, a UN General Assembly speech, an inaugural address, or a major speech announcing a specific policy decision (the announcement of weapons transfers, tariff actions, troop deployments, or diplomatic openings).

For your selected speech: 1. Read the full transcript (whitehouse.gov archives both administrations' speeches). 2. Identify the specific policy commitments — how many concrete actions did the speech announce, and how specific were they? 3. Identify the rhetorical framing — which of the foreign-policy traditions discussed in the chapter does the speech draw on most heavily? Quote specific language. 4. Identify the audiences — domestic political audience, foreign allies, foreign adversaries, the IC and bureaucracy. Different audiences read different parts of a foreign-policy speech. 5. Compare to a speech on a similar topic from the opposite administration. Where do they agree (more than partisan rhetoric admits)? Where do they genuinely diverge?

Write a 500–700 word analytical brief on what foreign-policy speeches reveal — and what they hide — about an administration's actual policy.

Exercise 10: An interagency table-top exercise

A fictional crisis has emerged. Choose one of the following: - A maritime incident in the South China Sea between U.S. and PRC vessels, with possible casualties. - An attempted assassination of a U.S. ambassador in a Middle Eastern capital. - A major cyberattack on critical U.S. infrastructure attributed to Russia. - A coup d'etat in a NATO member state that brings to power a government hostile to the alliance.

You and your study group will divide into roles: National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, Treasury Secretary (sanctions), and a designated "Congressional voice" (representing key committee chairs and ranking members).

Run a 90-minute simulated NSC Principals Committee meeting. The questions to address: 1. What is the immediate U.S. response (next 48 hours)? 2. What is the policy framework for the next 30 days? 3. What congressional consultation is appropriate and on what timeline? 4. What legal authorities does the President have, and which require congressional action? 5. What is the public-communication strategy, and who is the spokesperson?

Each participant should make decisions consistent with the institutional perspective of their role. After the simulation, debrief: where did the institutional perspectives diverge? Where did they converge? What did the exercise reveal about how foreign-policy decisions actually get made?

Submit a 600–800 word individual reflection on the simulation.

Submit any combination of these exercises as your instructor specifies. The goal is to develop the analytical habits — reading primary sources, steel-manning competing positions, tracing policy decisions to specific actors and authorities — that distinguish informed citizenship from political-tribe membership.