Jeffrey Bergner, former assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, and Gerald Warburg, professor of public policy and assistant dean of external affairs in the Batten School, co-hosted an informal discussion last night on upcoming foreign policy challenges during the 2012 election year.
Warburg invited Bergner, who served under the administration of President George W. Bush, to share a "Republican perspective" on several different foreign policy considerations in the run up to the presidential election.
Warburg began the discussion by expressing concern that the United States may have entered into a more isolationist phase, meaning foreign policy may play a smaller role in the election debates.
Bergner said Republicans approach conversations on foreign policy challenges just as comfortably and frequently as Democrats. He attributed Warburg's observation about the United States' isolationist tendencies to a heightened focus on domestic issues.
"We have enormous economic problems and it doesn't strike me at all strange that this is what the election will be about," he said.
Bergner said students "should have a sense of goals for where we're heading, and I think that's still the case in foreign and defensive policy," but that Democrats and Republicans are strongly divided on domestic policy issues.
"I don't think we're going to see a lot of compromise in domestic policy in the next year," Bergner said.
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