The highlight of last week was probably the visit to the State Department. Originally I thought sitting down with David Bame would involve a boring, yet informative, speech regarding international relations. Surprisingly, he focused more on our questions as opposed to himself.
It's nice to know someone cares about me in this world.
This allowed us to ask a wide array of questions from U.S.-Syrian policy, changes in the International system, and even questions regarding the future of U.S. unipolarity. One thing that resonated with me after leaving the session was the holistic aspect to IR the State Department seemed to have. Many organizations and think tanks seem to associate themselves with a specific ideology, for example the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute, but the State Department, specifically Mr. Bame, was generally fluent in all aspects of foreign policy. This revealed to me a few key concepts.
First is that the U.S. plays a vital role in issues throughout the world. Changes in leaders from Korea, Cuba, or even nations within the E.U. all play some sort of strategic role for the U.S. Due to the U.S.' arguable as a world leader, for now, there are geopolitical benefits with ties with countries.
Meeting with Mr. Bame reinforced why I love international relations. Unlike many countries, the U.S. is generally making active multilateral attempts at foreign policy. While there are important areas of concentration, every nation-state is important to the U.S. on some level. This holistic approach to the world is one I find appealing.
*arguable position as a world leader
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