At a meeting of the board of directors and IRC program staff in April a year ago, after our day-long meeting we sat around an open fire at a B& B on the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico . We asked ourselves if it were possible to find an animating vision for U.S. foreign policy. One that would be based not so much on all our learning and theories and insider debates--but rather one that could make sense to our relatives, our neighbors, and the elderly couple who ran the B&B, and had an oversized American flag flying high out front.

For four hours we debated about and reflected on this question--not as an intellectual exercise but as an existential question. Entering our 25th year with a mission of helping make U.S. a responsible global leader and partner, we were searching for a way forward. We wanted to make a difference, and knew we needed to think innovatively rather than following old patterns of critique and old dogmas.

Mind you, this was before the reelection of Bush. And at a time when popular support still ran high for the occupation of Iraq and the U.S. global crusade to right all wrongs.

Late into the night, Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action and the IRC board co-chair, asked the obvious question. Was there ever a time in the history of U.S. international relations when we experienced an abrupt shift away from militarism and imperialism and cultural supremacy--and toward the values that the IRC and most Americans stand behind.

Jonathan Fox, another IRC board member, immediately said yes: The Good Neighbor Policy of FDR.

I don't know if it was because I was the one that everyone decided should imbibe the worm at bottom of Mescal we were drinking that I was also elected to present our thoughts. But I would like to recognize my coauthors. Two are IRC program staff: John Gershman, who directs FPIF and Laura Carlsen, the director of the IRC Americas Programs who brought the mescal from the IRC's Mexico City Office. IRC board co-chair Marie Denis, who directs the Maryknoll's Office of Global Concerns was also instrumental. Too, I would like to acknowledge the key role of our executive director, Debra Preusch, an IRC cofounder and one of the main reasons that the IRC is able to celebrate our 25 th anniversary this year.

Some of us were immediate skeptics. With long years of experience in Latin America , the idea of the U.S. as a good neighbor seemed impossible--and yet more impossible to persuade Latin Americans that we were anything but a bad neighbor.

But together as staff and board over the past year we have explored the history of that era, reflected on the similarities with our times, and based that examination as a starting place for what we have termed a Global Good Neighbor Ethic.

We look back at the Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s as an inspiration for a new foreign policy that addresses the pressing issues of our own time. We note that the Good Neighbor Policy was more than rhetorical flourish but also left a legacy of accomplishments, including:

• Policy of nonintervention and end to military occupations.
• Promotion of the notion of what FDR termed the interdependence of international neighborhood.
• Programs to end racist and religious stereotyping and the widespread notion promoted by previous governments about the cultural supremacy of Anglo Saxons.
• Mutually beneficial economic agreements.
• Vision of multilateralism, at both a global and regional levels.
• Close connection between domestic and foreign policy, between social democratic policies at home and responsible policies abroad.

We are not attempting to resurrect a relic, but rather to advance the notion that the practices of a good neighbor--self respect, mutual respect, common welfare, and the need for neighborly solutions--can once again be the right way to talk to our friends, communities, and representatives about the policies and practices of a responsible global leader and partner.

We lay out seven principles--ones that we think might help answer the questions:

How do we evaluate what in the world we are doing?

What in the world we should we be doing?

The first four principles are the guiding principles of a Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations, while the latter three refer to the main areas of foreign policy: security, sustainable development, and governance.

Principle One : First step to becoming a good neighbor is to stop being a bad neighbor.

We all know what a bad neighbor is--the bully, the vandal, the meddlesome busybody, the neighbor who pays no attention to collective norms. We need to avoid such behavior, and instead respect differences and diversity in the neighborhood while working collectively as a community to resolve common problems.

Principle Two : Foreign policy must not be tied to elite ideological, military, or economic interests but must serve the broadly defined interests of society--our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Principle Three : We live in an interdependent world. New efforts are needed to frame this interconnectedness and interdependence, but we should remember that these are not new ideas but ones that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt made part of their public discourse and became part of the foreign policy ethic of the 1930s and early 1940s.

Principle Four : We need to recognize the immense power that the United States has, but we should use this power not to seek global domination but to exercise responsible leadership, keeping in mind that power is ephemeral and that true power comes from prestige.

Three other principles address the primary areas of international relations: defense policy, sustainable development, and governance—or differently framed as freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom of speech and human rights.

Like many of FDR’s initiatives, the principles of a global good neighbor ethic break with the traditions of foreign policy elites and emulate the practices of towns, communities, and neighborhoods across our land.

These are principles that reflect our basic values, our golden rules, our personal sense of responsibility, our common sense. These are principles based on the everyday practices of good neighbors.

In the mid-1990s all political sectors in the U.S. were seeking a new foreign policy doctrine, a new grand strategy. At the IRC and Foreign Policy In Focus, we participated in this search.

But as part of the process of debating this over the past year, we decided what we are looking for is not a doctrine; what we should be seeking is an ethic.

To answer the question of what in the world we are doing and why we are doing it, we don’t need another grandiose scheme. Doctrines, whether realist, internationalist, progressive, or conservative, tend to shoehorn all issues into simplistic and often dualistic frameworks, such as the forces of good vs. the evildoers, the Cold War, and the war on terrorism.

Our document is not a blueprint, or a detailed plan. Rather it outlines an ethic to guide decisionmaking and to frame discussions on any level--within our families, among coworkers, or with political representatives and other nations.

While we have included in the Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations a set of policy recommendations that are primarily for U.S. foreign, military, and economic policy, we don't believe that the U.S. government alone has the responsibility of being a good neighbor. All of us, as consumers, business owners, church members, and travelers also would do well to evaluate our personal behavior in terms of good neighbor practices. Similarly, other nations too have the responsibility of being good global neighbors.

I would like to close by saying that we want this to be a living document. Something that sparks debate and encourages discussion about what we in the world we should be doing--if we are not content with staying the course, as the president says we should do.

Tom Barry is policy director of the International Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org, and founder of Foreign Policy In Focus. This essay is based on his written statement for the IRC forum on Advancing the Global Good Neighbor Ethics; at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on May 19, 2005 .

© 2005 IRC

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