ABSTRACT
At the most fundamental level, the advice is not to look for "policies" — all-purpose patent medicines that the United States can apply from one situation to the next — but rather to improve the way people analyze and decide what to do about international differences. Despite the almost constant insistence of the United States that it wants "better relations" with the Soviet Union, people's relationships with most countries are best described as "poor". Governments deal with an unending series of discrete transactions and problems. Sensing that a good relationship is reciprocal, people often behave as badly toward other governments as they appear to be behaving toward people. Yet there is no likelihood that reciprocating another government's bad behavior will improve the relationship. Leaders often see a short-term domestic political advantage in treating a foreign government as an enemy. Often the best substantive solution to a problem lies in a bargain, a reciprocal exchange of quid pro quo.
