How to fashion a foreign policy statement

Rice may have learned a thing or two about sartorial symbolism from her boss. US President George W. Bush knows that it is often not a leader’s own apparel that matters, but the clothes he asks others to wear on his turf that can shift the balance of power. At last summer’s G8 summit at Sea Island, Georgia, French President Jacques Chirac appeared overdressed in a double-breasted suit and crisp red cravat; others were in jeans and sports shirts. As Kenneth Dreyfack pointed out in the International Herald Tribune, “That’s the very reason that Bush, like his predecessors, tries to impose casual wear for important encounters between world leaders. Purportedly designed to put the participants at ease, it actually makes them uncomfortable and, more important, puts them at a disadvantage. By requiring them to modify a highly personal accouterment, the clothing they wear, foreign White House guests are accepting White House ground rules even before they sit down to talk.”

Excerpted from an article by Parag Khanna in the July/August issue of ‘Foreign Policy’