 A bomb goes off in a market in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The U.S. Embassy wires Washington. Is it terrorism? Is it a coup? The president is woken up in the middle of the night. It is a coup. How does the U.S. respond? Key members of the National Security Council rush to join the president in the White House situation room. A decision has to be made. Respond to firmly and it might endanger the U.S. lives on the ground there. Respond to weakly and it'll affect our position around the globe. Not to mention hurt our stance in talks with the new government. Discussion flies back and forth around the room. But a decision has to be made quickly. Cut off aid and impose sanctions. That's the decision. And its consequences will wash through the world. That is foreign policy. The consequences of this decision could lead a lot of ways. It could destabilize the region, leading to war or to new harbors for terrorists. Or it could help bring order to the region, prevent further violence and lead back toward a more democratic government for the people of Bangladesh. But why does it matter to us? Why should we care about things happening thousands of miles away? On a moral level we should care because it affects everyone's lives, but on a pragmatic level we should care because no matter how far away these events seem, the world has become such an interconnected place that these events always trickle back to us. Everything, from whether you're called up to serve in a war, to the price of gas to fill up your car is affected by foreign policy. So what is foreign policy? It's basically a term for how we interact with other countries, and it affects every aspect of our lives. We live in such an interconnected world that the decisions our leaders make, the stances they take, or the agreements they enter with countries on the other side of the globe, touch parts of our everyday world in ways that you might not even realize unless you're looking. Like even this video. There are all sorts of international trade agreements covering what is and isn't copyrighted, and so determining what images we can use and what music we can play, how companies and governments track what you watch on the internet, and how that data can be used has become contentiously tied with our foreign policy, how quickly this video streams, and whether companies can restrict your bandwidth based on content is not just a matter of hot debate in the U.S. The viewpoints of certain U.S. trade interests on the issue have started to crop up and treaties abroad. Heck, there are even countries where you simply couldn't access this video because of their current relations with the U.S. And that coup scenario that I outlined before? Well, let's take the most banal, amoral event that would roll out of it. The price of shirts would rise. Why? Because Bangladesh is a major exporter of textiles to the U.S. We get a lot of our clothes from them. If we were to put sanctions on Bangladesh, all of a sudden we'd have to find a new, more expensive source for those clothes, and that cost would end up getting passed on to you, the buyer. Hence, more expensive shirts. And it all works like this. Foreign policy is all this complex web of goals and consequences that ranges from the far-reaching to the very local. Now, let's say the U.S. wants to bring Turkey in and make them an even stronger ally in the war on terror. What happens? What are the consequences? Well, first, U.S. diplomats might have to lean on members of the E.U. to let Turkey into the European Union. But this would mean that the U.S. would have to do something for the various countries that have been blocking Turkey's acceptance into the E.U. for years. Perhaps they'd have to let Germany into the U.S.-U.K. non-spying pact so that there'd be no more wiretapping of the Chancellor's calls. But once that's done and Turkey enters the E.U., what happens then? Well, one of a thousand possible consequences is that trade with the U.S. becomes easier, and all of a sudden you're a lot more likely to see Vestal brand TVs for sale at Walmart, all because we needed another ally for a war that's mixed up in foreign policy decisions going decades back. And that's what's fascinating about foreign policy. Untangling this intricate web, trying to decipher why things are happening and what's really going on, it's a mystery of the highest order, with some of the clues out in the open, some buried only for those who dig, and some that only become clear to those astute enough to make inferences from what they observe going on in the world around them. Looking at these mysteries, thinking critically about them, is an essential piece of being part of a democracy. With today's vastly interconnected world, where we wear clothes from China, drink coffee from Brazil, look at websites from the world over, it's more important than ever that we understand these things and hold our leaders accountable for the decisions that are being made. In your lifetime, wars, disastrous economic recessions, even medical epidemics are going to be the result of decisions being made on foreign policy. Already in your lifetime, I'm sure there are foreign policy decisions that you believe should have been made differently, and maybe you're right. By understanding how these decisions are made and why they're made, even just by talking to those around you, you can help to push these decisions in the right direction. But to truly understand what's going on, we have to understand what tools policymakers have at hand when they want to move the world in one direction or another. War, trade, diplomacy, spying? These are all parts of foreign policy. They're all tools that the government has to achieve its aims. But how do they work? And how exactly can they be used? Who controls them? What agencies do they run through? Next time, that's what we're going to discuss in depth. So join us then as we discuss the levers that move the world.