Wednesday Talk

Prof. Ronald W. Pruessen

US ELECTIONS AND US FOREIGN POLICY

Former chair of the Department of History at the University of Toronto, Prof. Ronald W. Pruessen talked on the foreign policy issues in the electoral campaign of the newly elected US President Barack Obama and the foreign policy he might follow during his presidency. Pruessen described Obama’s foreign policy as the combination of pragmatim and visionary idealism, and he distinguished realist and idealist components of his policy. He stressed that some other US Presidents combined also these two components and gave examples from history. The meeting ended with the participants’ comments and questions.